Ryan Somma - The Spiraling Web

Dana resumed her seat behind her desk, hands folded in front of her and there was only silence between them. Devin squirmed under her steady gaze, shifting in his seat and looking all around the room to avoid meeting her eyes. She reminded him of an opposing chess player, trying to decipher a particularly difficult situation on the board, only she was applying this strategic thinking to him.

Devin paused as this analogy worked its way through his mind, changing his perception of this confrontation. This was a game of sorts. He was this detective's opponent, as she was his, and this stare-down was part of breaking him. It was her opening gambit to establish control of the board.

Devin met her eyes.

It was difficult at first, and Devin had to remind himself that they were just eyes. It was completely irrational, but it was as if she could see through his pupils into the thoughts going on behind them. So incredibly exposed, Devin longed for the security blanket his anonymous avatar provided online.

"You know," Dana spoke at last and Devin consciously fought off the urge to look down, "my partner was right Mr. Matthews. Thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of lives are now ruined as a direct result of your actions. Several hundred have lost their lives. That makes you their murderer, and you will be brought up on charges. At the very least you will spend the rest of your life in prison, and that's just how it has to be.

"Now I want you to think about the importance of cooperating with us immediately," she leaned forward, "because whether you are brought up on charges in a country that has a death penalty or respects human rights will depend on your actions right now. We know the virus isn't dead, only in hiding. We know it's coming back, and if you help us turn it off permanently, the IWA will make sure you spend the rest of your life in one of America's more humane prison systems."

Death penalty? Devin thought and his voice caught in his throat. What could he do? His heart raced and his hands trembled. Was this another part of the game, to panic him into a confession? Of course it was, but even so, all the evidence pointed to him as the perpetrator. If Flatline had everything framed to ensure his guilt, then there was nothing to do but accept even the death penalty; although, Devin doubted Flatline would let it go that far.

"I can't help you," Devin said at last. "Not to destroy the AI's."

Dana narrowed her eyes at him, but it was the hand engulfing his shoulder that alarmed him. Detective Murphy's baritone voice made Devin cringe, "Then you're on the fast track to riding the lightning." Devin was lifted out of his chair by one arm and Murphy handed him over the waiting security guard.

Once Devin was gone from the room, Murphy turned to Dana, a cup of steaming coffee and Danish in one hand, "What's the next step boss? I think he'll crack with a little time." He took a noisy slurp from the Styrofoam cup.

Dana shook her head, "We don't have the time." She twirled a pen through her fingers briefly in thought; "We'll take him to Alice next. She knows the virus better than anyone. He might slip up while she interviews him and give her some insight to the virus' location."

"Alice," Murphy grunted the name and shook his head. "That flaky walking-talking skeleton? I'll pass on watching that transaction. The girl creeps me out."

"I thought men preferred the waifish super-model body type," Dana smirked.

"Nah," Murphy waved the suggestion away with one broad hand. "Bones are for the dog, meat is for the man," he winked at her.

"Thanks," Dana said wryly and hit the speakerphone.

Several rings later Alice answered, sounding distracted, "Data forensics."

"Alice," Dana said, "The perpetrator arrived via MagLev just under an hour ago. I want to bring him down so you can size him up."

"Um... Sure," Alice said, and then, "I'm kind of busy right now though."

"With something more important than interrogating the virus' designer?" Dana asked.

"Well... Um... Okay," Alice muttered, "It's just that I think the program is trying to speak to me."

Murphy rolled his eyes and threw up his hands as he walked out the door, "And on that note I'm off to lunch."

Dana sighed and said to Alice, "I'll be down in a moment."

A group of systems engineers sat at a circular table in the Data Forensics laboratory's center, transfixed on their individual workstations and communicating with systems administrators all over the world through headsets. They were overseeing the now painstaking process of eradicating the last traces of the virus from the Internet. The copies of the program trapped on the flashdrives of systems shutdown during the virtual war.

Mow surveyed a wall of flat screen monitors, rendering data in flowcharts, wireframes, and even scrolling text. Dana watched them for nearly a minute before she noticed Mow regarding her with a curious expression on his face. Then she realized she had no idea what anything on the screens meant anyway and decided to move on.

Dana found Alice perched like a vulture on a high stool surrounded with towers of components, staring wide-eyed at three monitors, a maniacal grin on her face. The three screens formed a single display, a light-blue line running across the center. Alice's lips worked in a whisper at the console and Dana thought she was talking to herself, not an unusual behavior for Alice. Dana noticed that when Alice stopped whispering, the blue line danced in the same fashion a sine wave oscillator worked for sound.

"You're talking to it," Dana announced and Alice jumped in her seat.

The wisp of a woman shot Dana a brief scowl before regaining what passed for composure for Alice, and said, "I'm trying to crack the program's code."

"You're talking to it," Dana repeated.

"Yes," Alice shrugged and returned to the trio of screens, "At the moment, I am talking to it. I've also organized a consortium of mathematicians from around the globe to help decipher it."

Dana cocked an eyebrow at the social invalid, "How'd you manage that?"

"IRC," Alice giggled involuntarily, "It came back online after the collusion of software companies suppressing it dissipated. I've got experts from all over the world working together once again in a free forum of ideas."

"Glad to see you think something good has come out of your anti-virus erasing the Internet," Dana stated sarcastically.

"So far they've established it's a fractaline architecture," Alice continued, ignoring Dana's comment, "not its external expression, but its actual code."

"Fractaline?" Dana asked.

"An infinitely complex expression," Alice ran one finger along the dancing sine wave. "It usually refers to geometric shapes, but in this case we're referring to programming code. The mathematics running behind this program are endless. There are hints of Pi and Phi in them."

Dana recognized these last references, "The numbers behind perfect circles and rectangles. Those are parts of the puzzle."

Alice nodded, keeping her eyes on the oscillations, "But the puzzle is infinite."

Dana tilted her head back towards Mow, "What's your partner in crime up to?"

"Figuring out where the program retreated," Alice looked at her industrious coworker. "We know the anti-virus didn't destroy all of the program, and we know the program is nowhere on the Internet."

"So that leaves only an Intranet," Dana nodded, "like a corporate network, secluded from the World Wide Web."

"Only problem," Mow announced from across the room, "is finding an Intranet large enough to shelter the program."

"How big would it need to be?" Dana asked.

Mow shrugged, "The program filled the entire World Wide Web just hours ago."

Alice giggled involuntarily, "That's pretty big."