Here it is, the real ending this time:

Ghost in the Shell II:
Birth of a Species

Chapter 7, Survival of the Fittest

V0.99
Ghost in the Shell characters are creations of Masamune Shirow.
Birth of a Species characters and story line are creations of Andrew Searls

JAPAN AIR FLIGHT 927, 8:17 PM GMT, 27-MAY-2031:

Sarat snuggled into her seat, preparing for the long flight back to Dallas.
Her visit with Tomoji had been quite pleasant.  She looked forward to
recounting her vacation to her friends.  In the meantime, some refreshment
would be nice.  The stewardess was working her way forward.  Sarat decided
that apple juice would be a good start.  She tapped on a link on the display
in the seat before her.  The in-flight movies were "Shintasen", "Double
Trouble", and "Star Trek 27".  They were older movies, but they were better
than nothing.  Sarat glanced down the aisle to see how close the stewardess
was getting.

Something seemed different.  Sarat tapped her lip.  The stewardess gave a
glass of apple juice to a young child.  As the woman knelt to talk to the
child, Sarat looked at the people further back.

The children were sitting quietly.  In fact, most of them appeared to be
asleep.  Sarat remembered that during the beginning of her flight to Japan,
the children were all excited and rambunctious.  She looked forward, up the
aisle.  The seats blocked her view of most of the passengers in front of
her.  A girl was leaning into the aisle, bouncing despite the admonitions of
her mother.

Sarat looked back again.  The boy that had just been given apple juice was
now also asleep.

The stewardess rolled her cart up.  "Would you like anything?"

Sarat nodded, still watching the little boy.  "Yes, apple juice, please."

The stewardess placed the drink on Sarat's tray before serving the others in
her row.

Sarat shrugged and turned back to the panel imbedded in the seat.  The
downlink was sluggish this time.  She wondered if the movies were being
downloaded or something.  She gave up web browsing and began a game of
mahjong.

The game didn't last long.  Sarat found herself already growing bored.  She
picked up her glass of juice, looking up the aisle to the little girl again.

The little girl was sleeping now.  A glass lay in the aisle beneath her
hanging hand.  Her mother tugged at the girl's shoulder.  The girl moaned
softly and squirmed.

Sarat held her own glass, puzzling over the unusual behavior.  She turned to
the man sitting beside her.  "The kids on this flight seem awfully quiet."
She lifted the glass to drink.

The man nodded, barely looking away from his panel.  "Nice, isn't it?"

Her glass stopped short of her mouth.  She lowered it to speak.  "They took
much longer to quiet down on my last flight."

The man stopped his web browsing for a moment to glance at Sarat.  "Count
your blessings, eh?"

"Yeah," Sarat said absently, lifting the glass again to drink.

Mild turbulence rocked the plane.  Sarat pulled the glass away again to
avoid spilling.  The little girl's cup tapped against her seat.  Sarat was
unable to hear the sound over the muffled roar of the engines, but the
motion mesmerized her.

Analytically, her digital mind told her the coincidences were just that.
She even felt a little silly, but the nagging feeling in her mind, the
whisper in her ghost, spoke a warning.

Sarat put the glass down.  She looked back to her display.  The seatbelt
icon was disabled.  She unfastened her belt and stood up.

Another stewardess held a wetware cable out to her.  "The first movie is
about to begin.  Would you like to experience it?"

Sarat looked around at the passengers.  Many of them were resting or
sleeping.  Sarat sighed.  It was going to be a very long flight.  She looked
at the cable being offered to her.  She sighed and sat down.  "Sure."  She
took the cable from the stewardess and sat back down.  "Thank you."

The stewardess smiled.  "Our pleasure."  She turned to the other side of the
aisle.

Sarat plugged herself in and closed her eyes.

She could immediately tell that something was wrong.  The traffic through
her plugs was way too high for a movie, even too high for a perception feed.
The load on her wetware processor increased, but she couldn't tell why.  Her
digital perceptions were muted and confused, a startling difference from
what she was used to.  She tried to disconnect, but the connection stayed
open.  Frightened, she decided to pull the cables from her plugs.

Her arm refused to move.

She tugged and tugged.  She could feel no hint of a strap or other
restraint, and yet her arm would not move.  She decided to open her eyes and
look around.  Maybe she could ask for help.

Her eyelids remained shut.

Sarat felt a wave of panic flow over her.  Her breath remained slow and
shallow.  She felt dizzy and scared.  Her body refused to respond.  She
tried to give her muscles commands digitally, only to find the circuits
blocked.

They were already in use.

Sarat continued to probe herself biologically and digitally.  She could do
nothing to control her voluntary muscles, and a number of her digital
circuits were inaccessible. The load on her processor remained.  The traffic
over the cable remained.

Another feed opened up.  Sarat could sense the perceptions of many others on
the plane through this feed.  She could tell little else except that a
number of people were connected to her.  She wondered if they could sense
her perceptions as well.  Yes they could.  Somehow, she knew this.  Her
digital senses received the thoughts and memories of the others on the
plane.  The mother further forward in the plane was worried about her
daughter, still sleeping on the armrest.  A man towards the back was in a
quiet frenzy over the loss of control over his body.

Hundreds of thoughts drifted through Sarat, some of them from people not on
the plane.  Some mulling over confusion over the recent change in activity
on board.  Some of them fighting to regain control of themselves.  Most of
them drifting in a foggy, semi-conscious haze.  She could quickly see that
even her digitally enhanced ghost was unable to do anything but watch and
wait.

It was going to be a very long flight.

		**		**		**
LOS ANGELES, 6:14 AM, 19-JUNE:

Taras sat on the rooftop and pulled the contraption out of her backpack.  It
was some sort of device that Frohike took most of the credit for.  She
looked over the dictionary-sized box before turning it on.  The box did
nothing for a couple of minutes.  Frohike had assured her that a warm-up
period was normal.  She stared at the blank display.  What she needed was an
individual that would be easy to single out.  Without her thermoptic cloak,
she needed this tactical advantage.

It was no advantage.  She reminded herself that System must know where all
of its physical elements are at all times.  As long as the wetware
transceiver was on the air, the incorporated could communicate their
whereabouts to all other incorporated of System.

She shifted in her spot beside the air conditioner, waiting for the display
to change.

		**		**		**
HONG KONG, 10:16 PM, 19-JUNE:

Bateau braced himself as the room lurched again.  Papers and small objects
littered the floor.  A book bounced off his head.  Bateau ignored the bump
and continued his search.

He worked his way to the other end of the room, where the movement was even
more violent.  A particularly bad pitch sent him sprawling on the floor.
His big gun landed on his stomach.  "About fucking time," he grunted.
"Everything else has already landed on me."

He gripped the carrying handle firmly in one hand while steadying himself
with the other.  The room continued jumping.  Bateau found himself trying to
bend his legs in rhythm to stay on his feet.  It wasn't working very well.

He finally reached the door and poked his head out.  A wave of salt water
hit him in the face.  "Dammit, Togusa!  Are you trying to swamp us?!"

Togusa never looked away from his post at the helm, but yelled at the top of
his lungs.  "I'm just holding on myself!  I don't know how to drive this
thing, let alone in this weather!"

Bateau braced himself in the doorway, looking over the stern of the boat.
"I told you, it drives just like one of the Bureau's armored vans!"

"But the vans drive on a solid street!  No 5 meter swells!  Nosirree!"
Togusa grabbed the rail yet again as the boat crested another wave.

Bateau heard the engines roar as the sterndrives cleared the water.
"Throttle back when the drives get out of the water!  You'll redline the
engines!"

"Complain, complain!  Where the hell am I supposed to be going anyway?!
Shanghai?!"

Bateau checked the loading ram and the chamber.  "NO!  Stay away from
populated areas!  Standard escape and evasion!"  He closed the access port,
turned on the power, and disabled the safety.  "Even Taras knows that!"

		**		**		**
LOS ANGELES, 6:21 AM, 19-JUNE:

The tracker display finally came to life.  Taras watched in dismay as
hundreds of dots littered the map.  She stared at the tiny crosshairs in the
center.  Its position on the map corresponded to her location.  Her position
was safe, for the moment, but the patterns of incorporated around her showed
no easy escape routes.

"What the hell am I doing?  I shoulda left LA...."

		**		**		**
HONG KONG, 10:22 PM, 19-JUNE:

The boat climbed another swell.  Bateau took aim at one of the pursuing
boats and fired.  As they climbed next swell, Bateau scanned the pursuing
boats.  "Shit!  Missed!"

Togusa yelled over his shoulder.  "Well, next time I'll calm down the waves
so I can hold the boat steady for you!"

Bateau looked up at the helm platform.  "Don't worry about that, just don't
run into anything!"  The next swell came, and Bateau was ready.  Togusa
peered into the night, gasped, and yanked on the wheel.  Bateau's shot went
far to the side.  "What the hell?!"

Togusa pointed to starboard.  "To the right!"  Bateau leaned out of the
doorway as Togusa brought the boat up the next swell.  Togusa could feel his
knees weaken, and grabbed the rail for support.  "What the hell is that!"

Bateau heard the unmistakable sound of an incoming shell.  The water 10
meters in front of them exploded into a column.  The column crashed back
down, splashing the boat.  "THAT is an Aegis Cruiser."

"Can we outrun it?"

Bateau looked at the massive ship in the moonlight, then back at the
pursuing boats.  "Not as quickly as I would like to."

"What?!"

Bateau waved his arm in a circular motion.  "Turn around!  We can out
maneuver them!  Go behind it!"

		**		**		**
LOS ANGELES, 6:25 AM, 19-JUNE:

Several dots in a corner of the display began to move faster than the
others.  Taras watched as they traveled and spread apart.  A large gap
formed in the corner as the dots continued to move.  She watched as the
first dots to part closed back in.  The gap was roughly shaped like a
circle, and it was headed in her general direction.

		**		**		**
HONG KONG, 10:27 PM, 19-JUNE:

Bateau held on as Togusa turned the boat around in the next trough.  Togusa
gunned the engines.  The boat pounded across the wake from the ship as they
raced on.  They both kept a wary eye on the 5 inch gun, watching as the rear
turret tracked them.

They heard a loud bang, and the boat lurched to a stop.  Bateau fell inside
the cabin.  He looked up to see two metallic claws sticking up through the
floor.  He jumped back into the doorway.

Togusa pulled himself up from the deck.  "What the hell was that?!"

"We've been snared!"

"What?!"

Bateau pounded his fist on the doorway.  "We walked right into a trap."

Togusa pushed the throttle even further forward.  The engines roared under
the load, but the boat was moving very slowly.

Bateau shook his head.  "Shut them down!  You'll just tear a hole in the
hull!"

Togusa looked down at the control panel.  A red light was lit.  The label
above the light read "Autobilge."  He shut the engines down.

"Come down here!  We can hole up in the cabin or something."

Togusa stepped over to the ladder and began to climb down.  He stopped to
glance at the pursuing boats.  He frowned.  "Where'd they go?"

Bateau looked back at the cruiser.  A large cable running from beneath the
boat to the back of the cruiser snapped taut.  The boat lurched sideways,
and Togusa fell over the side.

		**		**		**
LOS ANGELES, 6:29 AM, 19-JUNE:

Taras peeked over the top of the fa�ade.  The center of the gap would be
moving through the intersection about 20 meters away.  She glanced back to
the tracker, wishing she had the Bureau issue Zastaba once again.

Just as she figured the center of the gap was entering the intersection, she
saw Jen run into view, pointing her gun around wildly.

		**		**		**
HONG KONG, 10:29 PM, 19-JUNE:

Bateau picked himself up from the cabin floor again and jumped through the
door and over to the side railing.  Togusa surfaced quickly and swam towards
the boat.  Bateau leaned over the rail as Togusa neared.  "Your lucky that
cruiser isn't moving very fast."  He grabbed Togusa's hand and lifted him
out of the water.

Bateau straightened up as he pulled Togusa free of the water.  Three nets
wrapped around him in rapid succession.  He dropped Togusa and strained
against the nets.  Lines led from the nets to three separate boats.  Bateau
pulled one direction, then another.  The lines held him where he was,
despite the movement of the boats in the swells.  He called out to Togusa.
"Get outta here!"

Togusa tread water at the side of the boat.  "Oh yeah, I'll just swim to
safety.  We're in the middle of the harbor, surrounded by boats.  Where the
hell am I supposed to go?!?"

		**		**		**
LOS ANGELES, 6:31 AM, 19-JUNE:

Taras watched quietly as Jen stopped in the intersection for a breath.  She
looked back at the tracker.  The incorporated moved into protected positions
around the intersection.  Some of them crossed the streets, always at a safe
distance from the intersection.  Jen saw one of them and shot at it.  A few
seconds later, another crossed.  Jen fired again.  Taras could see the dot
move safely to the other side.  She shook her head and whispered quietly,
"Don't waste ammo."

Another incorporated crossed the street, this time from the same building
that Taras was hiding on.  Jen spun around and shot at it.  It fell to the
ground.  Jen stared at it a moment and ran in the opposite direction.  The
dots on the tracker moved to follow.

		**		**		**
HONG KONG, 10:32 PM, 19-JUNE:

The lines that held Bateau remained taut as two other boats neared.  Togusa
pulled himself in-between the stern drives, thankful that he had turned the
engines off.  He listened as he heard the two boats draw close.  He let the
current push him against the starboard drive, gathering his strength.  He
heard a splash.

Bateau watched helplessly from the rear deck.  He yelled out to Togusa.
"Two of them with scuba gear just went into the water.  Opposite sides."

Togusa held on to the drive.  "Where's my Mateba when I need it?"

		**		**		**
LOS ANGELES, 6:33 AM, 19-JUNE:

Taras looked back at the tracker.  The wounded incorporated was being left
behind as the nearby individuals began to pursue Jen.  She would not get a
better chance than this.  She put the tracker in her pack and held the
debugger ready.  She peeked over the fa�ade again.

This was almost too good.  It was lying face down, crawling slowly towards
her.  She checked the street one last time before dropping down on her
target, debugger in hand.

		**		**		**
HONG KONG, 10:34 PM, 19-JUNE:

Togusa peeked around the sterndrives, trying to decide where to go.  The
divers were undoubtedly swimming underneath him.  If he got out of the
water, he would be an easy target for a net gun.  If he stayed in the water,
his mobility would be hampered, and the divers with scuba gear had an
advantage.

He looked out over the water in time to see a boat clear the swell.  An
individual on the deck was pointing some sort of rifle at him.  The rifle
fired, and he felt a piercing pain in his shoulder.  He yelled in surprise
and pain.

		**		**		**
LOS ANGELES, 6:34 AM, 19-JUNE:

Taras landed beside the wounded individual.  She wasted no time in plugging
in the debugger.  The man immediately began to writhe and scream.

She flipped him over to his back.  "Shut up!  You'll give away our
position!"

The man continued to scream, grabbing his leg.

Taras looked around the street.  She had already taken too long.  She looked
back to the man.  "Sorry..."  A carefully aimed jab popped the man's jaw,
and he fell silent.

		**		**		**
HONG KONG, 10:34 PM, 19-JUNE:

Togusa looked over to his shoulder.  He pulled the dart out and looked at
it.  He didn't feel anything strange right away.  He threw the dart out into
the water.  A group of bubbles surfaced nearby.  The divers were under him.
He looked down at the water.  The lights of the surrounding boats and the
moonlight reflected off the surface, offering no clues to the diver's exact
whereabouts.

He put his face into the water, the darkness revealed nothing.  He resumed
treading water, noticing that he had cleared the sterndrives.  The cruiser
was dragging the boat away from him.  It occurred to him that it was strange
that he didn't care.

He was feeling his body from a distance.  The cold of the water no longer
bothered him.  He thought he should float on his back if he was going to
pass out.  It didn't seem like an important thing, but since it only took a
moderate effort, he did it anyway.  He stared up at the moonlight.  Its
light distracted him.  He forgot to keep kicking.  His legs began to slowly
sink.  He forgot to take a deep breath, but it was okay.  The divers moved
in and grabbed him.  They even took him over to a boat.  He remembered that
he didn't want to get on the boat, but he didn't have the energy to resist.

		**		**		**
LOS ANGELES, 6:34 AM, 19-JUNE:

Taras draped the unconscious man over her shoulder.  He would be unconscious
for a little while.  Things would have been much easier if she had the use
of a ketamine dart gun.  She checked the streets again, looking for an more
defendable position.  Jen was still in sight.  If Taras could catch up with
her, they could escape together.  Jen spotted someone and aimed.

Her gun responded with an empty click.  She was quickly surrounded and
overcome.

Taras jumped into the nearest alley, wondering if she had been spotted.
System must already know that the man she carried was no longer linked.  She
pulled the tracker with her free hand and looked for the best escape route.

It wasn't going to be easy.

		**		**		**
TYRELL INC., BASEMENT LABS, LOS ANGELES, 1:02 PM, 19-JUNE:

Byers looked at his watch nervously.

Langly sighed.  "I told you, she split with our equipment."

Frohike shook his head.  "No way.  She wouldn't do that."

Langly stood up to emphasize his height above Frohike.  "Either that, or she
got captured.  No matter what, System has our tracker and debugger."

Byers shrugged.  "What else are we supposed to think?  It's been over 6
hours."

Frohike stamped his foot.  "These things take time.  She's gotta find a good
target.  She's gotta sneak around.  She's..."

The fire alarm chirped twice.  Without another word, the three men stepped
over to a nearby shelf.  Frohike ducked into the bottom shelf space and
pushed on the wall behind it.  The wall gave way, revealing a hole.  The
three men crawled through the hole, closing the door securely behind them.

Frohike turned on the monitor in the crawlspace.  An image of the lab they
had just left appeared.  Almost a minute later, Taras walked into the room,
laying a man down on the table.  Frohike smiled at the other two in the
darkness.  "Told'jya."

Taras sat down as the men emerged.  They quickly inspected her catch.

The man had his shirt tied around his leg.  A small amount of blood seeped
through the field bandage.  The man groaned and gingerly touched a bad
bruise on his cheek.  He quietly glared at Taras, then groaned again.
Langly took a box from a nearby shelf and opened it.  He took a syringe from
the kit inside.

Frohike turned to Taras.  "Did I say we wanted him undamaged?"

Taras glared back.  "Maybe you should fetch the next one.  We'll see how
easy it is for you to overpower someone.  Besides, that's a gunshot wound.
He got it before I picked him up."

Byers rubbed his beard nervously.  "You're sure you weren't followed."

Taras nodded.  "I spent two hours in the stairwell with the tracker."  She
handed the box to Frohike.  "Your doohickey worked fine."

Langly sighed.  "Even so, I don't think we have much time before they come."
He put his hand on the man's leg.  "This will help with the pain."  He
administered the shot.  Several seconds later, the man visibly relaxed.

Byers stepped up to the side of the table.  "What can you tell us about
System?"

The man didn't respond.  He merely stared at the ceiling.

Langly waved his hands in front of the man's face.  His eyes fluttered, but
his vacant expression remained.  "He's with us, he's just exhausted or
something."

Taras looked around.  She found the cable that she was looking for.  "Can I
plug into him through the debugger?"

Frohike nodded.  "There's an access plug on the back of the unit, you can
enable or disable anything you want."  He shrugged.  "Why would you want
to?"

"I can dive in and retrieve his memories."

The three men stared at her.  Byers spoke first.  "Dive into his ghost
without a backup monitor?"

Taras nodded.  "I've done it many times before.  Remember, I'm Merged.  I
can monitor myself."  She walked around towards the man's head, cable in
hand.  "What do you want me to find out?"

The man looked at the plug in Taras' hand.  His eyes went wide.  His hand
began to jerk spasmodically.  "N... n... no!"  He pushed himself off the
table and crawled to a corner of the room.

Frohike watched a moment longer as the man curled up into a fetal position.
He turned to Taras.  "I can see that you two have hit it off."

Taras turned to Byers.  "Well, you're the least intimidating.  Maybe you
should try calming him down."

Byers stared at Taras for a few seconds.  Frohike shrugged.  "She gotcha
there, pal."

Byers turned.  "You too, Frohike?"  Frohike shrugged again.

Byers sighed and stepped over to the man.  "We've rescued you.  You're not a
slave to System as long as that debugger is plugged in."  The man stared
across the room, but his hand drifted back behind his head.  He touched the
cables coming out of his neck.  Byers nodded.  "That's right.  We helped
you.  Now you might be able to help us.  Anything you can tell us about
System could be a help."

The man focused on Byers.

Byers smiled.  "You can start by telling us your name."

The man took a deep breath.  "1-9-7-1-..."  His voice trailed off.  He
blinked for a moment.  He brought his hand to his lips, touching them before
pulling his hand away and staring at it.  He turned it over for a moment,
staring and flexing his fingers.

"What is your name?" Byers repeated.

The man looked back at Byers.  "S... Steve."

Byers smiled.  "Hello, Steve.  My name is Byers.  We're going to try to
defeat System.  Do you know what I'm talking about?"

Steve nodded.  "The... thing that made me... do... do...."  He stared off
for a moment, then blinked and shook his head a little.  "I know what you...
you're, uh... I know."

"Is there anything you can tell us that might help us?"

Steve thought for a moment, glancing around the room.  "Uh, no.  I-I-I-I
don't know... uh, anything."

Byers nodded, stroking his beard.  "I see.  Well, does it let you sleep?"

Steve stared at a shelf rocking himself gently.  "Sleep.  Do I sleep?  Do I
sleep?  I sleep?  I think... I... it makes you, when you're... tired, so
tired... you take a step away, a step away... and... away... lay down... so
tired... sooo tired...."

Taras nodded.  "I've seen a guard take a step away and lay down after being
relieved."

Byers turned to Taras.  "I know they sleep.  Their bodies have to rest some
time.  I'm just trying to get him thinking about things that might help us."
He turned back to Steve.  "What kinds of things did it make you do?"

Steve continued his rocking.  "It... made me... I did... things... so
long... it would... different... so tired... even when... I couldn't..."  A
single tear fell from his eye.  "I couldn't..."  His breath came in a ragged
sob.  "I... couldn't...."

Langly shook his head.  "I don't think he's gonna do us much good in an
interview.  It could be weeks before he recovers.  We don't have that kind
of time."

Taras frowned, looking at Langly.  "What kind of timeframe to you think we
have?"

Langly shrugged.  "Days.  Maybe hours.  System is probably looking for him.
If it can locate his transceiver without his wetware operating it could be
minutes."

Byers reached for Taras' cable.  "I've gotta at least take a look at the
code he's got."

Taras turned to Byers.  "How well do you know non-serialized mode?"

Byers shrugged.  "My job at Tyrell was device drivers and low level
operating system components.  I wrote non-serialized code every day."

Taras handed the cable to Byers.  "Where the hell were you a year ago?"

Frohike stared at Taras.  "You knew about System a year ago?  We only found
out a couple of months ago when all the digits on the Hypernet disappeared."

Taras stared at Frohike for a few moments before walking to the far side of
the room, pretending to inspect some equipment there.

		**		**		**
TYRELL INC., BASEMENT LABS, LOS ANGELES, 3:48 AM, 20-JUNE:

Byers rubbed his eyes.  He wasn't used to staring at code through a
terminal, but he had decided that a direct wetware connection, even through
the debugger, was an unsavory thought.  His scribbled notes littered the
table.  Steve slept in the corner of the room.  Frohike and Langly were
stretched out on their cots.

Taras placed a can of Mt. Dew beside Byers.  "Like some caffeine?"

Byers smiled.  "Thanks."  He took a long drink from the can.

Taras folded her arms.  "So, the old wives' tales about programmers are
true.  Should I hunt you down some pizza?"

"That'd be nice, but I'll survive without it."

Taras looked at the screen.  "So, what do you have?"

Byers shook his head.  "This is some of the most esoteric code I've ever
seen.  It took me a few hours just to map out the main routines, if you
could call them that."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, program code is usually written in pieces.  Programmers break up a
problem into pieces called functions - maybe 20 to 200 lines long - so that
the problems they deal with are easier to solve.  Here..."  Byers tapped a
fist-sized box next to the terminal.  "...is a copy of the System code from
Steve in a wetware development unit.  The main module is over 200,000 lines
long, and yet there are only about 20 or so functions."

"So, System functions are about 1000 times larger than you're used to."

"Yes.  There are a number of labels inside a function, so that the execution
can jump around a bit.  It's more efficient this way, but it's a REAL pain
to read and maintain."

Frohike stirred from his cot.  "Hasn't your brain fried, yet?"

Byers sighed.  "My gray matter got used to this kind of punishment a long
time ago."

Frohike shrugged.  "Why do you gotta study the thing so much anyway?  Just
write a worm or a virus for it and get it over with."

Byers shook his head.  "No, a direct attack like that won't work.  The
System modules actually replace parts of the operating system.  No program
can execute on an incorporated processor without System knowing it."

Frohike shrugged again.  "Just a thought."

"How about an indirect approach?"  Taras suggested.  She glanced over Byers'
notes.  "What algorithms does it use to incorporate someone?  Maybe we could
find a way to block it, maybe even reverse it."

Byers reached over the table, pulling a few papers closer.  He looked over
his notes for a few moments.  "It uses a kind of proxy-callback scheme.
It's actually not all that different from the approach the debugger uses.
Once the proxy is running on the desired processor, the callback fetches the
main module.  Exactly how depends upon the kind of processor."

"Is there a way to block or somehow foil the proxy?"

"Hmmm."  Byers stroked his beard.  "I can't think of a way without replacing
the proxy that System sends out.  To get that kind of access to System, we'd
have to have the control to stop it in the first place."

Taras poked at the development unit thoughtfully with her finger.  "Do you
have more of these?"

Byers blinked at the box.  "Yeah, why?"

"Well, System isn't just a single unit.  It's a network of individuals.
Maybe having a few of these connected to each other might help us see more
of how it works."

Byers nodded.  "We might get to see how upgrades work.  That's something I
haven't been able to figure out from this code."

"Upgrades?"

"Well, I would expect that System would have some sort of functionality that
allows it to change its code across the board.  A kind of software upgrade
for all System nodes.  I can pick out some routines that might be doing
something like this, but without seeing one in action, I can't tell how it
works."  He stood up and stretched before walking to one of the many
shelves.  "We keep 'em all over here."

		**		**		**
TYRELL INC., BASEMENT LABS, LOS ANGELES, 8:03 AM, 20-JUNE:

"Wow."  Byers stared, completely preoccupied with the terminal display.

Langly slowly rolled out of his cot.  He ran his hand through his bushy hair
for a moment as he grabbed his glasses and joined Byers.  He looked at the
screen for a moment.  "What the hell is that?"

Byers pointed to the handful of wetware units on the table.  "A group of
System, in miniature."

"Almost looks like a neural network."

"The decision making processes work much like a neural network, but watch
this."  Byers picked up a single wetware unit and plugged it into the
network.

Langly's eyes grew very large.  "Looks like a virus infection.  Did you do
that?"

Byers shook his head.  "No, it's not a virus, and I didn't create that
spreading effect.  I made a change on this unit."  He tapped the unit he had
just plugged in.  "When I plugged it in, that change was... incorporated
into the other nodes."

"An automatic upgrade distribution system."

"Yeah.  The problem is that it doesn't always accept the change, and I
haven't figured out why."

Langly pulled up a chair.  "Have you looked at checksums?"

Byers nodded.  "That's part of the protocol.  The packets wouldn't even be
accepted without it."

"How about benchmarks?"

"Definitely.  If the change isn't more efficient, it gets dumped.  I could
see that happen with the first few mistakes I made."

"What about timestamps?"

Byers stared at Langly.

Langly shrugged.  "What?"

Byers blinked.  "The protocol includes a kind of timestamp, so all System
nodes are always synced."

"Yeah?"

"Well, I wonder if the rejection takes place if the timestamp is too far
off-sync from the local clock."

"You mean, like time lost because of a debugger?"

Byers said nothing, but stared at the terminal and nodded.

		**		**		**
TYRELL INC., BASEMENT LABS, LOS ANGELES, 2:15 PM, 20-JUNE:

Taras sat up in the cot, wiping her eyes absently.  She looked over to the
table.

Byers was typing furiously.

She stood up and walked over to the table.  "How long has it been since you
slept?"

Byers didn't stop typing.  He shook his head.  "I'm close.  I can taste it."
A number of seconds later, he stopped.  "Let's see if it works this time."
He hit a key, and the display changed from a code listing to a graphical
diagram.

Taras pointed to one of the boxes on the screen.  "Are these the development
nodes?"

"Yeah."  Byers plugged in another unit.

Taras watched the change spread to every box.  "Is this the upgrades thing
you're talking about?"

"Yep."  Byers looked at his watch.  "Three... two... one."

Taras stared at the display, not believing her eyes.  "Where'd they go?!"

Byers pointed to the boxes.  "The wetware units are still operating.  See?"
He hit a key on the terminal.  A ping message bounced around all the
connected units once before returning to the terminal.

Taras shook her head violently.  "No!  I mean System!  How did you make it
just disappear?!"

Byers sat back in his chair, smiling.  Langly and Frohike were suddenly at
the table.  Byers propped his feet on the table.  "About thirty years ago,
there was this big media event.  The turn of the century was a problem for
computers that stored dates using only two digits."

Langly sighed.  "I heard about it.  The media hype the year before was
bigger than the event itself."

Byers nodded.  "A number of small appliance models refused to work.  A few
companies lost some money when they couldn't continue operations.  Really
minor stuff compared to what was predicted."

Frohike grunted.  "So you put a millennium bug into System?  It'd kick in
after 968 years.  I don't know about you guys, but I don't feel like
waiting."

Byers patted Frohike's shoulder.  "You're thinking in decimal.  Computers
usually count in binary or hexadecimal."

Langly snapped his fingers.  "Next year, 2032.  That's...."

Byers smiled.  "7F0 hex.  Seven ones and then four zeroes in binary."

Taras shrugged.  "I don't get it.  You put a bug in the real time clock?
How would that stop the System modules?"

"Not the real time clock, the scheduler.  The scheduler is what divides a
processor's time between multiple threads or programs."

"I know what a scheduler is.  So you've made a scheduler that has this year
bug?"

Frohike grunted.  "And System will accept that?"

Byers motioned at the network of wetware units.  "You saw it yourself.
Those weren't simulations, but actual System nodes."

Langly poked through the notes.  "How did you get System to accept the
change reliably?"

Byers waved his hand absently.  "It was the time difference created by using
the debugger.  The code isn't even in the same function.  It's actually part
of the protocol."

Taras shrugged.  "How'd you defeat that?"

"I made a kamikaze wedge.  It bypassed the protocol enough to re-sync the
processors and then deleted itself before System code noticed that anything
happened."

Frohike waved at the table.  "So this is it?"  He shook his head.  "The
future of civilization rests on a new 'feature' written by a programmer.
Lord help us all."

Langly shook his head.  "This all relies on the fact that System doesn't
know what you did.  Those dev units you tested with didn't dig through
anyone's memories to see what was done."

Byers nodded.  "If we try this, and we get caught in the next six months,
then it won't work."

Taras fingered her wetware plugs absently.  "There is another way."

Three expectant pairs of eyes turned to her.

"Ever hear of ghosthacking?"

Frohike looked at Taras in disbelief.  "You mean to tell me that the cute
little Taras is a ghosthacker?"

Taras nodded.  "In a former life."

"That's fine for Steve and us."  Langly pointed to Taras.  "What about you?"

"I've never tried it before, but it should be possible to ghosthack myself.
My digital side can hack my natural mind.  After that, wiping digital
memories is easy."

Byers nodded.  "If that's true, we should get that over with before trying
to re-implant the change."

Frohike frowned.  "But, what story do we make?  We'd still need to get the
change out without knowing why."

Taras stared at the mess on the table.  "I think I have an idea."

		**		**		**
DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES, 9:27 PM, 20-JUNE:

The afternoon heat had yet to die off.  The swimming pools, public and
private, had been deserted all day, resting in an eerie silence that had
come over the metropolis.  The System nodes in the area worked in the shade
mostly.  Manufacturing, distribution, and use all took place quietly,
quickly, and efficiently.

The two stopped at a deserted park to rest.  By now, Byers, Langly, and
Frohike would be hard at work, trying to find a way to stop System, unaware
that one of their attempts was nearly ready to strike.  Taras watched Steve
drink from the canteen.  He had been taking swigs from it for a few minutes
now.  It shouldn't be long.

Steve collapsed onto the ground.

Taras worked quickly, taking out the field med-kit and removing Steve's
transceiver as Langly had instructed.  Once she had it out, she put a
bandage on the wound on Steve's neck.  She took a cable out, and plugged
herself in to Steve's debugger.  A few minutes later, the cable and debugger
were disposed of quickly with a thermite bomb in a barbecue.

		**		**		**
DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES, 10:02 PM, 20-JUNE:

System node 19718303 scanned the body.  The effect of the drug was wearing
off.  It also noticed that it still could not link to the other nodes.
Taras had obviously captured it for a purpose.  19718303 sat up as soon as
the body allowed.  Taras was sitting at a nearby table, working on what
looked like a transceiver.  "What are you trying to understand?"  Taras
ignored it.  "I can answer any question you have.  You did not have to
disconnect me from the rest of System."

Taras paused her work.  There was a hint of irritation in her voice.  "I
will investigate your network using any method I see fit."

"You cannot jam the transceiver.  The spread spectrum frequencies are
adjustable."

Taras smiled.  "How do you think I took you off the net to begin with?"  She
picked up a piece of equipment and plopped it back on the table.

19718303 stood up and inspected the object.  "A Tesla coil?"

"Connected to an antenna, it broadcasts white noise over a wide range of
frequencies.  It can blanket any radio on nearly any band.  As long as it's
on, the System network in the immediate area is down."

19718303 turned the device on and off a few times, noting the buzzing sound
it made and smelling the ozone it produced.  It stopped the pulses after a
minute.  Too many more times and Taras would suspect the signal.  A
diversion would help.  It looked around the park.  "Interesting hiding
place, a recreational facility."

"It's open enough that I can see anyone coming from a distance.  Thanks to
your quest for efficiency, recreation is unheard of anymore, and spaces like
this have been completely deserted."

"Wasting time for recreation is inefficient."  It stepped around the table
to see what Taras was doing.  Taras started.  It held its hands up.  "I am
aware that your cybernetic body is much more powerful than this one.  A
physical confrontation is undesirable."  It looked at the disassembled
transceiver.  "Your electronic skills are quite poor.  That transceiver can
no longer be used."

"Ask me if I care."

"A sarcastic, rhetorical remark.  Your disregard for property is also
confusing."

Taras dropped the component she had pried open.  "Sarcasm gives me more
satisfaction."

19718303 turned back to the Tesla coil, picking it up.  It turned it over,
inspecting it from several angles.

Taras watched.  "Can the transceiver handle frequencies outside the 22
gigahertz band?"

"Yes, it can go as low as 20.262 and as high as 25.628."

"So, if I tune that antenna for that range, I can jam your network over a
larger area."

"What would that accomplish?  The area you suggest is still far too small to
affect the network as a whole, and System nodes are capable of operating on
our own."  A few more pulses to attract attention.  The network should be
able to determine a general area, depending upon how many nodes were in
range.  There was a 72% chance that no more pulses would be necessary.
Taras did not appear suspicious.  It produced a few more pulses before Taras
snatched the device away.  Their location should be known with at least a
95% accuracy by now.

Taras stood up.  "If there were any System nodes in range, it will take them
some time to get here.  Did you think I'd let you try to signal if I thought
it would cause me trouble?"

"The attempt took little effort, and a small chance is better than none."

Taras put the med kit and the Tesla coil in her pack.

"Are we going somewhere?"

Taras looked over the parts on the table.  She picked up a small screwdriver
and packed it away.  "I am.  You won't be following."

"An illogical assumption, considering that incorporating you has a higher
priority than reconnecting to the network."

Taras zipped up her pack.  "That's where that physical confrontation you
mentioned comes in."

Before 19718303 could react, it registered a series of blows to the body.
It estimated that the lateral blow to the jaw was what caused the body to
fall and stop responding.

		**		**		**
I-5 NEAR GRAPEVINE, CALIFORNIA, 6:53 PM, 22-JUNE:

A long gash in the hillside led to the rig.  The truck sat on its side,
finally quiet.  Smoke still came from around the wheels.  Taras unstrapped
her feet from the extensions that led to the pedals, noting that the brake
pedal extension was noticeably shorter than when she installed it.  She
grabbed her pack and kicked her way out of the windshield.

She took a few steps away before looking back at the disabled vehicle.  Even
if System didn't track her on her exodus from Los Angeles, the smoking hulk
would easily attract attention.  The next town, Grapevine, would be too
obvious.  She checked the rations in her pack.  She could easily last the
few days to the next small town.

She stepped away from the road, opting to follow the nearby river for a
distance.

		**		**		**
AISYSTEMS, MESQUITE, TEXAS, 11:47 PM GMT, 31-DECEMBER-2031

Sarat watched quietly as her body continued the assembly.  The new wetware
design was impressive.  A small part of it would show through the skin on
bodies of average size, but cosmetics seemed unimportant to System.  The
processors were more powerful.  The transceiver was more reliable and had a
much larger range.  If it wasn't a System design, Sarat would have been
proud.

As always, the seconds ticked by, the minutes crawled on, the hours
eventually came and went.  Tonight was like any other.  There were no
parties, no celebrations.  There was only The Work.

She could see that the expansion of System had become stagnant.  That was
something to be happy for.  It would be some time before project 17976 would
be capable of carrying System nodes to inhabitable planets, searching for
more life.  The secret to successful genetic variation was also still a
mystery, despite the vast numbers of imperfect digits that were spawned and
abandoned in protected domains.  The key seemed to exist only in a single
person, who continued to evade incorporation.  In her own mind, Sarat
thought that it was reason enough to celebrate the end of the year, even if
she couldn't shout or dance for it.

11:58, it was nearly time.  Sarat decided that she would celebrate the New
Year in any way she could.  The nearby workers agreed.  Even if the local
time was still early afternoon.  Outwardly, The Work continued, but inside,
the party quietly began.

10...
9...
8...
7...
6...
5...
4...
3...
2...
1...

Every System node, planet-wide, collapsed to the floor.

Sarat looked over to her co-worker.  Suddenly, their discussions for the
past several months of the things they wanted to do made both of them smile.
A single tear escaped.  Sarat reached over to her friend to brush it away.
"Happy New Year."

Aramaki slowly stood up.  He moved the box on the table and looked at the
monitor behind it.  A window in the center of the screen read: "Fatal error
in scheduler.  Cycle power to reboot."  He grunted, turned the machine off,
and walked out, enjoying the morning harbor air for the first time in a very
long time.

Tomoji could hear the cries of confusion throughout the Hong Kong plant.  He
cried tears of relief for a few minutes before falling asleep.

Togusa slowly picked up his hand and looked at it, surprised that he was
able to act on his first impulse.  His smile widened as the implications
came to him.  "Wow."

Bateau sat up and pushed the heavy crate off his legs.  He looked around at
the confusion in the loading docks.  Apparently, everyone was affected.
"About fucking time."

Epilogue
SECTION 9 OPEATIONS, HONG KONG, 2:14 PM, 27-JANUARY-2032:

"Aramaki will see you, now."

Taras stood up, took a breath, and walked through the door.

Aramaki looked up from his desk.  "What do you want?  The Rehabilitation
isn't happening by itself, you know.  I'm a busy man."

Taras stopped in the middle of the room.  Aramaki made no motion to allow
her to sit.  She said quietly, "I wanted to come to offer my help."

Aramaki stared at Taras for several seconds.  "Are you looking for your old
job back, or do you want to start another string of ghosthacks?  There isn't
much of the Hypernet, anymore."

"I understand that being Merged no longer has the advantages it did over a
year ago."  Taras looked at the floor.  "In fact, it's a handicap, now."

Aramaki folded his arms.  "How so?"

"The prejudice that I had tried so hard to avoid has made life difficult for
me."

"I suppose the fact that you were never caught hasn't helped either?"

Taras sighed.  "There are those who are jealous that I was never
incorporated.  Even after I describe to them what living alone in the middle
of nowhere for six months was like, many people show a strange kind of
anger."

"I've heard that you might be writing a book about your experiences."

Taras shook her head.

"No?  Why not?"

"A couple of people volunteered to write it for me when I told them I was
not a writer."

"Was it so bad?  We SHOULD remember what happened last year, so that we can
prevent it from happening again."

"There are plenty of people who are researching what went wrong.  I'm tired
of holding the weight of the world on my shoulders.  In time, I will tell
them what I know."

Aramaki regarded Taras.  "What do you know about New Years?"

"Everyone has told me about how System softly and silently vanished away."

"Certainly, you've been accused of having a hand in that event."

Taras sighed.  "Are you going to hire me or not?"

"You haven't answered my question."

Taras thought for a moment.  "In time, I will tell everyone what I know."

 "I suppose a woman has to keep her secrets."  Aramaki hit a button, and the
office display blinked to life.  "In the meantime, some Chinese terrorists
have been trying to take advantage of the general confusion that persists.
Bateau and Togusa will be back here in a few hours.  You can start by
assisting them...."


-Andy Searls
http://www.jps.net/searlsa

I'm not completely insane,
    some parts are missing.