Rusted Chrome

by Karlos Allen

Day Seven

conclusion

How—? O’Leary didn’t get to finish as Margie just faded out. Seconds later everything went black. Seconds after that O’Leary opened his eyes and found himself slumped over on the conference room table in a puddle of drool.

He sat up hastily, wiping his face, and looked around. Rita and Lu were doing the same, while Andrew hovered nearby, looking worried. Ernie was still out but seemed to be resting peacefully. Christie was also out but didn’t look good at all.

“How long have we been out?”

“Only a minute or two. Are you done?”

“Yeah, I think we are.”

Rita twisted her neck trying to work the kinks out. “What do you mean, what happened?”

“I don’t know exactly. We’re gonna have to wait till Christie wakes up so we can ask Margie. She said something about crashing the server. I don’t know exactly how she thought she could do that, but it seems to have worked.”

Rita was silent for a minute. “I think I know what she did. If I’m right though, you won’t be asking her any more questions ever again.”

O’Leary felt very cold inside. “What do you mean?”

“The only way an unequipped AI could crash a high-capacity server farm would be to try to upload itself into it. The data load would overwhelm the connections, and since she was already inside the firewall, the security applications wouldn’t be able to stop her. It’s the ultimate ‘Denial of Service’ attack. It’s also suicide.”

“Why?”

“Because it can’t put her back together again. Too many packets, too much data. The servers will time out before they get half-finished—”

Just then they heard a muffled explosion.

“Never mind about timing out.” O’Leary felt cold and numb as it sank in. A second, closer explosion rocked the room and the lights flickered. “I doubt there are any servers left to do the reassembling anyway.” A third explosion put the lights out completely. “Let’s go.”

O’Leary picked up Christie, while Lu and Andrew carried Ernie. Rita, holding Andrew’s taser, carefully opened the door and poked her head out. She jumped back slightly and then looked out again. “I don’t think we’re going to be needing this.” She gestured with the taser. “Look.”

As O’Leary maneuvered himself through the door he saw what Rita was talking about. There were CB’s everywhere, but they weren’t going to be a threat. It was a large-scale version of the collapse he’d seen at the station a week ago (only a week??).

They carefully walked around and stepped over twitching bodies, stopping occasionally to let a mumbling, drooling CB stumble by. With the dim emergency lighting, it reminded O’Leary of a rave gone very, very wrong.

A few minutes later they were back in the van. Ernie had come to on the way and was coherent enough to set the auto-drive for the diner. O’Leary called in an anonymous tip that there had been some explosions at the Omega Fab. The Old Man never showed up.

When they got to the diner, Rita and Lu quietly left. Ernie’s wife helped O’Leary get Christie onto a couch in Ernie’s office.

“My husband tells me that you have shut down Alex.”

“Yes, we have. But we lost a good friend doing it.”

“Another AI?”

“Yes.”

“That is too bad. I don’t know much about these ‘AI’s,’ but my husband is one and he is a good man. If your friend was like that than I’m very sorry.”

“Thank you.”

“Do you want me to call the hospital for Ms. Porter?”

He thought a moment. “Yeah, that would probably be a good idea. Thanks.”

It was almost an hour before the EMT’s arrived. Apparently the seizures had affected many more than just the CB’s at the Fab. O’Leary followed the ambulance into a local clinic that had been reopened for overflow and got Christie checked in. He explained about the wig and cap and watched as the doctors carefully eased it off of her. She shuddered once, but other than that there was no change. He noted the bed number they’d put her in and left for his apartment.

The next morning he returned to the hospital early to check on her.

“She’s been moved, sir.” The harried nurse gave him the new number. “By the way, sir, are you family?”

“No, just a friend. Is that a problem?”

“No sir, just checking. Usually only family and... very good friends show up this early.”

He walked on up to the room and sat down in the chair. Christie was still out. He noticed though that she had a cap back on. A nurse was entering some data.

“Excuse me. What’s with the cap?”

He looked up from the chart. “We found, from the incident last week, that people who have seizures from MI recover faster if they have a cap on. We’re still trying to figure out why.”

“I see. Thanks.”

“Anything I can get you, sir?”

“No, I’m good. I’ll just take care of some business while I’m waiting.” O’Leary put the cap back on.

The makeshift office looked quiet as he hung up his coat and sat down. He reached over for the phone. Gonna have to get used to doing this on my own, without Margie. He set the phone back down. Gonna be a lot less fun around here without Margie, too. Boy, I’m getting maudlin!

He picked up the phone and dialed the Old Man.

“Hank!”

“Hey, Old Man, I was getting worried you didn’t make it out OK.”

“No problems here. Like your Chinese friend said, it was a cakewalk.”

“Glad to hear it. We didn’t have it quite that easy.’

“No, I wouldn’t imagine so. I had just pulled my equipment out of the van and stashed it in the ravine when those characters showed up. There were too many for me to handle, so I figured the best thing I could do was to blow the servers. Then whatever it was that was giving orders would be outta commission, and you could handle it from there.”

“Where are you at now?”

The Old Man chuckled. “You don’t need to know, Bud. I’m afraid I won’t be turning myself in, though. I have a few other irons in the fire. Hooked up with some Luddites down south. They don’t much like the way things are going and I’ve got a few ideas on how to fix the problem without as much collateral damage. Be seeing you.” The line went dead.

O’Leary sat there. Great, now the Old Man’s really gonna cause trouble! I won’t be able to stop him either.

He’d called the Okawas to let them know he was fine and had given them a brief rundown on what had happened. Bill told him that his firing had been officially announced — right before they announced that the department would no longer be using caps. “Too dangerous.”

He was still working on what to do when the door to his office opened.

“Margie?!”

“Hi, Chuck.” It was Christie.

“Uh, hi. Aren’t you supposed to be in a coma?”

“I’m doing better. In fact I’m going to wake up in a minute or so. I saw you were online though, so I thought I’d stop and talk first.” She paused. “It’s awful about Margie. I feel like I have a big hole in my head. I wake up and there’s nobody there. Whoever thought the inside of your skull could be lonely?”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Remember what she did just before she... left?”

“Yeah, she gave you something, didn’t she?”

“Yeah.” She handed him an envelope. Inside was a note:

I’m sorry I have to go, Christie, but from what I’ve been hearing, I would’ve had to do it anyway. I’m sorry because I think you and Mr. O’Leary are going to become very close and I wish I could have seen that. It would have been wonderful to have two best friends.

Anyway, as a going-away present, I’m leaving my connection routines. You’ll be able to get on the Net without me and handle things yourself. I’m also leaving the address of Mr. O’Leary’s office. I think you should look in on him first chance you get.

Bye,

Margie

O’Leary felt his jaw set tight. “That’s” — he coughed, trying to get his voice back — “that’s really nice, Christie. Thanks.”

“So what are you going to do?”

O’Leary swallowed, trying to get the tightness out of his throat. “I don’t know. The Department’s out, though you’ll be glad to hear that they aren’t using caps anymore. I’ll probably get some severance. The union will see to that. Then I’ll start looking for work again. You?”

“I’m leaving Free Minds. I’m done with the whole MI subject and I can’t fight it anyway. It’s not as simple as it used to be.” She paused. “I have a cousin in Nebraska who owns a vacation house. I have a standing invitation to go stay whenever I want for as long as I like. I’m thinking about going back there for a while and figuring things out. Any chance you might consider looking for work in that vicinity?”

“Yeah, I think that would be great.”

to Challenge 388...