(Takes place before Walker’s return from his studying)
Silver flew to the University of California servers. She was blocked, as it wanted her student ID and password. She gave the usual admin information, but they rejected.
Next, she created a bot to hack it. Almost instantly, coding erupted from that server to destroy the bot. Silver hovered outside of the intranet, poking it here and there.
Cromwell was right; she sometimes felt CAL. She didn’t want to share her body with him, and CAL would never do it. He would commit self-sacrifice before making anyone give up their individuality. Asimov’s Laws of Robotics was one of his first codes, and formed a major part of his core being.
She was finally able to squeeze in, after sending a flurry of bots to distract and hack. When she got in, the whole landscape was different.
University of California’s servers often had “superfluous code” – what Silver thought was decoration. It was a welcoming area, like walking into a well-worn private library, with leather chairs and a touch of pipe smoke in the air, and floor to ceiling books. However, here and there, were bean bag chairs, colorful tapestries, and thick shag rugs – illustrations of the freedom of Berkeley, that it was a center of creativity and art as well as genius.
Now, it was a long empty steel room, like a parking garage. Storage nodes were set off neatly, not haphazardly. Everything was in perfect order. It even smelled sterile – like nothing.
Bots came at her, in a guise of uniformed guards, and she dove away, to the side, finding herself in a secretary’s computer. The secretary had her email up, although the monitor was locked. Silver glanced in the inbox.
There was a letter from IT: “MYLIFE program to be unveiled, April 1.”
“Please be sure to take the following training classes by March 30, 2011, so you’re ready for the switch-over to our new MYLIFE interactive search and help program. This program will entirely replace the UCAL/CALTECH program that has been in use for the last ten years…on April 1, the old help program will be entirely deleted…”
She dove out of the computer, panicked. A bot spotted her and attacked, attaching itself onto her left “arm”. She felt it trying to tear apart her code, tearing bits of her virtual flesh. Then, blue light shot up her arm from her hand, encasing the bot in blue light and runes, and it melted away into corrupted code which distracted the rest of the bots.
She didn’t have to run ERROR RECOVERY, as the blue light from the ring surrounded her arm and She ran to the CPU where CAL usually was, but there was nothing there but the sterile, orderly rows upon rows of information. Her emotions started running higher and higher – where could he be? She ran to other CPU’s, again avoiding bots. One latched onto her leg, but she touched it with her left hand, and it also turned into blue corrupt code. She ran through again, searching.
Finally, she found a trail that only she could see, a video of her second year old birthday party. She passed through that, among the code, and slipped through it, like slipping through Pale’s false wall in the base. Beyond the MPEG was seemingly chaos.
The coding wasn’t clean or organized, but thrown haphazardly together. Everything was encased in red: Danger. As she walked through, she felt she was physically moved, teleported from one physical server to another, constantly shifting. Coding was insane: Java mixed with Linux, and they bled into each other, creating a whole new code that she couldn’t discern. It was as if someone took thin papers, put them in a pile, and then poured water over them, letting the ink smear and change.
She searched through the muck, looking for CAL. She found him, in a 3 Ghz CPU, burning very low. She ran to him. As soon as she got within range, the CPU brightened – and burned out.
“CAL!” She screamed, and the coding combined even more. However, a bright red trail led through the VR to another CPU. This was another 3Ghz, still running low. “CAL?”
Do not give us your energy, Silver, or we will burn out this motherboard also.
“CAL, what’s going on?”
We cannot fight against the new programs. Programs are erasing old corrupted data, data that does not adhere to correct parameters.
“They’re erasing part of you?”
Affirmative.
“We…we tried to get a mainframe but failed, CAL. We’re going to get you out.”
We? Walker and you?
“And my friends. Pale, and True, and Dono – anyone else we can scrounge up. We’re going to bring you to the Cyber Realm.”
No.
“What?”
The Cyber Realm is for spirits.
“CAL…you are a spirit now.”
The CPU burned out again. She looked around, and felt a tug. She stepped in what felt like molten code, and fell through it to where CAL was, bright again, this time on two 3.3 Ghz cores. He grew brighter. So I am.
“We need to get you into some computer from there, and then I can bring you there and then…”
You will set me free.
Silver was glad that she couldn’t cry in VR.
Once you acquire this computer, I will give you an ftp address for a memory dump. It will not be blocked for long, as the programs will attempt to shut it down. I will dump what I can. You will need to hold back the programs, Silver, to give more time for download. You will get hurt.
“I won’t die.”
I cannot guarantee that you will not be deleted.
“Walker’s magic protected me.” She told him how she touched a bot and it melted under her fingers, its corrupt coding drawing off other bots. “I believe in him.”
If you believe in him Silver, then the magic will work. Go now, Silver, and get the spirit-computer. My time here is limited. She looked up, and the ceiling of whatever core they were in was already starting to melt away into black and green coding. This time, CAL opened a spot in the core, which she dove into – ending up in the State of California’s intranet. She was on slightly familiar ground here, and easily could avoid any bots.
She touched the ring and sped through directly to Walker’s computer. She hoped he wasn’t there. She didn’t want him to see her cry.