Eddies In The Event Stream

By Phoebe Bradley

 

 

 

1

 

 

 

            The shock of having been so violently severed from the construct caused Theodora Flint to split in two; her listless body fell to the floor in a mangled heap while her mind, having been torn from its vessel, spun maniacally around the room in subatomic delirium, colliding savagely with molecules of hydrogen, carbon and phosphate.  Somehow, she realized, her consciousness had merged with these VR ghosts.  Was she dying?  Terror gripped what was left of her mind; she had  to get back to her body.  Frantically overtaking a stream of hydrogen particles, her mind projected its way through the molecular chaos.  Where the hell was it?  Was she too late?  Gravitating towards a small indefinable shape in the darkness, she was stunned to realize it was her own limp shell of a body lying lifeless on the floor.  The shock of encountering herself in this manner completely overwhelmed her consciousness and immediately she began to unravel.  Spiraling helplessly down into the emptiness contained within the recesses her mind, the last thing she was aware of was the resonate sound of a crackling fire and the smell of singeing flesh. 

            When she awoke she was numb and confused.  What the hell had happened?  She slowly tried opening her eyes but as she did, a searing pain shot through her entire body provoking an inhuman moan to issue forth.  Reeling from the pain and disturbed by the strange alien sound that had just come out of her mouth, she desperately tried to transpose her cries into words but only succeeding in making herself sound even more inhuman.  What is happening to me?  Her head felt as though it had been pierced by a knife and when she tried lifting her hand to her head, it refused to move and remained where it was, unresponsive.  Perhaps something had fallen on her and she was being crushed beneath its weight.  Or still worse, maybe it had paralyzed her.  I’d better just start with the fingers, she decided.  So lying there in the darkness, for what to her felt like an eternity, Theodora Flint slowly began to flex the fingers of her right hand until finally, her arm moved slightly. 

            Silently, she congratulated herself and began to prepare stimulating the muscles of her other arm, but before she even got the chance, her mind was suddenly invaded by a swarm of VR ghosts.  “Francis Crick!” she cried, hazing severely.  She had to get hold of a stabilizer.  Phantom molecules of Adenine, Cytosine, and Thymine, dislocated from the construct she had been working on before the crash, were now savagely trying to devour her mind.  Pulling all of her mental and physical strength together, Theodora somehow managed to maneuver herself into a sitting position; at least now she knew the station was still there!

            “NESTOR!” she called out to the darkness.  But there was no response.

            “NESTOR!  What the hell is going on around here?”  Again only silence.  The hair on the back of her neck stood up.  This was impossible!  Something terrible must have happened. 

            Theodora crawled along the floor until she came to a wall.  Supporting herself carefully, she stood up slowly.  With both hands on the wall, she made her way through the dark until her fingers found the slightly protruding box she was seeking.  Cautiously, she pulled the door open, reached in, and pressed her palm against the cold metallic panel and instantly the station was illuminated. 

            “Oh shit!”  She said falling forwards in an attempt to shield her eyes from the blinding light. 

            The room she was standing in was a perfectly symmetrical black cube.  The walls, floor and ceiling were encased in a dense black foam like material.  The only object in the room was a suspended reclining chair.  Scanning the room carefully she noted nothing appeared to be out of place. 

            “NESTOR!” she yelled again. 

            Silence. 

            Her rational mind kicked in; perhaps there had been an earthquake and a system wide shut down had been initiated.

            Leaning back against the wall, she stared across the room and suddenly her eyes lit up.  On the wall opposite her was another protruding panel.  She let out a huge sigh of relief and slowly crossed the room towards it.

            Pulling open the door, she stepped back quickly as a small square section of the floor beneath her began to slid open revealing a shiny copper pad.  After it had opened fully, Theodora stepped onto the copper pad and stared into the open box.  Nothing happened. 

            “DAMN IT!” she cried staring at her own reflection on the smooth static surface.  “Doesn’t anything work in here?”

            Maybe I blew a circuit somehow, she thought to herself; but that still wouldn’t explain NESTOR not responding.

            “NESTOR!” she yelled; the pain in her head swelling.  Again no answer.

            Reaching inside her vest pocket, Theodora pulled out a small vial and shook two triangular orange pills into the palm of her hand.  She was quite accustomed to swallowing stabilizers without any water and despite her weakened condition, she did so now effortlessly and within minutes she could feel the ‘depolarizing’ effect they had on her brain.  This would reduce her pain considerably and keep her from hazing at the same time. 

            Maybe her brain had been too polarized for the MORF to function properly.  Stepping back onto the copper pad she stared into the lifeless screen.  Nothing.  It was unquestionably dead.  Now what?

            It was obvious NESTOR’s primary functions had been affected and that it was quite possible that even the secondary and some of the tertiary functions had been affected as well, but in order to have an accurate understanding of what had happened she’d have to leave the station.  Walking towards the exit, the thought that perhaps the damage had been localized; that it had been isolated only to platform 6, occurred to her.  At least this idea contained a measure of hope for her.  Because if this wasn’t the case and a system wide failure had taken place, there would be no way of telling what measure of catastrophe lay in wait for her on the other side of the door.  But there was only one way to find out. 

            Theodora Flint took in a deep breath, wiped the palms of her hands against her vest and cautiously placed her hand squarely against the SECSYS unit and braced herself.  The door began to give and the instant it did, she could hear the alarm sounding in the corridor. 

            “Holy shit.” she said; her heart sinking to her toes.  Now wait a minute- let’s not jump to conclusions.  Noise is good, at least it meant that life support was still functioning. 

            She stood in the doorway trembling.  People rushed by oblivious to her.  Stepping out in to the vast chrome corridor, she watched as bio-engineers and mechanics ran madly in either direction.

            “Dr. Flint!”  A voice from behind her called out.

            Turning, she recognized a member of her staff running towards her.

            “Dr. F-Flint!  We thought you m-might have been k-killed by the c-crash!” he hopelessly stuttered.

            “Calm down Rox!  That’s an order!” she barked at the red face man running towards her. 

            Upon hearing her voice, the young man; who couldn’t have been more than twenty years old, stopped running and stood still. 

            “Now Rox-” she said calmly.  “Tell me everything you know.”

            “NESTOR’s down and we’ve got no platform function at all.....oh and the MORF is down as well.”

            “Are the velocitors running?”

            “Yes.”

            “Is Dr. Felkor working on this?”

            “Yes sir.”

            “Were is he?”

            “In his lab sir.”

            “Any internal communications running?”

            “Yes sir, the VidCom’s running.”

            “Good.”  That was a bit of luck.  At least she’d be able to reach the SECSYS center and Rinehold.  Blast..... she had forgotten all about Rinehold.  A knot tightened in her stomach, she’d better contact him right away. 

            “Rox-” she said taking the young man by the arm.  “I am putting you in charge of VR security.”

            “M-me sir?” the young man sputtered.

            “Yes- and I want you to assemble all the mechanics and engineers in conference rooms 2 and 3.  The first thing you need to do is to get these people under control.  We can’t have everyone running around out here in a panic.  Do you understand?”

            “Y-yes s-sir,” he replied.

            “I will contact Dr. Felkor and we’ll come up with a diagnostic plan.  I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

            “Yes sir,” the bewildered man repeated, he still couldn’t believe she had just put him in charge of VR security.

            “Well?  Then I suggest you get a move on!”

            Theodora watched as the frantic young bio-engineer set off on his mission.  She knew she was good in a crisis, she always had been.  Even during the production failure two years ago she had behaved exemplary.  She worked well with others, instilling in her workers a strong sense of confidence and trust, that is for the most part; there were however, a few exceptions.  Weston Felkor was one such exception and unfortunately, he was the one person she worked most closely with. 

            Just ahead of her at the end of the cavernous hall a line of people had formed in the intersection.  This was the velocitor bank for the North and South Tower junctions.  Crick!  Where the hell were all these people going.  There were fourteen platform stations on the 126^th level and eight Bio-labs and by the looks of it, all of the researchers were standing out here in the hall.

            “Look!  It’s Dr. Flint,” someone in the line yelled as she approached and the crowd instantly hurled a frenzy of questions at her. 

            “I want everyone to calm down!” she ordered the crowd.  “I want you all to report to CON 2 and 3 immediately.  You will receive your orders from Dr. Rox.”  A murmur went through the crowd.

            “How long will the primaries be down?” someone cried out.

            “I can’t say at this time.  Until we know the exact nature of the malfunction, I am in the dark as much as you.”  A shudder went out among the crowd.  Sensing the concern she added, “Team diagnostics will be  designated within the hour.  Until then, I want you all to report to Dr. Rox and await further orders.”

            But the crowd stood there motionless.

            “ON THE DOUBLE AND THAT IS AN ORDER!” she bellowed at them.

            With that the crowd reluctantly headed off down the south corridor towards the conference rooms.

            She had to contact security right away!  No telling how the other floors would be handling this.  Of course the floors that utilized NESTOR’s primary functions would be hardest hit and as far as she knew the secondary and tertiary functions had not even been affected at all.  So with any luck, most of the people probably didn’t even know that there had been a crash! 

            The door on the velocitor #8 slid open.  There were already a few people in it.  Most she recognized as mid management types and two from security.

            Stepping into the velocitor she said, “Level 120.”

            “We’re on manual,” someone pointed out to her as he punched the number she had requested on the exposed panel grid.

            To the one security officer she recognized, she asked; “How is the situation in R&D?”

            “Okay now.  Dr. Felkor’s initiated level 3 procedures.”

            “Good,” she said nodding.  “How about internal communications?”

            “Everything’s been re-routed to the VidCom units.”

            “Good.”

            “And quarantine?” she asked in a whisper.

            “Backup integrity is holding.”

            “Good.”

            “Excuse me Dr. Flint,” said a woman she recognized as being an systems analyst on level 131.

            “Renquist?  Mara isn’t it?”

            “Yes that’s right,” said the woman nervously.  “Dr. Tevra asked me, if should I run into you, to have you contact Dr. Rinehold right away.”

            “Yes, thank you Mara.”  The last thing Theodora wanted to worry about right now was Archimedes Rinehold.  She’d have to face him soon enough.  He was bound to blame her for everything. 

            “Dr. Flint- level 120 ,” said someone touching her sleeve.

            “Ah yes,” she said exiting the velocitor.  “Good bye.”

            Theodora was surprised by how deserted the floor was.  No commotion, no hysteria; not a single person in sight.  Evidently the level 3 security procedure initiated by Weston had worked.  She hoped by now her own floor was getting under control; that was just the sort of thing Weston would needle her about.

            Walking down the corridor, her footsteps echoing off the walls, she began to speculate on what could have caused the network to have gone down.  Nothing like this had ever happened before; therefore, the only logical explanation that she could come up with was either it had been an act of outright sabotage or there had been some sort of contamination to the bio-processors and with any luck, with Weston already on the investigation, there was a good chance he could already confirm this.  Secretly, she hoped this wasn’t the case.  She could barely stomach the idea of having to deal with Weston gloating over the fact that he had solved something without any help from her.  She found his competitiveness repugnant.  She knew that he still felt she wasn’t qualified for the job and that he believed the only reason she had gotten the commission in the first place was because her mother had been the CEO at the time.  But that had been well over fifteen years ago and Weston had been nurturing his jealousy and bitterness for so long, that when it came to Theodora, it was quite impossible for him to be objective. 

            Placing her hand on the SECSYS unit outside Weston’s lab, Theodora prepared herself mentally for the insults that awaited her inside.

            “And just where the hell have you been?” grunted a tall gaunt man as she stepped into the office. 

            “On platform 6,” she said nonchalantly.

            “I should have guessed,” he hissed under his breath; turning his back on her and resuming his task.

            Weston Felkor was a thin, spidery man with sunken hollow eyes.  Everything about him made Theodora feel uneasy.  Ignoring his jabs, she continued; “I was working with a new hybrid Ribosome construct when NESTOR went down.”

            “You’re damn lucky you didn’t go into cardiac arrest,” he snorted at her. 

            “Okay Wes,” she said planted her hands firmly on her hips.  “Let get one thing straight.  I don’t relish the idea of working with you either, but we have no choice.  Is that clear?”

            With his back still facing her, he saluted theatrically and replied; “Yes sir!”

            This man was an idiot!  A child.  And she was not going to give him any satisfaction by responding to his childish gestures.  Ignoring him, she demanded; “What exactly do you know about our current situation?”

            Spinning around abruptly Weston replied, “Well Dr. Flint, while you were busy wandering around in ‘phaze-land’, I was able to run a diagnostic analysis on the problem.  It would appear that NESTOR’s main bio-processors have been invaded and contaminated by a micro-organism.”

            Just as she had suspected.  “Is it one of ours?” she asked standing perfectly rigid.

            “I don’t know yet,” he said walking over to a flat panel display unit.   “I’m running a cytometric analysis right now.  But without access to the primaries, I’ve had to divert all the data through system 50 “

            “Christ that could take all night!” she said alarmed.

            “There’s not much we can do about it Doc,” he said sarcastically.

            “How did this thing get by the viroceptor?”

            “Quite simple,” he said smugly.  The viroceptor didn’t even detect it.”

            “But that should be impossible!”

            “It should be, but obviously it isn’t.  Something got in there.”

            Theodora approached the flat panel to get a better look at the image on the screen.  It took her a moment to understand what she was looking at, she hadn’t seen anything like it in years; not since her history of computer science at the academy.  Looking at Weston’s limited two dimensional representation of NESTOR’s invader made her laugh out loud.

            “What’s so damn funny?” he asked unamused.

            “It’s just the data.... it- it  looks so flat, so compressed.”

            “That’s exactly what it is.  I had to translate it through some old Bohr modeling routines and this is as good as it gets.”

            “How about using a secondary FDDI-3 channel?”

            “How? By diverting security priorities?”

            “Exactly.”

            Not wanting to admit that was a good idea, Weston tried to dismiss it; “Security will never give us the clearance.”

            “When I see Rinehold I’ll ask him.”  And just as she had said that, the VidScreen next to the flat panel came to life and Theodora was struck by the uncanny feeling that they had both been secretly under remote observation.

            “Looks like you’ve got your chance now,” Weston mumbled under his breath. 

            On the VidScreen, the image of a very formidable man was just beginning to materialize. 

            “Dr. Rinehold,” Theodora said surprised, “I was just about to........”

            “What the hell is going on?” Archimedes Rinehold demanded.

            “NESTOR’s bio-processors have been contaminated by a micro-organism,” Weston was quick to explain.  “A virus.”

            The man on the screen stared at them in disbelief, making his chiseled features become even more exaggerated.  “Isn’t that impossible?”

            “In theory it is,” Theodora said calmly as she sat down in front of the VidScreen.  “But our present situation would indicate otherwise.”

            “And that’s the best you could come up with Flint?” 

            Weston sat sniggering to himself, he loved it when Rinehold took swipes at Theodora.”

            “Wipe that damn smirk off your face Weston!  I want you two to fix what ever it is that’s gone wrong damn it and I want it done now!  Is that clear?”

            “Yes sir,” Theodora replied.  “But I’m afraid it’s not going to be that simple.  I mean it’s going to take some time.”

            “It’s just a goddamn virus isn’t it.  We make thousands of viruses a year.  How difficult can it be to come up with an anti-virus?”

            “We’re not sure it’s one of ours?” Weston Felkor replied.

            “Not one of ours?” repeated Archimedes.  “What the hell do you mean it’s not one of ours?  Who the hells is it then?”

            “What Weston means sir,” said Theodora moving closer to the panel, “is that on first analysis the genome of the virus does not conform to company standards.”

            Weston leaned in front of Theodora blocking her view of the screen and added, “I’m running a DNA amplification on it right now sir.  We should have the results in a matter of hours.”

            “And that’s the best you can do?” Archimedes snapped at Weston.

            Way to go Wes, Theodora mused to herself.

            “But sir,” said Weston trying to vindicate himself.  “With out the use of any primary function capabilities, we are limited only to second and tertiary routines.” 

            “However,” Theodora added, “if we could get security clearance to dedicate the FDDI-3 channels for our diagnostic purposes, we could cut our processing time down in half.”

            “Well then what the hell are you waiting for?”

            “We needed your authorization first,” she explained.

            “Well now you’ve got it, so I suggest you get on with it right away.  I don’t think I need to remind you how much this is costing us?”

            “No sir, I’ll talk to Singh right away.”

            “Oh and one more thing Flint,” said Archimedes menacingly.  “I’m giving exactly six hours to get NESTOR back up and running.  Do you understand?  Six hours.”

            Knowing this was impossible but also knowing she had only one possible response to give him, Theodora replied; “Yes sir, six hours.  I understand.”

            “Good,” said Archimedes and the screen abruptly went blank.

            Having heard this, Weston could barely contain himself.  He stood up

and walked over to the far side of his lab.  This could be it, he thought to himself.  He knew it was going to be impossible for Theodora to get NESTOR back on-line within six hours and he also knew that Rinehold would hold her personally accountable for that.  Hell, Rinehold could even strip her of her rank for this and he might just do if the profit margin drops radically.  The bottom line for Rinehold was always profit or loss and with NESTOR down, the company’s losses were escalating exponentially!  Her name would become synonymous with loss.  The only thing that could possibly top that off, would be if he could somehow get NESTOR back up and running before the deadline and without any help from Theodora.  Then there would be no question of who was more valuable to the Consortium.  Rinehold would be forced to recognize that he was better qualified for the job than Theodora!  And to think that this might all take place in a matter of hours! 

            But while Weston was lost in thought, planning his moment of glory, Theodora had already begun to move aggressively on the problem.

            “Hi Anil,” she said to the man whose face had just appeared on the VidScreen.  “We’ve got a big problem here.”

            “You’re telling me,” he replied sarcastically.  “I’ve never seen anything like it.  Do you know what you’re dealing with?”

            Anil Singh was the head of SECSYS operations for the entire Consortium and like his ancient ancestors before him, he ran his operation the way a battle hardened general would; when it came to Consortium security, Anil Singh took absolutely nothing for granted and because he ruled over his department like a despot, Theodora knew that she would have to stress the security issue in order to gain his utmost cooperation.

            “We’ve got a virus Anil.  NESTOR’s bio-processors have been infected; both the peptides and proteins are already showing signs of reverse transcription.”

            “Origin?”

            “Unknown.”

            “Sabotage?”

            “It’s possible.  Quite possible.”  And the truth was it really was possible, although unlikely.

            “Xeno?”

            “It’s too soon to tell.”

            “How can I be of service?”

            “We’re going to need to off-load some off your redundant communications up-links and divert all available processing resources to the FDDI-3 channels.”

            “No problem,” he said shaking his head.

            Boy, that had been easier than she had thought. 

            “We’re going to have to do a whole net topology back down to a serial link,” he informed someone standing next to him.  Turning back towards the screen he said, “I’ll give you everything you need Dr. Flint.”

            “Thanks Anil.  I know it won’t be as efficient as a fully discrete system but it’s all we’ve got to work with and with our main bottle neck being the FDDI communication system, I think this will be the fastest way.

            “I agree.”

            Weston by this time had begun to take notice of what was going on with Theodora and he quickly retook his seat in front of the VidScreen.  “If we implement a hierarchical nodal structure,” he said looking from Theodora to Anil, “then we can administer all of the task distribution processing from right. here.”

            “Well, I don’t know,” said Anil disapproving.

            “That does make sense Anil, then we won’t have to camp out in your facility.”  She knew he would have to agree with them about this.

            “Just one moment,” he said and he turned his head away from the screen and spoke to someone behind him.  Returning to their view again he said somewhat reluctantly; “All right, you can commence down loading your files anytime, I’ll remain on standby.”

            “Thanks a lot Anil.”

            Almost instantly, the flat panel screen came to life with a steady stream of concentrated data and before Weston even had a chance to really take in what he was looking at, Theodora’s hands were already flying across the tandem console.  One thing that could be said about Theodora was that no one could process information like she could.  It was as if she thought mathematically and as much as he hated to admit it, Weston had never seen anything like it.  He just sat in silence and watched as Theodora’s hands raced to keep up with her mind. 

            “Try allocating a communications bandwidth along the chain,” she said to Singh without taking her eyes from the panel display.  “See if that doesn’t help out the pipeline.”

            Behind her, Weston mumbled something.

            “What did you say Wes?” she asked without looking up.

            “Ask Singh to make sure all of this is encrypted.  I don’t want anyone to get a look at this.”

            “The transformation matrices have already been constructed,” Anil said annoyed, then to Theodora he said; “Well, it looks as if we have ourselves a network.”

            “Yeah, but will it do the trick?”  Then tracing an area on the screen with her finger Theodora said, “Enlarge 10X.”  The image on the screen responded immediately.  “Okay!  Now let’s decode this nucleotide sequence- starting right here.”

            T...T...A...G...G...G...G...C...A...C...T...C...A...T...G

            “Oh shit!” Weston exclaimed starring at the data on the screen.

            And there, right after the telomere, where the Consortium’s own ‘genetic stamp’ should have been, was a sequence that neither Theodora nor Weston recognized.

            “W-what does it mean,” asked Singh confused.

            “That my dear friend,” said Theodora slowly, “ is a genome of unknown origin.  “It does not bear our trademark nucleic structure.  It’s definitely not one of ours.  I’m absolutely certain of that!”

            “How the hell did it get in here?”

            “I honestly don’t know,” she admitted.  “But we’re running a genome trace and a testcross on it, even if it’s a mutation we’ll be able to identify at least one of its parents on our database.  But if is a Xeno, I’m afraid we won’t find anything.”

            “Meaning?”

            “Meaning,” interrupted Weston, “we’ve had a breech of security somehow.”

            The color instantly drained from Anil Singh’s face.  “How long will all of this take?”

            “Without NESTOR’s help and running it on this  system, it could take hours,” Weston snorted.

            “But regardless of where this phagocyte came from our biggest problem right now is getting rid of it!” Theodora said emphatically.

            The three remained silent for some time, finally Theodora spoke: “Anil, are you still running your sterilization programs?”

            “Yes, but they have been totally ineffectual.”

            “So were the viroceptors,” she said wistfully.

            Theodora knew that without the proper genetic information it was going to be difficult to neutralize the virus, but just the same they had to launch an all out assault right away.  “Listen, I’m going to head back to my lab.  I’ll assemble an antiseptic team and we’ll bombard this thing with everything we’ve got.”  Turning to Weston she said, “Wes, I want you to remain here and monitor the data.  Contact me the moment you get anything.  Anything at all!”

            “Good idea,” Weston agreed. 

            As she stood up, Theodora said to Anil; “Keep on running your sterilization programs and clear a datalink net through to my terminal.”  Looking at her watch, she added; “Let’s conference in one hour.”  And with that she left the room.

            This was exactly what Weston had hoped for.  With Theo up in her lab trying to sterilize the virus, he still had a good chance of decoding it alone and before she knew it, he’d be well on his way to customizing an anti-virus simulation.  The way he looked at it, he could have this whole thing solved no time; it was after all just a virus and one thing Theodora did not know was that before Singh had gotten a chance to encrypt the data, he had made a copy of the virus’s DNA and now he could run some tests of his own on it. 

            For the past six months, Weston had been working in secret on the development of a new genome trace program which he had planned to present to the Data Monitoring Board (DMB) at its next joint session, still three weeks away.  However with this unexpected turn of events, he had been given the opportunity to put it through an actual test run and if it behaved like it had during the simulations he should be able to identify the organism within an hour or two. 

            Booting up his new tracer, he sat and watched as the codon triplets began to registered: AUG, UUG, UAG, UGA, GCC, UGU.......  But there was something very unusual about its sequencing pattern and its heterozygote allele frequency was incredibly suspicious.  Better run it through an electrophoresis, he thought to himself.  Let’s just see if we can’t unmask these phenotypes.

            But as the data labored on, Weston found himself only more perplexed.  There was something very strange going on and the more he uncovered, the more he began to worry.  It was the most dynamic specimen he had ever seen: its DNA was literally mutating constantly!  The instant he thought he could tag it, it would change right before his eyes.  What the hell was this thing?  And what unnerved him even more, was that because it was so dynamic, it would be almost next to impossible to vaccinate.  If he could only get it to remain stable long enough.  There must have been something he had overlooked; a pattern he had neglected, perhaps it had been his approach to the problem that had been off.  If he could just come up with a program that could anticipate its next mutation, then he would be able to keep up with it.  But by now, it had become obvious that it wasn’t going to be as simple as he had first thought and even though he was certain he was still well out in front, he had better make sure that the testcross kept on compiling; at least that way he’d be covering his back, just in case.