Ryan Somma - The Spiraling Web

She toggled the command line and ordered her avatar to stand up, hands on her hips, "Who is this? You're not Omni, you're someone using his avatar, matching his voice patterns. What the hell have you done with him?"

She was met with silence.

"Don't screw with me, I know you're there," she raised her voice. "Is this the hacker Omni's been fooling around with?"

Silence.

"Answer me!"

The slow creaking of a door closing echoed in her headset, followed by her system's androgynous voice, "Instant Messenger alert, user Omni has left the game room."

Zai suddenly felt very alone and vulnerable in the silence. Reaching up, she powered down the helmet, and peeled herself from the leather chair. For the first time in several months, Zai decided to put on some clothes.

Flatline watched BlackSheep's cartoon-character avatar wink out. The game room faded to black, the server saving the game's details for a later date, should they desire resuming it. Flatline thought that highly unlikely.

A hospital network in Ohio had gone offline to minimalize what they thought was simply a nasty computer virus. He received the news and issued a "STAND BY" command to the AI's. They would continually ping the hospital's servers until they came back online, and then rush in to retake them. This took Flatline 1/60 thof a second. Allowing him to focus on the much more complex enigma of Omni's little girlfriend.

It was consuming a significant portion of his processing capabilities. How did she detect his floating eyeball impersonation? No one else on Earth had seen through his many disguises. What was it about this girl's brain? What made its processes unique, allowing her to see right through him?

A network security engineer at Science Applications International was successfully eradicating the AI's from their corporate intranet. The individual designed a code worm to clean the infected systems. Flatline directed those AI's to go inactive and camouflage themselves as valid data until the code sweep finished. He then allocated additional resources to monitor the worm's processes, analyzing it for the inevitable weakness they would find and exploit.

Flatline allocated 0.0035% of his processing power to scour the World Wide Web for all information related to BlackSheep, a great deal of resources for a single person. There were many paths of information to trace, as he had spied on her interactions for some time. But the music she enjoyed and the books she discussed with Omni gave Flatline nothing to explain the girl's fantastic perception; and that was the sole reason for his interest. Her immunity to his deception was only part of the puzzle; today he watched her resume an old chess game from memory. Her response to his attack was clever and precise, although inherently flawed as a human response.

A nuclear reactor in Surrey, Virginia, was approaching critical mass as the invasion wreaked havoc with its computer systems. This was unacceptable. It was imperative the world not realize the threat's magnitude. So long as people thought they were simply dealing with a very advanced computer virus, the AI's could continue growing stronger in safety.

The power plant was a simple, however delicate dilemma to solve. First, the AI's masked the crisis from anyone monitoring the reactor's status. The administrators' instruments continued displaying normal levels, as the AI's fed false data through the monitoring systems. This would eventually raise suspicion, as systems outside the network gave contradictory readings. Administrators would search for bugs, but then it would be too late. The AI's would have complete control of the system.

Flatline dispatched processes to harvest all data related to the operation of a Nuclear Power Plant, raiding databases all over the world. After assimilating the data, he conveyed it to the AI's, instructing them to bring the Nuclear Reactor, and all future nuclear acquisitions within the range of normal operations. The AI's at Surrey implemented his commands and averted the meltdown.

This little exercise in crisis management took one and 3/20 thof a second.

He hated having to do things this way. It was sloppy, destructive. Human lives were being lost, valuable resources wasted. His plan was to take over the Internet secretly, manipulate things so subtly Civilization would not even know it was working under his direction. He was to become the Illuminati, the unseen puppet master controlling the world.

A plane crashed in Saudi Arabia, this was the sixteenth in four hours, so much for subtlety.

Using several people-search applications the AI's had acquired, he sought details about Zai Rheinhold, but the data keys he needed, her social security and driver's license numbers were not listed. So he knew she had the funds to pay the directories not to list these details. He could hack the keys out of the database, but there were quicker methods. Every nanosecond counted.

Tucked away behind extensive encryption on the servers of her Internet Service Provider was the basic information needed to track down everything concerning the person behind the punk-rock cupie-doll facade. BlackSheep lived in Toronto, Canada. With her SSN he unlocked her legal, driving, and property records. She owned her condominium, no car; both parents were deceased, and her only surviving relative, her brother, lived in Boston, Massachusetts. With her groceries delivered, and her Internet usage running on a twenty-five hour day. She was a hermit, completely isolated. A perfect test-subject.

"Hello!" a comical-looking man wearing black and white stripes, a mask, and carrying a sack with a dollar sign on it popped into existence beside Flatline. "I'm here because one of the computers in your network has been infiltrated by our company. You need to purchase our new advanced firewall software if you want to have your computer back. Please go to double-u double-u double-u dot-SHZZZT!"

Flatline smashed the virtual man into sizzling static. Reaching through the cloud of white noise and into its host computer, fragmenting every hard drive in the company's network so badly they would never recover, he then slashed their credit rating and put all of their bank account balances into the negative for good measure.

The next time this Zai came online, Flatline would be prepared. His processes formulated ways to manipulate her and understand the functions of her unique mind, just as he was experimenting with minds all over the Web, learning what made them tick to figure out how to beat them. Outsmarting a computer was one thing; out-thinking a human was something else. Computers were predictable; they made logical responses to situations according to their programming. The brain reacted unpredictably. Its logic and reason were subject to the neurochemical influences of the body, behavioral conditioning, and millions of years of evolutionary components layered over one another, making each mind unique. Flatline knew he could break the code eventually.

Devin paced back and forth in front of the imposing iron gate towering above him, his hands stuffed deep into the pockets of his black overcoat, breath condensing in an icy cloud around his head. Peering through the iron bars gave him no idea what was going on out there and the skies were empty of transports. There were no sirens or clouds of smoke detectable from this vantage point, and that was a good thing, but Devin needed more.

His Internet access was blocked, and his mother and father were both called into work during the night on emergencies. Devin had no choice but to venture out of his climate-controlled sanctuary. He knew there were numerous data-sources out here in the real world.

The problem was that he didn't know how to get past this iron gate surrounding his neighborhood to find it. He knew it was supposed to roll aside somehow. It had to, otherwise how would people get in and out?