Reconfigure (21 page)

Roisin felt a bit of a gooseberry as the two hugged it out. They released themselves, looked at one another, smiled and dived into another embrace. She started to tidy the rest of the kit up and close the orange box. She left the oxygen mask until later as that would involve getting even closer to the happy couple. The click of the box closing shut must have reminded the two of them that they were not alone.

As he pulled away releasing his hug he said.

“This is Roisin, she has access to Ray K., when I am Melded too.”

Alex looked at Roisin and whilst still a little confused quietly said.

“Thank you, you must have brought me back?” Her delicate, oxbridge accent clearer now.

“It was a team effort.” Roisin replied magnanimously, gently nodding her head down and gesticulating toward David, or Dave, whatever it was she was going to mentally tag him as now. Alex appeared to become more tuned into the lab and the World. She was starting to ask the right questions and between them Dr Henry and Roisin filled her in on what had happened. Alex seemed a little relieved that Roisin was a serendipitous connection on Twitter not someone Dr Henry had deliberately found. Roisin wanted to state that there was nothing going on between her and Doctor Henry, but she self censored, figuring that would be a little odd and counter productive. It would create an even bigger elephant in the room than the one she had considered Translating a few days ago.

Dr Alex explained a little of what had happened to her. She had spent the first few weeks trying to find a way to get a role in the CCSO. She wanted to be able to walk in and out of the doors, be part of the organisation. She added that she knew the risk of being spotted, the CCSO were onto her and Dave, but that she figured they would not be looking that close to home.

“Enemies closer and all that?” Roisin said out loud as Alex paused in her story.

The tale continued. Alex had found a contact, a hacker. She had found him via the various blockchain transactions she had been doing. The emerging transaction processing world was a shady area, not yet regulated and still full of ‘interesting' people making it happen. The idealist hacker seemed to hint at his abilities, to get into anything anywhere, on one of the Blockchain user forums. Alex had risked contacting him, initially as a pseudo anonymous link on the back of a blockchain contract. He had apparently liked her style and bothered to respond. After a few non traceable encrypted exchanges with him she had a CCSO id. They were not an impenetrable organisation. Given the fact they were not commonly known to exist to the general public did not mean the darker side of the Internet were not clued in to them. Alex explained that the above country system of corporates was really in charge. They ran the World the way they liked it. Her hacker created the trail of background checks to match and enhance her fake identity. He got her a Swiss bank account for the large salary to go into from her new role as an analyst too. The CCSO on boarding process was very basic. She was shown to her desk by a CCSO officer. Her clearance gave her access to a large visualisation of unusual transactions, minor crimes and fraud investigations, all from her two screens. She was known as G87712. Names were not used, Alex explained.

“It was like a modern day Bletchley Park, lots of people quietly head down sifting through data and metadata, making connections, filing reports. There was an air of excitement but one of fear too. Several days running people seemed to have been fired, or promoted. There were no leaving parties, just an empty desk, soon filled by a new face. The salary was astronomical. The terms and conditions when I checked them seemed to indicate immediate termination of any and all contact should we disclose any information to anyone other than the system and the supervisors. That meant practically no conversation in the office. When you are being paid like a premiership footballer to shut up, well, you shut up!” Alex was in full flow now.

She recounted how in the next cubicle her fellow analyst often mumbled to himself. She had risked a glance at him and his desk area. He had caught her looking and locked eyes with her before she turned away. She had noticed several copies of New Scientist on his desk.

“I ran a check on my cubicle neighbour on the system. It was something we were encouraged to do. There was no social activity between us all but they wanted us to know a bit about one another, mainly to look out for ‘Snowdens' I guess." She continued.

Her check had found her nearest neighbour was G38813, a specialist in finding patterns. The details were about the sort of cases he had looked at. No other real details, no names. The education history was there though and included a university module on quantum mechanics.

“A little later I heard some loud boots on the office flooring. The marching made all the desks vibrate. I knew they were coming my way. I can only conclude that G38813, with his piles of magazines, happened to have the one picture of us and our paper on quantum search in it. My fellow analyst specialised in patterns, he probably had an eidetic memory. He had reported me and I was in trouble.”

She explained that when she had not been working her eight hour shifts, they didn’t like to overwork the analysts, she had been exploring the other fractal iteration levels with her command line into Ray K. It had been fascinating to see the number of concept collections just one iteration away.

“I realised looking at the output, just from walking around the file structure on my phone terminal app, that we are, at a different level of abstraction just Concepts. I was going to experiment a little and created a save point, but I never used it.” She shook her head to help her fast forward. “But you know all this bit about concepts I assume. Anyway I couldn’t let them get to you Dave nor to this place. What we can do with Ray K., is just too powerful for them, too dangerous.

The guards were coming for me so I typed in new coordinates for the phone, then for me and hit enter. The compound statement should had jumped me across to the next office block. It was a start, but instead, well I seem to have left it on the wrong fractal iteration. I must have transferred me, as a concept, to that?” She pointed at the bin with the cartoon smile.

“This is what happened to you.” Said David as he brought up the pictures of her capture and her slumped body. Then he showed her the camera shots of the OrganicShell version that baited the trap that Roisin had been caught in.

Roisin mentioned the Commander.

“Commander William Drake!” Exclaimed Alex. “He was often walking amongst the office cubes. He is the most senior officer in CCSO. He is very hands on.”

“Isn’t he just!” added Roisin, “I wish I had not put him back and left him locked there.” She pointed to where screwdriver had sat.

“Well, it seems from everything you have done so far that you are not a killer, the same as Dave and I are not. I can’t forgive those bastards for Mum and Dad, but I thought long and hard about just Translating the whole office out into space. I just couldn’t. There are people there who are innocent, just doing a job. Many of them are actually fighting real crime too. We can’t be like them, but we also can’t let them have Ray K.”

“Out there, they are going to find us eventually.” Said David. “I am not being defeatist but we are safer here, close to Ray K.” He looked at Alex. “I felt a connection with you like never before as we brought you back. Inside my dreamworld you were clearer than at any other time. Did you feel? Dream? See anything?”

Alex looked at him, smiling. “Yes, I felt you near, a nurturing feeling. It was almost as you had described after that first test Meld."

Once again, Roisin felt she was intruding on something. She broke the ice.

“OK! None of us are safe out there, we can’t all three of us stay in here. I mean, I am cramping your style a bit aren’t I?”

The two Doctors stopped staring into one another's eyes and took a more professional pose.

“I have a bit of a plan I think. I am not sure if I really want to do it though!’

They both looked at Roisin, who said.

“What would happen if I, or someone more liberal in their thinking, ran CCSO?”

“I don’t think the hackers can get someone the top job at CCSO. Low level access yes, but replace Commander Drake? Not going to happen.” Alex said strongly.

“I had something a little more drastic in mind, literally.” She said amusing herself with her own play on words. “If Drake can be a screwdriver, and you can be a bin, then why can’t I be Drake?”

Both scientists looked at her. Each processing the idea she had just delivered. It was a bombshell of a plan. They both understood.

“You want to replace your HumanConcept with his? I am not sure that would work quite as you expect. If you just became attached to his body, his OrganicShell, then you would not know the things he knows, people, places, operations and passwords. They would think you had also lost it and probably just replace you. I doubt there is a retirement home for senile Commanders either!”

Roisin had just thrown the idea into the melting pot. She had not considered that. It would be like swapping an operating system and all its applications. Or like just buying a high level character in an MMO and not knowing the clan’s mantra or ways. She carried on with the thought. “What if we were both in there?”

Alex joined in. “Side by side? Two competing personalities and life experiences. That would not work either, you would be sectioned in no time.”

“What about a file merge?” Roisin added more detail to her next adjustment. “If this works like code. We can put his concept and mine together. Like any merge, where there are conflicts, we pick one. Ideally my bits of course. I could have his memories, alongside mine? There would be no clash?”

“It is very risky Roisin.” said Doctor Henry, with Alex agreeing and nodding.

“Yes, but it is possible don’t you think?” Roisin persisted.

The two doctors looked at one another, not longingly this time, but with quizzical expressions.

“It might be!” Confirmed Alex.

The two doctors headed to the white board. Alex stopped in her tracks and looked down at her hospital gown. She felt behind her back, finding the gap and the ties.

“I need some clothes first.” She said.

Dr Henry stopped, wheeled around and moved back to his desk chair, head down and leaning a little, as if walking into a strong wind.

“On it.” He said.

“Wait!” Said Roisin. “We can’t just take that hospital gown upstairs. Now you are free of the bed, so is the tracer bug in it. You go to the bathroom. I will Translate the gown away for you, then send you upstairs and you can get some clothes, then I will join you up there?”

Alex agreed, and closed the bathroom door behind her.

“Ready.” She shouted.

Roisin Translated the Gown cube, and its electronic contents, to the desk. She then instantly sent Alex upstairs. She turned Alex’s old bin the right way up. Roisin threw the gown into the bin. She thought she could gain some extra style points. She joined the Gown to the bin and Translated the bin to the City garage workshop, placing it neatly in a corner. It would not give them any trouble now.

Roisin used FMM v1.3 to Translate herself to the farmhouse. Yes, she had to face the embarrassment of admitting she had opened the parcels, and ‘borrowed’ some underwear. Alex was on a mission to get back into something that could help her think. She glanced back at Roisin as she searched her own wardrobe and drawers, nodding realising Roisin had a familiar t-shirt on.

“It’s all right, you keep it.” Said Alex.

“Thanks.” Roisin replied smiling as if a big sister had just given her something wonderful.

“I am sorry if we made you feel awkward back in there. Dave and I have worked together for years. The last four we have been a couple.” Alex continued as she pulled on a comfy baggy jumper over her plain blue blouse. “The past years hiding, rebuilding Ray K., we have really bonded. We couldn’t risk seeing anyone, or them recognising us. We just had one another for company. Deliveries were always left at the door.” Alex paused a little then continued. "I don’t know who it is worse for. For him time stops, save for his dreams, for me I have been trying to figure out those murderers from the inside.”

“What were you planning on doing?” Asked Roisin.

“That’s the problem, I don't really know. I just needed to find out more, the scientist’s instinct to explore.” Alex went on. “Are you sure you want to try this alteration to Drake?”

“He has it in for me. He wants these powers and then wants me dead. Even without FMM he wants me dead anyway. I think I pissed him off in front of his soldiers. It makes sense that I really need to reconfigure his head.” Roisin talked herself into the risky plan. She knew it made sense, it might even be fun.

“Reconfigure, that’s a good thing to call it.” Alex smiled at her. “Let’s get back there and do some Reconfiguration of the World!”

The three stood in front of the white board. David had sketched the overall sequence of events. The stick figures and blocks looked like a UML sequence diagram to Roisin. It wasn’t; the syntax was all over the place, but it got the idea across. This was not a swap, it was a merge. It required Roisin’s HumanConcept to overlay and be in charge of the Commander’s HumanConcept. They would have to do some testing but the quantum couple thought they could apply the merge at the sub levels. Each Concept had contents. These were contained wholly within the Concept. The Id should be the part that deals with basic requirements, the Ego dealing with reality and the SuperEgo with morals. The Model sounded like a way to deal with the structure of being human. Essence though? Roisin knew they were guessing, the closest thing they came up with was a soul. She would need all her Id, Ego and SuperEgo to get the first bite of any interactions. Her Essence too should be a primary choice. Memory would need to be more of a concatenation. She needed her memory and also his in order to do the job, know the people and act the part. Roisin rationalised it as code, she was providing overrides for many of the Commander's Concept functions. Others were allowed to pass through unaltered.

She was dealing with scientists. She was prepared to just give it a go and see what happened but she remembered again this was not a game, there were no re-spawns.

For several days they all worked on the problem. They did what scientists did. They took the problem space, provided a guess as to how it worked, a theory as they called it, then experimented and tested it until the theory held.

They had been out on a gathering trip, Alex was impressed with FMM v1.4. Roisin had added yet more functions to try and clean up some of the UI and timing problems in the more complex operations. She had also added a specific search function to scan for anything that might reduce a mobile signal such as jamming devices or large metal structures. The animal labs they were raiding had no internal security. Generally it was the animal rights protesters breaching the perimeter that the owners worried about not the white mice, rats and rabbits escaping in a Translation.

Roisin was not sure about experimenting on animals. She knew it was for her own good. There were tests planned on each animal up the evolutionary ladder. The animals were being returned in an unharmed state. They were not sent back to the vivisectionists, but found new homes at various animal rescues around the World.

Each animal had a related Concept on the fractal iteration layer <2708>, that the HumanConcepts also existed on. They had the same structure as Roisin’s, though she figured the file sizes might be different. Dr Wight and Dr Henry performed combinations of tests initially on memory and Id. Mice in mazes found, or lost motivation to find, food in various configurations of the tests. Alex also found a new found skill, she was able to Meld too. Apparently the connection that had formed during her HumanConcept returning to her OrganicShell had let her into the Meld club. Alex and David took turns Melding and directing the experiments, sending Roisin on supply runs.

They never tried to cross species. The experiments were to see if various traits could be over ridden, or let through. Seeing a rat enter a new maze for the first time, but with the RatConcept memories of another, that had successfully navigated it, was a significant step in the process. At the very least she would be able to access the Commander’s memory.

The primates were a bit trickier, and much noisier. First Capuchin monkeys acted very strangely as they explored their swapped bodies. A male and a female were given one another's concept. The Chimps were the real test. An alpha male was put under the control of a young female Chimp’s concept. It was the closest to the real thing they needed to do. The male Chimp stopped showing off, but he clearly remembered what he could do. His strength and motion looked as before. He had a swagger, though he was more attentive to the others, much to their confusion.

With five chimps in the lab they had to up the Breathe scripts running rate. Dr Henry also made a few improvements to remove some of the more interesting odours. A non ventilated room and many animals made it all a bit stale. He also fixed the septic tank emptying whilst he was in that code.

There was no good way for all three of them to leave the lab, without risking putting a physical door and tunnel back in, so Roisin took some breaks up in the farmhouse. One of the docs would meld, she would jump upstairs and then they would Unmeld. That left the two ‘doctors of lurve’ with some time together and gave Roisin a chance to eat some decent food. Her FMM refresh would start working once one of the pair downstairs had Melded again and she could pop back to see how things were getting on and help out. Usually bringing a decent cup of coffee and some food with her.

The final Chimps were Translated off to a monkey sanctuary. The place was probably not used to five chimps in a large cage being left on their doorstep. It came with instructions on how to access the large bitcoin donation that would keep the sanctuary in bananas and tyres for the next ten years at least, so they were pretty sure it was going to be OK.

Roisin sat and listened to Mr and Mrs Doctor. They were good people, and she considered them friends. The feeling seemed to be mutual. They were about to try, as they explained, a dual Meld. They needed Roisin to watch over both of them, and check in about half an hour that they could Unmeld. In the mean time they wanted her to perform some simple Translations and anything else she wanted to do to test Ray K., plus two human neural networks. The aim was to see if it still worked as they expected. She agreed and watched as both of her new found colleagues and friends, sat holding hands in front of the main terminal, became a waxwork statue. They made a cute couple.

She sat at her screen. She was not about to make any code changes to FMM. This was supposed to be a stability test with a double Meld. Changing more parameters, such as what her code did, would be both silly, time consuming and dangerous in equal measure. Instead she did what she should have done days ago when all the experiments started. She ran a location scan on the nearest supermarket, followed by a more in depth scan of the collections of jars. It was much easier to see the rows of Marmite cubes on the shelf with FMM now. She delicately picked one, on the top row but in the middle. That jar received a Translate command and found itself in the farmhouse kitchen. Roisin had enough time to Translate up to the kitchen, make some tea and toast and taste the yeasty loveliness that was Marmite, spread on her crispy white bread. It felt a little like a last meal. She had no idea what it would feel like, or who she would even be in a few hours time, if they went ahead with the mental code merge.

Whilst chewing the toast her sensible side whispered to her it was not a very good idea to go messing with who she was. She knew to ignore herself. No one could tell if this was a good thing or a bad thing. It had never been done before. She wasn’t going to be the first person on Mars or anything as obvious as that. This was the first HumanConcept layering. The Chimps had been fine, she sipped her tea. She distracted herself looking up YouTube clips of old adverts with Chimpanzees dressed in hats, coats and dresses also drinking tea. It was an ad from before the Internet and the computing revolution. It was probably before the mass surveillance and this insidious corporate control of everything too. The Commander probably grew up watching these adverts. She tried to imagine him as a little boy. Her images were of him playing with a lot of toy soldiers, when he was not burning ants with a magnifying glass in the sun. The way Roisin understood the process she would know pretty soon too, as she would have access to his memories. She shuddered, the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end and her skin raised goosebumps to attention. It was a mixture of fear, excitement and a caffeine hit from the tea. She felt very alive.

Roisin was interrupted by a gentle tinkling ring of her current phone. She had set a timer for twenty-nine minutes. She returned to the lab and watched the two doctors re-animate.

Sat, still holding hands they looked at one another, jaws dropping just slightly. Looking directly into one another eyes.

“Ahem!” Roisin fake coughed. They released their gaze and their hands and both stood and turned to her.

Dr Henry looked slightly shell shocked, Dr Wight had an almost knowing smile on her face. Roisin felt she had walked in on a couple of teenagers who had been fumbling around with one another in a darkened room.

“It was …” Doctor Henry was stumped.

“Incredible.” Doctor Wight finished his sentence. She continued “We were completely united, yet complete individuals. We were not dedicated to the metadata tasks. Instead we had spare capacity to explore ideas and started to get a glimpse of something even greater.” Doctor Henry now joined in.

“It was not a fuzzy dream, but a very lucid one. One where we were able to be united, joined and share everything. We built on one another’s ideas and it felt our research work, that got us to Ray K., was complete and we were able to build on top of it. I feel invigorated not drained as after a single Meld.” He said.

“I am the same!” said Alex glowing slightly. “It is quite intoxicating.”

“So, you guys just kind of, well, got it on in some quantum physical way then?” asked Roisin with a scrunched up expression. The couple looked at one another and smiled again. It was obvious they did not want to tell her too much.

“What happens on tour stays on tour.” She joked to break any more embarrassment. “Shall we get on with it then?” Roisin asked. She felt a bit like she was about to do some crazy bungee jump. She was strapped in and ready to go. If she didn’t go soon the vertigo and fear might take over from the excitement and she might change her mind. Alex saw the look on Roisin’s face that matched that feeling.

“We will, but we have to discuss something else first.” Alex started to explain. Roisin figured that both of them were on the same page, in the time they had been Melded together they would have discussed this, or however they communicated in there. She was a little taken back by the suggestion though. It was very extreme.

“We want to stay melded together. We also have to make sure that nothing lets Ray K., fall into the hands of the CCSO and their corporate controllers. If we are Melded the channel is open for you to do your Reconfiguring. We have to consider what happens if you get found out, or if your device is compromised. The best way is for us to shut off the inbound pipe.”

Roisin had expected that she would be doing the whole Commander takeover but with all the fancy powers at her fingertips. It made it start to feel all the more real now, to hear her toys would be taken away from her.

“We know you are taking an incredible risk and it is something we want you to be clear about. With us in the Meld we can take this research much, much further. We can’t let THEM near. We may find some better ways to deal with the CCSO too, but for now, you need to be running it, you need to gently change the organisation from within. You need to be a stabilising figure, but without the…” Dr Henry made the two finger hop to go with his explanation.

Roisin processed what they had said. They wanted to dive into their quantum love nest, cuddle up and stay there, whilst she took over running the CCSO, but inside someone else’s body, forever? The apparent one way trip did not seem so appealing now. It was important, but so was she, as her. Her OrganicShell and her HumanConcept were pretty happy as they were. She had expected to be just on a field trip in the Commander. This seemed more of a life sentence.

“What we are proposing is a two year shutdown. Then we open the connection for something like ten minutes at the agreed date and time?” said Alex.

Roisin felt slightly more at ease. “Well it’s not quite a five year mission to explore strange new worlds, but it sounds like a plan.”

“We can do five if you want?” David said to her. Alex flicked him on the shoulder jokingly.

“She is boldly going!” Alex added. Doctor Henry snapped out of his serious mode and nodded in appreciation of having been caught out by the reference to science fiction royalty.

“So I spend two years on vacation in Drake’s head, then? I guess that can work.” Roisin resigned herself to her fate. She felt a little manipulated. She had had her expectations set, or apparently set, that she was going to be gone forever. Then she had the good news it was only, ONLY! Two years! Yet she felt fine about it.

Roisin walked to the hospital bed where Alex had previously been. Before climbing onto it she touched her face and her cheeks. She ran her fingers through her hair. She then looked at her hands, palms first then turned them over. She sat on the edge of the bed, and then swung her legs up as she rotated and lay down.

“See you in a couple of years then?” She said.

The process had already been written. It was a single batch file not unlike the one that had revived Alex. Some cut and paste had gone on. Dr Henry had written it, Roisin had almost pair programmed it with him. She was the programmer after all, and it was her concept and shell they were messing with. It needed to be automated as both Doctors were going to be Melded in order to provide a greater degree of precision in the concept merge requests. They had managed the Chimp concept switches with just one brain so she was happy that two would be even better.

She did not feel her body becoming one with the bed to preserve it at its pristine twenty-six year old self. That happened in a separate thread as her HumanConcept was interwoven on top of and with the Commander’s. They had checked he was alone before initiating the process. If anyone had been with him they would not have seen anything to worry them. Everything was as it should be on fractal iteration <2709>. Whilst in the invisible <2708> a HumanConcept occupied the same space and same OrganicShell of the former Commander William Drake.

Roisin Kincade had not only reconfigured the World, she herself had been reconfigured. She looked around her, she was already walking towards a podium in a briefing hall. She stopped. She felt the recently shaved, yet rough skin of her face. She ran one hand over her hair. A bristling short crew cut greeted her. She looked at her wrinkled and abrasive hands. She swallowed and felt an unusual sensation, she touched her Adam’s apple. She felt her muscular chest under the rough black pocketed tactical material. She almost dare not feel any further down. She still felt very much like her, but with a few more aches and pains that she had not noticed before. She experienced a different set of mental threads, a more focused internal dialogue going on. A sense of purpose and of honour that she had not noticed before. She also had some words going around alongside that. It was as if she had been rehearsing the same speech for the last ten minutes.