Марта Уэллс - Network Effect

The whole plateau was probably a remnant site, maybe even a ruin, with who knew what under that seal in the shaft. Holy shit, they were growing their food in it.

2.0 hesitated, suddenly appalled. If the contamination is transmitted through code, do you think ART’s still infected?

No. Because targetControlSystem got angry and deleted ART’s current version . ART must have been infected when it made the copy, but when it restarted the first thing it did was purge the processing space targetControlSystem was using. It deleted every part of targetControlSystem, treating it like killware, and it must have deleted the infected… code, or whatever it was. An alien code, in a form that didn’t make sense. Well, sort of sense. It must be using the same principle as the machine-readable code written into human DNA that was how things like augments worked, and constructs, and you could transfer malware that way if you weren’t filtering for it… Oh, shit. ART got the infection from an augmented human, like this system did. The Targets sent an infected human carrier aboard—

Two humans! 2.0 corrected. Ras and Eletra .

It was right. And they said they were injured, and ART put them on the medical platform and read the contaminated code into itself. TargetControlSystem deleted their memory of it through the implants, and maybe the contamination—

No, no, 2.0 said. They didn’t use them to transfer the contaminaton. I bet the Targets used them to transfer targetControlSystem to ART. That’s why Eletra’s memories were so messed up, it was using her neural tissue as storage space for its kernel . It added, It’s kind of like killware. That’s why we keep running into it. It’s replicating .

I stared at Central’s system box. Conclusions:

1) The alien remnant had forced a contaminated human to bring it within range of the nearest operating system, a pre-CR central system.

2) The infected central system had partitioned itself (compulsively? Like the humans in alien contamination incidents who built weird things and killed each other?) and created targetControlSystem, a malware-like system that was a hybrid of outdated Pre-CR tech and whatever the alien remnant was.

3) TargetControlSystem had spread to the Adamantine systems and colonists. It made them use the Pre-CR tech, because that’s what the Pre-CR central system understood. It had them build what it wanted out of the Pre-CR tech, like the drones, and the implants. Pre-CR tech using alien code.

4) But it was still stuck here in the colony, on the terraformed section of the planet. Then the Barish-Estranza contact group had arrived.

I’d been in the shaft with the unsealed remnant and I was in this room. I still didn’t feel infected. But then, targetControlSystem hadn’t tried to infect the SecUnits on the explorer, either, including Three, who according to 2.0 had been ordered to stand frozen and helpless in the corridor. Maybe it couldn’t affect constructs. That would be nice.

2.0 said, So who’s targetContact?

Right, the contact that had been in communication with the explorer’s instance of targetControlSystem. 2.0 had thought it was a human, or at least, not an alien. 2.0 had followed that contact’s connection to this installation, and ended up in Pre-CR Central’s network…

Oh, I had a bad feeling.

I stepped forward slowly, circling the web of connections. The only sound was my bad knee grinding and the despairing repeat of the distress signal. 2.0 said, Uh, where are we going?

I have to check something . I angled around to a break between two tables where there was a void in the connections. I eased forward and managed to fall/crouch down on the floor near the sprawled body of the human.

The thing is, I had realized there was no odor of decomp. The death had to have happened at least months ago, if not more than a planetary year, or years, if it was the incident that had kicked off the major contamination spread. But the shape of the body I could see under the white growth didn’t look all sunken and gross or dried out.

The white crystalline substance was grainy, and it grew out of the human’s ears and mouth. I had to edge forward at an angle and then lower my head down to get a view of the human’s face. The skin had blue-white blotchy patches standing out against the light tan. That might be decay, and it might be the same process that had changed the Targets’ skin color and texture. I saw the eyes were blue. And they were looking at me.

I scrambled away from it, out of the circle of racks and tables. I couldn’t get up because of my knee and I was afraid to turn my back on it to use the wall to climb to my feet.

2.0 said, I know violence isn’t the solution to everything, but in this case…

In this case, yeah.

I pointed my right arm energy weapon at the human’s head, upped the intensity as far as it would go, and fired.

The white material flashed and emitted a faint odor I couldn’t identify. The human still looked at me, expressionless. Their eyes were crusted with dried fluid, unable to blink. Oh, why can’t anything be easy, just this once?

I tried to kill it three times. Until 2.0 said, Those scars and marks on the floor around it could be projectile and energy weapon impacts. Somebody else has tried to kill it, multiple times, from different directions and with different weapons .

Great. Tried to kill it, and tried to blow up the entrance to this chamber, but had been stopped before they could use an explosive big enough. The contamination must have done something to the human host’s organic tissue, a self-protection function.

I was reluctant to go over there and put my fist through its head because (a) I thought I was immune to code contamination but maybe not if I actually got remnant on my organic parts and (b) if energy weapons wouldn’t work, punching probably wouldn’t, either. I needed to be smart about this.

I made myself turn around and use the wall to drag myself up so I could stand. There are tools in the shaft. We need to find something that can smash it, or a bigger explosive . I know, I can barely stand and walk, so this was me being really optimistic right now.

2.0 said, Uh, potential problem. Why hasn’t targetControlSystem called for help? There has to be proximity detection of some kind. Plus, targetContact there can see us.

Oh. That was a good question.

Central said suddenly, query: client population deceased? Y/N.

It was asking about the humans. I told it acknowledge: No. Client population endangered .

It said, query: client population assistance?

I didn’t have the right code and I didn’t want to lie to it. Everything was so much worse even than it looked. I said, acknowledge: unknown.

It didn’t respond.

I said, query: proximity alert in progress? It was aware of its situation, it might be able to tell if targetControlSystem knew we were here.

It said, acknowledge: No alert. No proximity alert. No unknown organism present. In network only .

Uh. It was saying the targetControlSystem wasn’t reacting to me because it read my presence as non-hostile. It thought I was a Target, an infected colonist.

I couldn’t respond. SecUnits aren’t supposed to be able to go into shock like humans but my performance reliability had dropped another 5 percent, which is kind of a lot all at once.

I’m not in network, I told the central system. I’m not infected .

2.0 said, Uh. I think maybe you are. I read diagnostic anomalies. Hold on.

Central System sent me an image, a connection map of the room, like the one 2.0 had made. My hard address was on it, and a connection to targetControlSystem.