Recovery Program
Random walked through the employee entrance of the secure Federal
building registering as a random employee whose identity she had hijacked. Security
was slack at the employee entrance. She bypassed the metal detectors and x-ray
machines at the front entrance. Once inside, she took the stairs down to the
basement. The door at the bottom of the stairs gave her a clear view of the
hallway and server room. Locating a clear space between the racks, she slipped
inside. First, she erased the record of her entry into the building. There were
no cameras inside the server room, but there had been at the employee entrance.
She wiped her image from all recordings. As far as Security was concerned the
person whose Identity Card she had cloned was still at lunch.
Random had come for a specific packet of data. But first,
she needed to find it. She mapped out the room and traced various internal and
external system requests. Once she had a general idea of where to find it, she
went to the physical file location. She was concerned about imaging the data.
It was hard to do when the disks were in motion. Fortunately, the company had
changed from traditional SATA drives to cutting-edge solid-state drives. Just
as Random extracted the last bit of data, she sensed an involuntary slip.
The server room was momentarily in a hayfield on a farm
before fading from view. A dirt road led downhill to several barns and a
farmhouse. She knew that she was somewhere on Earth still. She pinged the
Global Positioning Satellites, but there was no response. Without the GPS, she
would have to go old school. Determining the exact position and time required
darkness. The abandoned farm would still provide shelter until she could figure
out where she was. She wandered upstairs in the old farmhouse and removed an
old dust-covered quilt from one of the beds. She placed it on the floor in
sunlight and laid down on it for a recharge.
A chill in the air woke Random from her dreamless sleep. She
walked back to the top of the hill and slowly scanned the night sky. Her
internal compass allowed her to find magnetic north. It was autumn in the
northern hemisphere. She was somewhere in the northeastern United States. She
made a second attempt at pinging a global positioning satellite. Again, there
was no response. Before she could complete her calculations, she slipped again.
Librus had sensed that Random was overdue and had recalled
her. She transferred the data packet to Librus. Bots would analyze it, find the
relevant code, and modify it. Random would wait until it was time to replace
the original data. It would likely be several minutes before the information
was ready for injection. Random reported the glitch that sent her into her
organic past. By the time she completed her own diagnostic, it was time to slip
back into the server room.
It was easier to enter the server room a second time because
Random didn’t need to go through security to enter the building. She slipped
directly into the room at the exact set of blades that stored the data packet.
The overwrite took just under two minutes. She slipped out seconds before a
technician would have discovered her.
Random waited while Librus computed her next objective.
Waiting was never good for her. It gave her time to think, to question her
work, to form her own opinions. Random didn’t like to have opinions as they
often led to emotional responses to her assignments. Librus had made her wait
around a lot more lately. It also had let her hold on to more of the data that
she had collected – bits and pieces that fit together like a puzzle.
Random played with the data, noticing that there were still
a few missing pieces to the puzzle. She had no idea where to go for the next
piece. It was up to Librus to decide. Librus had laid out the mission details.
The slip was a dangerous one and the timing was critical. She downloaded every
bit of data from Librus’s resources about the objective. She practiced the
mission in her head repeatedly until the steps to carry it out were pure
impulses. And then she slipped into the facility minutes before enemy fire
would destroy every bit of information in the base computer.
Random didn’t have much time. The base was under attack and the
crew had shut down everything. A single male had remained on station as the
enemy vessel advanced. He would have a device in his possession that contained
the information Librus had sent her to retrieve. Rather than waste time
wrestling for possession of the device, Random leapt at her quarry, grabbed
hold of the man, and slipped back to Librus with the laptop and its owner.
Random was only supposed to bring the laptop data. Her
instincts told her to grab both. The enemy had destroyed the base seconds after
she had slipped out. She dragged the laptop owner with her as she moved about Librus.
At first, he followed her in stunned silence as she took his laptop and transferred
all the data. Librus analyzed the contents of the laptop and ran a search on
the male human. According to records, Mason Dixon died when the base exploded. He
stayed close to her on his own volition, watching her every move.
Random tried to fit the new bits of data into the puzzle,
but was having trouble making sense of it. Something had changed since she came
back to Librus with this being. She just was having trouble seeing what was
different. Librus knew, but wasn’t sharing that information with her. Librus
hadn’t given Random a puzzle to solve. It had given her puzzle pieces to fit
together. She was searching for more than just the answer. She was searching
for the question. She looked at the male human and smiled. He held out his
right hand and introduced himself. “My name is Mason.”
Random held out her left hand in response. “Random.”
“Random?” Mason clasped and shook her hand. “Did your
parents not like you?
“I don’t understand the question.”
Mason furrowed his brow. “Okay. Let me know when I ask one
that you do understand. Where are we? How did we get here? And can I go back
where we came from?”
Random answered in her usual succinct way. “Librus. Time
slip. If you want to die.”
“I think I’ll pass on the dying.” He leaned against a
console. “What are you working on? Maybe I can help.”
“It’s a puzzle. I have most of the pieces. I do not require
your assistance.”
“Then why am I here?”
“Because there wasn’t enough time to leave you behind.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I needed the data in your possession. There was not enough
time to take it from you and leave you behind. It was just easier to take you.”
“But can’t you manipulate time?”
“No. I can slip from one point in time to another, but I
can’t affect the flow. And the less information that I have going in, the
harder it is to pick a slip point.”
“You were cutting it close.”
“No, you were
cutting it close. If I hadn’t slipped you out, you and your data would be lost
forever.”
“You could still send me back.”
“No, I can’t. According to Librus, you were an anomaly. You died
in the blast.”
Mason sat down on the floor. “So, either way I’m dead in the
past.”
“Presumably.”
“So, where do we go next?”
“We? We don’t go anywhere. I have one more slip to make to
complete this puzzle. And...” Random stopped mid-sentence and cocked her head.
“Seriously?”
Mason stood up. “Is there a problem?”
“Librus insists that I must take you with me on my next slip.
It says that the puzzle cannot be completed, if I don’t.” Random looked at her
companion. She reached out and grabbed Mason’s shoulder. A slip later and they
were on Concourse B of a space station headed for a food court. “Do you require
sustenance?”
Mason nodded his head. “I’m starving.”
Random cocked her head sideways. “You don’t look
malnourished.”
“It’s an expression. I could use some food because I’m very
hungry.”
Mason looked over the crowded tables at the various items of
food they were having. He asked Random about some of the items that he didn’t recognize.
He pointed at a bizarre mixture on one of the plates. Random shook her head. “Trust
me. You really don’t want to know.” Mason selected a bowl of broth and noodles
with vegetables. After he finished eating, she secured quarters for him.
Mason fell asleep soon after he laid upon the bed. Random
sat in a chair listening to him breathe. There was something odd about the
rhythm of it. She used the standby time to re-examine all the puzzle pieces. An
anomalous event wiped out an entire civilization. Librus had little information
about them and their obscure little world. It chose Random to assist in the
recovery program Librus initiated. She was the first artifact Librus had
recovered, stolen out of time moments before her impending death. In her own time,
her people would never recover her damaged body; but she would live on as a
hybrid Agent of Librus. And she would also be responsible for saving her
species.
Random sighed as she came out of standby. Librus was holding
something back. There was something odd about Mason besides his respiration
rate. Random thought about where she was. It was a place that hadn’t existed
prior to her removing Mason from the timeline. Earth had not built the lunar
orbital station in the original timeline. Perhaps she had already succeeded in
her primary mission of salvaging human civilization. But the question remained
about where Mason fit in the puzzle.
Random opened a connection to Librus. “How had pulling Mason
out of the timeline spared Homo sapiens from extinction?” Librus responded by
sending her a data file. The information recovered from Mason’s laptop contained
details about the defense grid set up to protect the Earth. If it had fallen
into the wrong hands, the inhabitants of Earth would have been unable to defend
themselves against the invading forces. It also included tactical information
detailing a planned attack on the enemy home planet. Except, the attack plans
were not real. Librus had created a packet of false information. She had
interrupted his transmission of the data after he had transmitted the false
attack plans and nothing else.
Mason’s role in the whole scheme was complete, but his
sudden disappearance was enough to convince his people that the data was
authentic. Despite the easy destruction of the Lunar Orbital Station, the
information Mason relayed to the alien dreadnought convinced the attacking
forces to retreat to defend their home planet. Librus had created a seemingly
innocuous piece of code that gradually constructed the false invasion plans
over time as the algorithm roamed freely on the internet. It eventually
embedded itself in the defense network.
Mason awoke to the smell of coffee. Random was pouring a cup
for herself. She smiled at him and offered to pour another cup for him. Mason
shuffled over to the table and sat down. She sat his cup of coffee down on the
table.
“What are you?” Mason took a sip and ignored the question. Random
sat down opposite him, holding her cup in her hands and staring him down. “You
are as human as I am, maybe less so. So, again, what are you?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
Data Packet
Random placed her hand against her firestick. Something
about the place made her uneasy as she pushed her way through the crowd. She
paused briefly to survey for uniforms. Six private guards stood between her and
her destination. Three uniformed law enforcement officers patrolled the crowd
of shoppers in the bazaar. Six to four, she felt sorry for the private guards
should they try to interfere.
The six guards didn’t challenge Random as she passed by
them. Perhaps her species reputation had made its way to the inner core after
all. Not that she was human anymore. That had all changed when the Librus
‘recovered’ her. A quick glance at her chronometer told her that she was on a
tight schedule. She had one tenth of a day to complete the task and ninety
percent of the it had elapsed already.
It was a long walk to the back of the corridor and there was
no guarantee that the entity that she was looking for would be there. The
alarms in her head kept going off one after another as she dismissed each one.
Push came to shove, she could always timeslip. The request had been for a
courier to pick up and deliver a packet. The Librus had sent her as back-up
should the courier fail to pick up and deliver the packet. Simple task. Simple
instructions. Except with Librus, nothing was simple.
The door at the end of the corridor slid open. Inside the
dark room, a creature sat suspended in the middle of what one could only
describe as a large spider web. The dead courier had become a wrapped package
that was leaning against the opposite wall. Random touched her firestick setting
it to standby before venturing past the threshold.
The door slid shut behind Random, sealing her in the unlit
room. She smiled as she watched the creature maneuver in the darkness. She drew
her firestick, ejected its blade, and began slicing away at the webbing. As the
creature leapt into the air, Random charged forward. She raised her firestick
and deposited a small explosive pellet in the creature’s undershell. Seconds
before detonation, she and the package shifted to another place.
Random carefully sliced the silk open, peeling away the
layers until she had reached the contents. She sighed and shook her head. The
body within was partially liquified, but Librus had assigned her to deliver the
small data module, not the courier. When she returned the body to the room a
few seconds later, she found the remains of the creature splattered over the
walls.
Four of the guards who Random saw posted outside the
building were waiting for her in the corridor. She was surprised to discover
that they were there to guard the packet. As long as it was in her possession,
they would act as her guards. The six guards escorted her through the crowded
bazaar to an awaiting ship. As she boarded the ship, she met the gaze of a
familiar face.
Random smiled and took the empty seat beside him. “Mason! It
good to see you. How long has it been?”
“Not long enough.” His response was barely audible. The six
guards that followed her on board made him feel more ill at ease. Random lived
up to her name. Events surrounding her seemed unordered as though someone had
shaken up the hours in a day and let them fall willy-nilly. “Why are you here?”
“You’ll have to ask them.” Random nodded toward the guards.
“Wasn’t my idea.”
“Are you capable of having ideas?”
Random let that slide. After all, she did yank him out of
his natural timeline just to save an entire planet. That wasn’t her idea
either. Lately, she hadn’t had a lot of ideas that were hers alone. Everything
had come from Librus. Do this, go there. Even the packet that she was carrying
was not something that she had chosen to do. She sighed.
“What was that all about?”
“What was what all about?”
“You sighed. Why did you sigh?”
Random sighed again, louder than before. “Honestly, do you
want to know when the last time was that I had an idea of my own? Do you
seriously care?”
“I asked, didn’t I?”
“The last time I had an idea was the day that I died. It was
the day Librus started the Recovery Program. It’s the reason that you existed
in that timeline that I stole you from. I DIED! YOU didn’t!”
Mason suddenly felt ashamed that he had been so angry about
having his life snatched away from him. “What was it like?”
“What was what like? Dying? Or being alive again?”
“Both.”
“Painful.” They traveled the rest of the way in silence.
Upon arrival at the way station, the six guards escorted
Random off the transport. Mason followed. The pass that Random had given him
granted him free passage anywhere. And at the moment, he was worried about her.
He need not have been worried. She was more than capable of taking care of
herself. Mason was no slacker himself when it came to knock down, drag out,
close quarter combat. He was also about to get himself killed.
Mason followed Random onto a large luxury liner, the SS
Victoria Regina. The four guards escorted Random to a deluxe cabin on the
cruise ship where she met with her client, or rather the original courier’s
client.
“You don’t look like Yago Tarsh.” The fat old man behind the
desk was Sarko Bragg. Random watched as his waddle waggled long after he had
stopped talking.
“Yago is no longer with us. I’m his replacement.” Random
pulled a small transparent envelop from her jacket pocket.
“It must have been some difficulty for Tarsh to hand off his
packet.” Bragg shifted his weight causing his chair to creak.
“He didn’t exactly hand it off. I took it from what remained
of him. My employer insisted that the packet be delivered.”
“How will I know that the packet is genuine?”
“There is some of Yago Tarsh attached to it.” Random held
out the small transparent envelope with the goo-covered module inside. Bragg
took the envelope from her and handed it to a nearby aide. “Someone didn’t want
you to get the information on that module. And your guards weren’t very
effective at protecting it.”
“They protected you.” Bragg huffed and looked at his aide
while the man scanned the contents of the envelope.
“They protected Yago’s DNA. I didn’t need their protection.”
Bragg waited for confirmation. His aide nodded and dumped the module onto a
small cloth to clean off the organic matter.
“So, I suppose I pay you now the Tarsh is kaputsky.”
“I don’t work for you. My employer wanted you to have that
data. My job was to guarantee its delivery. I’m done here.” Random turned to
walk away.
“Who’s your boss? I can send him a thank you or something.”
Random knew better than to stop and talk. She continued her walk to the office
door. She could hear him fumbling with a weapon as her hand reached for the
door handle. She pulled it open as he steadied his aim. She walked through
seconds before he fired.
Random emerged through the open portal back at the
waystation, slipping back in time to intercept Mason seconds after she boarded
the luxury liner. She smiled at Mason. “You don’t want to follow me onto that
boat. Where were you headed before you detoured to shadow me?”
“I... Well... I wasn’t really headed anywhere.”
“No time to make up your mind.” Random grabbed Mason’s arm. “We
have to leave now.” She pulled him down a corridor toward a transport back to Earth.
“Go home. Make the rest of your vacation a staycation.”
“How?” Mason wrested free of her grip. “I saw you board that
luxury liner with those guards. How did you manage to slip away?”
“I didn’t. But I didn’t see a point in you being involved in
something that has nothing to do with you. Now go home.” She paused and sighed,
“Please?”
Mason grabbed Random’s wrist and dragged her into a small
coffee bar. “Sit, have coffee with me, answer a few questions, then maybe...
just maybe, I’ll go home. Except Earth isn’t my home and you already know
that.”
Random looked at Mason’s hand and thought about breaking it.
It hardly seemed worth the trouble after saving his life – twice. “Fine.”
Before Mason could release her hand, Random slipped them both off the waystation
into a private club. She smiled as the host lead them to a private table.
Yago Tarsh smiled at Random. “Did the packet arrive on
time?” The creature sitting in the overstuffed chair was tapping at the air as
he spoke.
“Sarko Bragg is taking possession of it as we speak. Too bad
you lost another clone.” Random had rather enjoyed a look inside Yago’s gruff
exterior, but she kept a sober face.
“He’s going to try to kill you.” Yago’s warning was belated,
but it made Random smile to think he cared even a little for her well-being.
“All he manages is a hole in his office door.”
Yago smiled and swept away whatever had been distracting
him. He looked at Random, then pointed at Mason. “Who’s your friend?”
“Mason? He’s one of yours. Well, not yours specifically.”
“He looks human.”
“Well, he was a spy in his former life.”
“What is he now?”
“A bit of a vagabond. He was nearly deceased again.”
Mason had been wandering about the room, ignoring most of
the conversation up to that point. “What do you mean by ‘again’?
“You followed me on board that liner and died when Bragg
blew a hole in his door, or would have if I hadn’t intervened.”
Yago smiled. “Lucky for you, your girlfriend is a time
traveler.”
“She’s not my girlfriend. She’s not even a friend.”
Random pouted, then broke out laughing.
“How soon before Bragg uses the module?”
“He wants that data badly. Since someone killed you to keep
him from having it, I’d say about now.”
“Was it your employer? Just so’s I know where I stand with Librus.”
“No, it was someone who didn’t know what was on the module
and believed that it would help Bragg become more powerful. Librus already had
a copy of the data inside the module. I was backup in case something went
sideways.”
“But why? What’s Librus get from this?”
“Bragg would have started a war. Eliminating him prevents
that war.”
“And Librus ain’t worried about me?”
“You’re still breathing, aren’t you?”
Transfer Protocol
It had taken Librus some time to gather the data needed to
identify Mason Dixon. Infiltrating the various secure data banks of the Inner
Systems had taken some careful planning to prevent detection. Both predicting
and influencing the galactic future would be easier with the enlarged database.
But Librus would need another agent and it wanted Mason.
Random’s next assignment was to convince Mason to give
himself over to Librus. For Random, that was no easy task. Mason didn’t like
her and she didn’t like that Mason had a choice. In truth, she resented it. Her
death had been excruciating and despite the physical repairs to her damaged
body, she relived that death all too frequently.
It didn’t help matters much that Mason also couldn’t stand
her. He made it quite clear every time that they were together. She had tried
to ignore his dislike for her, but it stung. And Librus was keeping things from
her again – more puzzle pieces. It knew who she had been before she died.
Random was starting to remember, but like Librus she wasn’t telling.
The images came to Random during down time. Sometimes they
were blurry with muted sounds. Other times, they were crisp and clear images
accompanied by clearly audible sound. She schemed to grant herself more
downtime. Rather than slip to Mason’s current location, she took a transport
and settled in to the comfortable berth. She closed her eyes to let her mind
process all the new information that Librus had downloaded into her. It was
also a chance to inventory those memory fragments that she had found.
As she drifted into downtime, Random replayed those
memories. The confusion of people rushing around her, voices shouting above the
rumble as the building began to collapse around them. A sudden quake had broken
the building supports and the structure began to drop into a massive sinkhole.
She remembered the debris, the massive chunks of concrete and steel that fell
on top of her as the building peeled away from the walkway.
It was an unpleasant choking death as her lungs filled with
dust and her bones cracked. As sudden as the impact was, the death itself was
slow and painful. She reached out again for the memory trying to focus on who
she had been. There was a name on a tag handing around her neck. The employee
identification card had her picture on it and her name, but it was swaying and
any time she saw it clearly it was upside down.
Random snapped out of her reverie just as a large insect
tapped her forehead. “Excuse me,” it clicked out, “but I could swear that we
met before.” Random squinted at the bug, then laughed. “Don’t you work for Librus?
Go by the name of Random if I remember correctly. Anyway, I need your help, if
you are.” Random rolled her eyes, smiled wanly, and nodded. “Oh, good.” The bug
took up a sitting position on Random’s chest and began to enumerate the details
of its predicament. Random only half listened to what led up to its troubles.
“Well?” It waited for a response from Random, tapping one of its appendages in
anticipation.
“Fine, I’ll talk to Tarsh. But I’m not making any promises.”
Fortunately for Random, both Mason and Tarsh were currently
residing on the waystation between Earth and Alpha Pavonis. Yago and Mason had
become fast friends, much to her discomfort. By now, she was certain that Yago
Tarsh knew more about who Mason Dixon had been than she would ever know. It was
also true that Tarsh owed her a favor for her covering his last special
delivery.
Dealing with Tarsh would be easy. Convincing Mason to switch
his loyalty from Alpha Pavonis to Librus was going to be difficult, if not
impossible. Despite Librus’ confidence in her ability to complete the task,
Random didn’t have a clue where to begin. And she was still dealing with her
own identity issues.
The Pavonin attack on Earth had led to a cascade failure of
the ecosystem that led to the extinction of life on the planet. It was entirely
contrary to both human and Pavonin interests. Random had been instrumental in
deleting that unfortunate timeline and creating the current one. Mason had
played a part in that as well, though unwittingly. Random sorted through her
options for opening a dialogue with Mason.
“Excuse me. I’m sorry, I didn’t see you standing there,”
wasn’t one of them. Random had quite literally run into Mason. She extended her
hand to help the Pavo off the floor. He gave her a look of disgust before
grasping her hand.
“I can’t seem to avoid running into you, can I?” There was a
sneer to his question.
“Actually, I ran into you. But I was on my way to see you
anyway. Can we talk? Somewhere private, if at all possible.”
“We have nothing to talk about.”
“Librus begs to differ. It sent me to find you.”
“Well, you’ve found me. Now, get lost!”
“I can’t do that, Quell Darbo. Librus has requested that I
speak to you about the prospect of future employment as an extension of Librus.
I cannot leave until we have had that conversation.”
“Quell Darbo no longer exists. You have the wrong man.”
Random smiled. “Good. I was afraid that you were going to
pursue your old life and resurrect yourself. But now that you have established
that you wish to continue as Mason Dixon, we can proceed with the negotiation.”
“Whatever the offer is, the answer is no. I have no interest
in working with you.”
“You would not be working with me. Librus wishes to employ
you as an independent agent. It would require some further modification of your
hardware, but as you have already been substantially modified...”
“Whoa! What kind of modification?”
“You would receive augmentation that would allow you to slip
through time and space to facilitate your tasks. There would also be a need for
you to maintain near constant communication with Librus. I can demonstrate
those modifications for you if it would further clarify the issue.”
Mason stared, mouth agape, in disbelief. He had not thought
about his past or his future until Random extended the offer. Knowing that he
would have died on that station had caused him to live in the moment. Now Librus
offered a future, but it involved more changes that would take him farther away
from who he had once been. “Can I think about this?”
“Although the request is urgent, it is by no means
immediate.” Had it been immediate, Librus would have sent Random directly to
him and not allowed her to take her time. During her moment of contemplation, a
shockwave hit the waystation and Random found herself in the midst of a panic
attack. The shaking of the planet’s crust beneath the waystation shook loose the
last fragments of her memory of the day she died. “My name is Random.”
For a brief moment, a look of pure disgust occupied Mason’s
face. He had no intention of getting to know the human better. They were a disgusting
species by Pavonin standards. And yet, he had allowed himself to become one of
them, but only for the express purpose of wiping them out. The only reason that
he remained human was a desire to avoid execution as a traitor to his race.
Calm soon returned to Random as the shaking ebbed. “Please
let me know if you have any questions for Librus regarding the nature of your
employment as well as the intended modifications to your being.” With that
announcement, she turned and walked away. Mason stared at Random as she walked
down the hallway. She was busy having a conversation with herself or perhaps
she was talking to Librus. Either way, she was no longer talking to him.
Random was busy processing her newfound memories. The
building where she lived had collapsed on top of her after a mild quake caused
the sinkhole beneath the building to open up. Random was alone, left to her own
devices while her family was out for the day. She had just woken from a midday
snooze when the shaking started. There were some minor injuries among the other
tenants of the building, but Random was the only fatality.
Her family had named her Random when they adopted her. She
wondered if they had replaced her. They probably thought that she had run away.
She didn’t know enough about them to track them down. All she remembered was
the little girl named Hannah and even that memory was faint and fading away.
Back with Librus, Random examined the new body that had been
prepared for Mason. It was a much more durable body, shorter and wider than the
one he currently occupied and entirely legal. Librus didn’t want one of its
agents running around in a hijacked body. She captured a digital image of the
dormant host. It was one more enticement she had to offer him if he was still
reticent.
When Random returned to ask Mason for his assent, his reply
surprised her. After she showed him the new husk that he would be inhabiting,
he stated that his yes was conditional. She took him to Librus.
“I’m willing to accept your offer, but there are conditions.
I wish to keep this appearance which you may upgrade as you see fit and I wish
to be known only as Quell.”
“This is acceptable.” Librus intoned in its oddly mechanical
voice.
Random led Mason to the transfer room and instructed him to
lie upon the slanted table. He sank into the soft padding while a web of
nanobots coated his scalp. Librus transformed the new body to look like his
current body. There would be no trace of his original existence left after the
transfer.
Quell woke up to Random’s smiling face. “Welcome to Librus.
My name is Random. Can you tell me your name?”
Quell furrowed his brow. “I remember who you are. My name is
Quell.” Uncertain of what to do next, he extended his hand. Random took it and
helped him to stand. He looked over at the empty table. “What happened to my
old body?”
“We do not discuss such things during the adjustment period.
You must first discover your new capabilities. Your new body possesses enhanced
senses beyond what is normal for a human or a Pavo. You have an enhanced
capacity for data storage, as well as enhanced physical speed and strength. In
addition to a direct connection to Librus, you can now slip through time and
space with certain limitations.”
“What limitations?”
“You can slip through space within the same temporal point
or time within the same spatial point, but you cannot slip through both.”
Random placed her hand on Quell’s shoulder and slipped them both back to the
waystation, just in time to experience a second quake. Fortunately, it was
milder than the first, most likely an aftershock. “Librus gave me another
assignment. You can stay here and explore your extended senses. I will come
back for you later.”
“No. Take me with you.” Quell surprised them both with his
demand. He didn’t want to be on his own just yet. Random sighed, grabbed his
shoulder and slipped both of them off the waystation.
Trojan Keylogger
Random and Quell appeared among the ruins of an ancient
city. Nature had reclaimed much of the place, but up a set of steps stood an
old bronze portal. The doors stood against the vines that had attached
themselves to it. She looked around at the ruins, then rechecked her
coordinates. She was where Librus had instructed her to be.
Quell walked up the steps and pushed against the doors. They
didn’t budge. Random joined him at the top of the stairs and placed her ear
against the door. She gave the door a sharp knock and then listened to the echo
from within the chamber. Placing her hand on Quell’s shoulder, Random slipped
them both inside the building.
The room they were in smelled of decay and neglect. A small
sliver of light cut through the pitch black illuminating a single title on the
shelves in front of them. Random pulled the aging manuscript from the shelf and
carefully opened the heavy paperboard cover. She did not recognize the script,
but Quell did.
“You’re holding it wrong.” He turned the book making the
spine face away from her. He slowly ran his hand down the text, reading it to
her. She recognized the story from her past life. The little girl named Hannah
had read it to her, showing her the pictures that illustrated the story.
Quell’s book had no pictures.
“It’s a translation. I know the story, although sometimes it
gets all jumbled up with the other story.”
“What other story?”
“Through the Looking Glass. Too many queens and a white
rabbit to keep track of. But it always made the little girl giggle.”
“You’ve lost me. What little girl? Alice?”
“Never mind. It’s not important. Librus says that there are
less obsolete storage media here that will allow access to the data on the
books in this musty old place. We must find the room that it is stored in.”
“But it’s pitch-black in here.”
“Perhaps we need to slip back to a time when it isn’t.”
Random smiled and placed her hand on Quell’s shoulder. A few seconds later they
were in a well-lit library, devoid of must and dust. Quell placed the book back
on the shelf against a newer copy and followed Random as she headed toward the
back of the building.
At the bottom of a stairwell, Random slipped through a
locked door. Quell stared as she started down a long hallway from the small
window in the door. He sighed about remaining behind, until it dawned on him
that he could slip through to the other side. Quell appeared a few steps ahead
of Random seconds before she caught up and slipped them both through a door
into a small computer lab. “All of the library has been digitized. We need to
make copies of the data before it is destroyed.”
“How exactly are we going to do that?”
“We scan the magnetic storage, provided that there is
magnetic storage to scan. But we can’t start until we find a way to complete
the task without destroying the data.”
“Perhaps if we go back to when the data was created, we
could copy it then.”
Random pulled a thin transparent sheet from the file. “This
storage method allows thousands of pages to be stored on a single sheet. But it
does not allow for easy access. Perhaps we have gone too far back.” Random
removed four small milky orbs from her pocket and threw them at the four upper
corners of the room. The orbs quickly became transparent. “Librus will be able
to record all activity going forward. When we return to our origin point, we
should be able to retrieve the collectors.”
Error Message
The broad strip of red velvet dangled above Random’s head.
Each time she would reach for it, the ribbon would capriciously fly into the
air. Random started to jump nearly catching hold of it at times. Eventually,
she took to hiding beneath the decking waiting for the ribbon to touch the
ground before pouncing on it and running off with it, tripping and rolling in
the grass as she ran toward the bushes.
The dream had become something of a recurring nightmare for
Random. It was beginning to disturb her waking consciousness. Fortunately,
Librus had a new assignment for her. All interface screens to Librus flashed
with the same error message – DATA MISMATCH DETECTED. Librus sent her back to
the ancient library to install a second set of data collectors to determine the
source of the anomaly. Random deployed the collectors just after the opening
ceremony and returned to recover them moments before the destruction of the old
library.
Librus had just finished isolating the source of the error
when Quell arrived. The moment when Quell shelved a book next to its earlier
version looped on the monitors. Acknowledging his error, he returned to the
library to repair the damage. Fifteen minutes later, he returned with the
errant manuscript in his hand. The data error message disappeared and Librus continued
its task of ranking and sorting the various bits of gathered knowledge. The
task had become even bigger since the return of the second set of collectors.
Random and Quell left Librus to its machinations.
