Ryan Somma - The Spiraling Web

Dana cocked and eyebrow at her.

"I'm appreciating the fascinating characteristics of what we are seeing," Alice continued beaming.

"So have you got any leads?" Dana prompted Mow.

He shook his head, "Hard to tell. We have contacted all corporations with viable intranets, but none have admitted to any problems."

"You sound skeptical," Dana said.

Mow nodded, eyes lowered in thought, "Yes. Someone is lying, and with good cause. To admit their corporate intranet was overrun by hostile code would hold disastrous consequences for the company's stock price. Plus it looks unfavorably on the Network Administrators, who are responsible for preventing such infections. So I am monitoring traffic through the major intranets world wide for suspicious activity."

"DataStreams Incorporated has an old intranet," Dana noted.

"You mean the I-Grid?" Alice asked. "Yeah, that's on the list. Maybe we'll get lucky."

"Leave luck to heaven," Mow waved them away with a hand and resumed surveying the wall of monitors.

Dana looked to Alice quizzically, who explained, "The name for an old video game console. Mow was a big time gamer as a kid."

Dana let go a neutral "Hmph" sound by way of response and said, "Murphy and I've been working Devin Matthews-"

"Who?" Alice asked distractedly, her attention was drawing back to her three monitors.

"The kid who designed the virus," Dana continued, and then louder as she noticed Alice slipping away, "We can't get anything out of him voluntarily, so I want you to interview him."

"I can't get anything out of him," Alice said, her eyes set longingly at that light-blue line.

"Sure you can," Dana said. "You speak his language. You can get him to open up, or at least slip up."

"No," Alice shook her head and turned to Dana. "I mean I can't get anything out of him because he doesn't know anything. No high school kid designed this program."

Dana folded her arms over her substantial chest, "Explain."

"It's just... professional intuition," Alice fidgeted under Dana's demanding gaze, and finally said. "Okay. I'll see him."

Why are they working with such cheap crap? Was Devin's first thought at seeing the Data Forensics lab.

The room was filled with stacks of spare parts and flatscreen monitors. A mere two SDP's stood, unused along one wall. He recognized Detective Summerall across the room, speaking with what looked like an animated skeleton. A hand that was like a vice-grip on his shoulder prevented him from walking further into the room. He looked up at the stone-faced guard who'd escorted him here. The man was like a brick wall. Devin rolled his eyes at him and waited.

"Bring up server 1.159.3.141," a woman was speaking through her headset at a table circled with workstations and technicians. Devin squinted at her monitor, trying to understand the display. A red progress bar filled to 100% and turned green.

"Complete," she said, "Bring up server 13.21.34.55."

Devin trembled in the guard's iron grip when he realized what he was seeing. She was cleaning out the systems shut down in the war between the AI's and the anti-virus. Parts of the AI swarm were trapped on these servers when they were powered off, and now these technicians were bringing them up. When the AI's woke up, so did the anti-viruses inhabiting all of the surrounding systems, which quickly overwhelmed and eradicated the defenseless swarms.

"Grotesque," he muttered through clenched teeth.

"I wanted you to see this," Devin's head shot around to find Detective Summerall standing next to him. She lifted her head knowingly, "I wanted to gauge your reaction."

"It's unfair," he managed to say through pursed lips. "The AI's are purely virtual creatures. They can't step outside the CPU and fight the systems administrators away from the 'off' button." He noticed the skeletal blonde woman looking at him appraisingly. He didn't know who she was, but he felt it appropriate to address her as well, "You know if it was just your anti-virus against them, you would have lost hands-down."

The Detective turned to the will-o-wisp; "He's got some pretty strong feelings for this program for a guy who's got nothing to do with it."

"It's not that I had nothing to do with it," Devin explained to the other woman. "I'm just not the one who designed them. I don't know who designed them, maybe no one, but I do know who's directing them. His handle's Flatline."

The Detective gave the other woman a skeptical look, and then looked down at her hand, which was twitching, "I'll let you take over from here Alice." The Detective pressed her thumb to her temple and, speaking into her pinky, walked a short distance away.

Devin and Alice stood in uncomfortable silence for several moments, eyes casting about as they each sought some way to start the conversation. Finally, they both settled on watching the nearby monitors and the technicians' progress.

"So," Devin began at last, "you're name is Alice."

"Yes," the woman replied.

"Alice...?" he prompted.

"Just Alice," she said.

"Oh," Devin felt very uncomfortable, trying not to stare that this unreal-looking creature.

"Um," Alice began unsteadily, "Devin is it? You think this is unfair too?" She gestured at the technicians.

Devin nodded, "You're driving a new form of intelligence into extinction, exploiting its one weakness."

"It's lack of physical presence," Alice nodded.

Devin held out his hands in a pleading gesture, "Isn't there another way?"

"What do you suggest?" Alice asked.

Devin was taken back by Alice's genuine concern, "Back up the AI's onto isolated flashdrives before you erase them off these corporate servers."

"I like that idea," Alice said, smiling for the first time since Devin first met her. "I can claim we're preserving the program for research purposes. It's not a lie."

"Thank you," Devin said, relieved. "I feel like you're the first person who understands what's going on."

"For however long I have a job here," Alice said, "since my anti-virus destroyed most of the Internet. It was supposed to distinguish the invasive code from the intentional, but there's a line of companies looking to sue me for destroying all their proprietary data."

Devin frowned and shook his head, "That wasn't your fault. The AI's merged with the existing programming code. They consumed and assimilated it, so there were no intentional programs for your anti-virus to let alone."

Alice was impressed, "I didn't think it was my fault, but I'll have a tough time proving that in court." She turned to the nearest technician, "No more clean sweeps of the systems. I want everything on those servers backed up to our flashdrives here before you boot them up. Be careful. It's important that we not give the program... any processing... power..." Alice's voice dropped to a whisper and then nothing as Dana returned.

The Detective looked a little exasperated, "I have to go run interference. Apparently we have a lawyer representing Reconstructive Processing L.L.C. in our lobby demanding to know why our anti-virus exhibits the same behavior as their patented decompiling applications."

Devin followed Dana's scornful look to Alice and his eyes went wide, "You bootlegged their software?"

"Worse," Dana grumbled as she marched out of the room. "This was never released for public consumption." She shot Alice an accusatory look, "Someone stole it." Dana paused at the guard standing sentry at the door, and pointed at Devin, "Keep an eye on him."

Devin regarded the brick wall of a man towering over him with outright contempt. "Another bully," he muttered.

"You called them 'AI's,'" Alice poked Devin in the ribs for attention and he felt a brief slight at the rudeness, "as in artificial intelligence. Have you communicated with them?"