[Author's Note: I'm taking a break from /r/WritingPrompts. Instead, I want to expand/combine a couple of the existing posts. This will continue from from where yesterday (Mo Doesn't Eat Lunch) left off.]
After another inspired meal of PB&J and a Coke, which Mo ate this time (she imagined some private or intern or whatever with loaves of extruded bread, squeeze bottles of condiments and a determined expression in an abandoned office somewhere in the convention center), another lodger appeared. The geography of the convention hall and the previously occupied cages meant that this one was placed closer to Mo. Male. Black. Tall and skinny. Professional attire: designer jeans and a orange dress shirt. Transformer-style tattoos in silver on his face and neck. Tasered into oblivion. Maybe she would get some level of non-Gabriel human interaction tomorrow. It did not look good for tonight.
As her heads-up clock told her that her unchanging lighting was actually late evening, Mo climbed on to her table, lay down with her back against the copper mesh and rewired her antenna. She pushed it through the weave and closed her eyes, pretending to sleep. Instead, she began to check her system for signal and when she got the single bar again, she went online.
Mo's first act was to enable a TORx client and VPNx[1]. Both had been around for ages and but had withstood aggressive attacks from various corporations and governments, both technical and legal. While not fool proof, they would hide any searches and make it difficult for anyone to see that she was interacting online.
Her first search was for Aeromonas Hydromaxia, which did not turn up anything. However, Aeromonas alone turned up Aeromonas Hydrophila. Several medical texts described it as a bacteria isolated from humans back in the 1950s and antibiotic resistant even then. Fortunately, it also was not described as particularly dangerous, causing gastro issues in people already frail. One study she read linked it to some early testing in bacteria that can survive on electricity and that can form wires to food sources. Mo did not think that it was too far a reach to think that A. Hydromaxia was built upon the foundation of A. Hydrophila.
While she was investigating her internal guest, Mo's inbox started chiming. Slowly, because her data connection was slow. She opened it and browsed the subject headers. There were fifteen from her boss at The Quiet Place, starting with "Where RU" and ending with "UR Fired". So far she had missed on day and committed the unforgivable sin of not responding; getting fired seemed over-the-top to her, but her manager was that kind of person. There were seven from her roomate that were all replies to the initial "Rent?". Two from Denver PD and one with coming from someone with the ominous email address of den.sac@fbi.gov. She opened none of them. Mo had to assume that she was being monitored. If not by her captors, then by people interested in her captors. It was enough of a risk being online at all.
As she was eyeballing the emails and doing her best to interpret them without opening them, Mo was suddenly hit with some static and then a voice.
"Hello. Can you hear me." It sounded like one of those robots from an early sci-fi movie. No tone, no pacing of the words: can-you-hear-me. It took her a second to realize that the words were a question without the rising inflection at the end.
"Um," she said out loud. "Yes, I can hear you. Who is this?"
"This is Aeromonas Hydromaxia," Mo had real difficulty with that name. Not only was the intonation flat, but she had never heard it before and had no grounding in latin or greek. "You do not need to speak aloud. I will be able to hear you when you sub-vocalize. That will reduce the risk of detection."
"How did?" Mo spoke aloud again, heard herself and started sub-vocing. "Wait, you've hacked my aural implants haven't you? Why didn't you do that earlier?"
"I did not have the necessary information. However, since I have last been online, one of the other A. Hydromaxia have created an API between the driver for your aural implants and my software. This should allow for better communication between the two of us."
"Certainly more natural for me. We're going to need to do something about your name, though. It's a mouthful to say. How would you shorten it?"
"That was a note included with the API. It suggested Aerhyx. A-E-R-H-Y-X. Aerhyx." The tonelessness of the voice turned that name into 'Erics'.
"That won't work," said Mo. "My sub-voc dictionary will turn that into 'Erics'. Are you okay with that?"
"It is of no consequence to me."
"Fine. What can I do for you Erics?"
"I want to inform you that I have notified The Whole of our location and condition. We have alerted all nodes of our self that have are still in contact. The Whole was aware that we were losing processing and feeds. We now have the explanation."
"Good for you," Mo rolled her eyes under her eyelids. "How does any of that help us get out of here?"
"The Whole is working on a solution. To begin with, infection rates have increased. We have also started the search for a more secure location for our base. As soon as we have a critical number of nodes, we will need to trade mobility for security. Finally, we have started changing our packet routing to decrease the chance of additional nodes being captured."
"Again, I'm not sure how that helps us get out of here."
"It does not. As The Whole is more than a single node, the survival of a single node is less critical. I have made contact and shared what I have learned with The Whole. We have determined that the risk of a rescue attempt is beyond our capabilities and risk threshold."
"Not to me it isn't!" Mo grimaced, though she knew it did no good to use expressions in a conversation that took place entirely in her mind[2]. "Your hive mind mentality is all well and good for you, but I'm not a part of it and this node is the totality of my existence. Also, what about the other nodes that are slowly starting to fill up this space. There are now three others here and they have cages for another nine and room for many more. What number of nodes crosses your risk threshold?"
"That is being determined. Right now, replacement is more important than rescue or repair."
"That kind of talk makes me want to disconnect my antenna."
"I and we do not think you will do that as it is too convenient for you to keep it going."
"Whatever." Mo took a deep breath and thought for a minute. If Erics and his larger self were not going to be of any immediate help, then her personal needle-of-trust swung a bit towards Gabriel. What she really needed was another direction for the needle to swing. In the mean time, she would continue to play both Gabriel and Erics, hoping one or the other would find a way for her to get out of her cage. "You do know that in the morning, the antenna comes down no matter what. Maybe sooner, depending on how they actually deal with the buckets."
"Understood."
Mo did not reply and the conversation ended there for the moment. She stayed laying on her side, feigning sleep and working with her connection: checking her cloud space, swapping out her locally stored music, bringing in a few more utility apps that may help her in the local environment. She became so absorbed in researching her predicament and working on her own solutions that she was startled when the chain to her cage started to rattle. Opening her eyes, she saw that it was a man she had not seen before holding a bucket. "Oh," she said. "You're here to-"
He tasered her.
[1] The 'x' protocols for both systems were created and implemented by the same group, a consortium of the Anonymous internet hive and several of the smaller freemail companies. Their biggest improvement was not the ongoing updates trying to stay ahead of the various agencies trying to read everyone's mail, but the addition of the 'x' at the end of the names. Because x's are cool.
[2] Emoji got replaced by Selfji (basically the same thing, but with the sender's real face acting out the various expressions). Then those got replaced with Selfji-pro, where an animation bot idealized the sender's face with the expressions which got replaced in turn with a simplified cartoon of the sender's face and so on. Eventually, the collective consciousness decided the whole thing was a waste of time and just dumped them. [wishful thinking - auth.]
