Ryan Somma - The Spiraling Web

Somewhere on the Net a battle raged. He would find Flatline there, directing his troops. Ideonexus was the most heavily trafficked portal on the Web. It was the most strategic point to control, like the center of a chessboard, unless Flatline already possessed it. Devin hoped it wasn't so.

The virus had anticipated her attack. Alice simultaneously marveled and bristled uncomfortably at the implications. This was beyond a virus, way beyond some complex algorithm with the ability to adapt to new programming environments. It wasn't reacting to her attack; it was reacting to news of her attack. It had launched a preemptive strike. Alice could not have anticipated this, but subconsciously had expected it.

"It's fighting back," Mow remarked, coming over to watch the monitor beside her.

"Yes," she acknowledged, "Excellent proof of its intuitive nature."

"You're thinking it knew what we were planning?" he asked in disbelief.

"I know it did," she affirmed, "Look at the logs. Here." She brought up the list of system events and pointed right above where they executed the anti-virus, "The virus began grabbing up resources a fraction of a second before we launched. How could it know we were going to attack unless it intercepted one of our communications, read it, and understood it?"

"A moot point now," Mow noted, looking over the monitors, "The virus is winning."

Alice nodded, "I know. I know. It got the jump on us and secured too many resources. It acquired more computing power, and it's using that to muscle our program off the Web. It's too powerful."

"If we could take that power away," Mow inquired thoughtfully, "Then your program would overpower it?"

Alice stared at Mow. He saw the obvious answer she could not because her mind was still in the box. He was thinking outside of it.

"Brilliant Mow," she said, picking up the phone to speed dial ideonexus' administrators, "That's absolutely brilliant."

Ideonexus was total Armageddon. Devin grimly surveyed the conflict, trying to make sense of the chaos. The insectile anti-virus bots swarmed in a black cloud, filling nearly half the cavern, red points of light scanning everything. The other half was a writhing network of tubes and wires mixed with eyes and alien appendages.

As he watched, the swarm withdrew against the wall where they were making a stand. Their laser pointers focused on a spot in the mass of black pumping veins and flailing limbs. Instantly the swarm darted in to strike the target near the apex of the arched ceiling. A figure struggled out of the mass, swinging six insectile arms frantically at the attackers.

It was an AI, singled out by the anti-virus software. It fell from the ceiling and landed on the floor of the portal with a bounce, fifty yards from Devin, still flailing at the attacking insects. The entire swarm descended on the helpless thing, and Devin watched as the AI was dissected into squirming pieces, its howl briefly rising above the swarm's hum as it died.

In spite of the AI's loss, the swarm was obviously losing the conflict. The unified network of AI's continued growing into the cloud's territory, forcing the swarm back into a tunnel at the base of the far wall. The amalgamation of machinery and black, rubbery flesh sprouted flame-throwers, which raked across the swarm's front line, each sweep of fire cutting it back. Every foot of space the swarm surrendered, the AI's swelled to fill.

Devin opened a window and searched the contents of his monocle, scanning the list of programs stored in the "Flatline Warez" folder. It was foolishness to think a program of Flatline's design would work against his own troops, but Devin couldn't just wait here and passively watch the anti-virus get destroyed.

He reached into the window with one tentacle and selected a disk-cleaner of unusual design. It sprouted from his tentacle nest as a heavy-looking futuristic gun and Devin immediately recognized it. Flatline used this to delete sectors off servers whose administrators had offended him in some way. It was a clumsy tool in Devin's hands. If he wasn't careful, he could end up deleting something crucial to the portal's operations and shut it down completely. Devin raised the rifle and watched the swirling red dots from the swarm's lasers, waiting for them to focus. Once they found a target, he would take care of it.

Then a huge section of the Portal vanished, taking a large portion of the AI mass with it. The area that disappeared was a little behind the battle's front lines, and the AI's caught between the missing section and the swarm immediately lost their cohesion. They rained from the ceiling, misshapen bodies flailing their arms and legs as they tumbled to the floor. The anti-virus swarmed into the AI's ranks as they struggled to rebuild their mass, but it was already too late.

Devin watched with mixed emotions as the swarm tore them apart, a chorus of inhuman howls reverberating throughout the tunnel.

The numbers on the monitor jumped favorably as Alice watched, a phone cradled in her neck. The anti-virus seized five-percent of Ideonexus' server processes instantaneously, and then took an additional seven-percent back from the Flatline virus over the next thirty seconds. She waited until the numbers began slowly crawling back in favor of the virus and returned to the phone.

"Shut down Cairo," she ordered network Administrator.

Africa was another region the virus completely dominated. Again the percentages jumped in favor of the anti-virus. She put the phone to her ear again, waiting to give the command to shut down another server, but the percentages jumped in favor of the anti-virus program again without warning.

"What was that?" Mow asked.

Devin pulled the big gun's trigger and a blast of green energy flashed from the muzzle, right into a crowd of AI's freshly severed from the mass. They vaporized immediately, and the insect swarm moved in to make short work the rest. He leveled the barrel of the weapon again, waiting for the next break up of AI's to come.

The remaining mass of AI's rolled up in a wave then, and froze into a solid state. It looked like a steel modern art sculpture. The swarm could not affect it.

"London won't shut down," the Administrator said to Alice over the phone, "It's not responding to commands from the network."

"Try a command line procedure on the box itself," Alice told him.

She narrowed her eyes at the monitor; she was winning, but only so long as they continued cutting the legs out from under the virus. She needed to take its support structure away and shut down the servers it was using to run its processes. Once the chain was broken, it could not support the copies of itself running on the disputed computers.

The Administrator came back on the line, "No use, the system is completely locked up."

"Unplug it then," she said into the receiver.

Another section of the ideonexus portal winked out of existence. The steel sculpture became fluid again, raining AI's from its mass. Devin blasted green plasma at the scattering crowds of black twisted figures, but the swarm no longer needed his help. The fight was over, with the swarm victorious. It was only a matter of time until the AI's were cleaned out completely.

A long braid of tendrils sprouted from the retreating mass of AI's. Flatline's six-eyed demon face reared up furiously in front of Devin. Before he could react, four clawed hands had him in a vice grip.

"You're coming with me," Flatline growled and pulled Devin into the swirling black chaos.

Although Zai could not recall much of her life before the age of six, it was all recorded for her to review and consider. Doctors' records revealed her parents did not realize she was blind until three months old, when they noticed she did not look at things the way her older brother had as an infant. For two career-minded parents, this news was catastrophic. Her parents had children out of a sense of duty, raising children was an inconvenience, interfering with their busy work schedules.