Chapter Twenty-Five
Cyber Wars I: First Contact
Tyler was sat at the main console with one of his technicians. Ben Watkins stood behind them, staring at the monitor screen over their shoulders.
“It’s all very simple now that we have the programs all sorted out,” Tyler was saying. “We just tell the computer what we want, and it does it all in a matter of seconds. It took a little longer when we drew the information out of Connors, but that was because we were only copying it, and we had to contend with a very poor connection. Working with the implant is much quicker, and far more accurate.”
“So long as it works,” Ben insisted.
“It will work. I’ll stake my life on it.”
“You are,” Ben replied coldly.
Tyler looked round at him. “You have never been confident in my abilities have you, Watkins?”
“And you’ve been far too over confident. That’s why we are in this mess in the first place.”
“Everything I have attempted has worked perfectly—”
Ben nodded his head and said derisively, “Yeah, yeah! You’re a genius, Glen! Just get on with it! And remember, you’re not just copying data now, this time we have to do a complete memory dump. I want the lot in the trash-can. We can worry about what we put back in later.”
Tyler sighed and turned back to his keyboard. “Engage the link to the implant,” he told his technician.
The technician flicked a few switches. “The connection’s made, sir. The implant is responding.”
“Good. Let’s get to it.” Tyler flexed his fingers and began to type.
Jayne felt the changes immediately. Previously, she had always been unconscious and unaware when they had happened. She didn’t have the chance to try and stop them. She had awakened with the changes already fixed, like dreams attached to her memories of reality. The edges between them were blurred and confusing, and sometimes Jayne wasn’t quite sure which was the real memory and which was the new one. But the new ones always gave themselves away. Not only because of the conflictions they caused with her other, real memories, but because they brought with them a knowledge of what was happening to her, and a personality that understood it all.
That personality had another face. Jayne could picture it in her mind as if it were her own reflection in a mirror. She could see the blonde hair and the blue eyes, and she found the features to be as familiar as her own. The face was very pretty, but the personality that lay behind it was cold and callous. It despised her and wished her dead, and it was capable of doing the killing.
It also hid itself behind many other false personalities. Like a multitude of facades, they were all erected to keep the true nature of the real personality buried deep inside. But Jayne could see behind them all, because she was on the inside. She now was that secret personality. It’s identity was as much her as was her own identity. She could feel the hatred and the fear that it felt, and she had the memories and the knowledge that it had. Those memories were all as familiar and as powerful as her own, and although they still confused her, she didn’t want to let any of them go. Despite the hatred and the bitterness, those memories were hers -no, mine!
But they were trying to take them away. They had given her those memories and now they wanted them back. She could feel it in her mind without really knowing why. She tried to shield them, to try to resist, and then she realised the horrible truth. No! It wasn’t the new memories at all! It was her! They wanted her! She could feel the pull! No! I won’t go! You can’t have me! This time I’m awake! This time I’ll fight! This time you wouldn’t find it so easy! This time I’ve got help!
Matthew typed furiously on his keyboard. Jayne had told him everything. And for the first time in his life, Matthew was really scared. But he was also outraged. They had three Crays, did they, he thought to himself. Well, he had two, and he had Jayne. And she was worth two more Crays any time. Ben Watkins and Glen Tyler were in for a shock. Trying to cheat him like that, taking him for a dope all this time. They weren’t going to get away with it! And they weren’t as smart as they thought they were, either. Trying a full download through the implant while Jayne was awake would never work. They would have needed an implant the size of a brick to achieve that! But if they really wanted data, well they could have data. Chew on this, guys!
The technician sat next to Tyler began to get agitated. “Sir, one of the Crays has already reached maximum memory space.”
Tyler was delighted. He turned towards Ben. “You see! The data’s coming through already. We will have it all in no time.”
“But, sir!” the technician protested. “Look at the print outs.” He held up the reams of paper spewing out of the line printer next to him. “According to these, we were less than halfway through the program’s cycle when it happened. And now the data is already beginning to fill the next Cray!”
Tyler began to look more concerned. That got Ben worried. “What’s going on, Tyler?” he demanded.
“It’s nothing, it’s nothing,” Tyler insisted as he stared at the print outs. “This happened before. I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about.”
“Don’t tell me this is nothing! What’s gone wrong?”
“Nothing’s gone wrong!” Tyler snapped at him. “Why do you always think something’s gone wrong? We’ve never done a complete memory dump before! There’s bound to be a lot of data!”
“Then why are you sweating?” Ben asked him.
“It’s filling the third Cray, sir!” the technician announced.
“What happens if we run out of memory space?” Ben demanded to know. “Tell me, Tyler! What’s the worst case scenario?”
Tyler was flustered. “Er, it’ll either stop, or it will corrupt the mainframe IBM. But I’m sure it will stop.”
“But what happens if it doesn’t? What happens then?”
“We’ll lose all the information on Hall’s project that we’ve gathered so far.”
Ben didn’t hesitate. “Disengage the link! Now!”
The technician snatched at the switches in front of him. “The connection’s broken!” he almost shouted. Then under his breath he muttered, “Shit....”
Tyler was in a stupor as he stared at the print outs, pulling more and more of them out of the printer. Things shouldn’t have gone so wrong. But the print outs didn’t lie. They documented the memory loading for each of the Crays, and according to them, all three Crays were now full.
Ben nudged Tyler roughly in the back. “Find out what the damage is.”
Tyler dropped the print outs and turned to his keyboard. His hands shook as he typed away. “This is all wrong,” he began to mutter.
“I thought you said nothing had gone wrong,” Ben said rather sarcastically.
“No, I mean this is wrong,” Tyler replied, pointing at the screen. “It’s the data that we retrieved that’s wrong. It’s not Jayne Middelton’s memory at all. I recognise the pattern. It’s been duplicated several times, but it’s definitely the map of her neural net.”
Ben felt the hairs standing up on the back of his neck. “Matthew Hall!” he announced. “Jayne must have told him everything!” He turned and walked purposely back towards Tyler’s office.
Tyler stood up and followed him. He was beginning to recover his composure once more. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to do what we should have done in the first place. You’ve had your chance. Now it’s my turn.”