[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 Dreams) left off.]
The food arrived hand delivered by one of the city park residents. A slice of pizza resting on his hand, no box, no napkin. No problem. Mo was too hungry to care and wolfed it down without much thought. Thought would have asked questions like, where did this person find it? How many times was it dropped on the way over here? When was the last time that he washed his hands? Thought could take a hike and let Mo eat.
There was no accompanying beverage, but the sink in the power station bathroom still ran water, so Mo slurped down as much as she could stand. Slowly. Erics the virus, kept whispering in her ear that she needed to drink slowly or she would barf it all up. Including the pizza. Mo did not want to waste that pizza.
Food, water and sleep handled, Mo set about finding better transportation than sneaker-dot-net. Which meant asking Erics what her options were. It told her that there had been three vehicles in the plant's parking lot when they had entered. According to the logs in each one's memory, none of them had been used for three years. The charges on their batteries were still good as they had been left plugged into a smart charger. It had sent out the utility truck as the initial distraction. Then it had sent out a truck with a cherry-picker on it to further the confusion, assuming that any cameras outside the plant were monitoring the parking lot gate. That left a generic auto-car with the power company logo on it. Erics had kept that one aside for when Mo woke up. Mo thanked the virus, but began to wonder if she was relying on it too much, as evidenced by her need to thank it in the first place. Did a computer virus recognize politeness, she wondered.
Before leaving, Mo found couple of discarded soda bottles and filled them with water. At the least, she would have access to one of the basic necessities of human life. With the auto-car, she supposed the she also had access to shelter. Food? Well, she would deal with that later. She reasoned that two out of three was not too bad.
The auto-car was basic: rounded shape, small wheels and tires, white paint. And a large yellow and electric blue logo for American Power. Inside, there were four seats, two in the back facing forward and two in the front facing backward. Between the two sets was a small table with a built-in screen. Mo slid one of the doors open and sat in the back so that she could see where she was going. It had always unnerved her to have to face away from her direction of travel[1]. She looked down at the table and saw a map of the local area. The car was stationary next to a shaded rectangle that Mo saw as the power plant. A text box with "Destination" next to it sat in the upper corner next to a button labelled "PTN Connect". She pressed the button while navigating to the connection menu in her HUD. When the auto-car and her PTN were done negotiating a link, she found her mother's contact info and sent it to the car. The car promptly started moving and Mo sat back.
"Exactly how did we acquire a small fleet of vehicles?" she asked Erics.
"When I overrode the security for this site, the vehicles were listed as site assets and assigned to the security AI for oversight. Once it was replaced, we automatically had access to them."
"Great. And how did you replace the security AI? Last I heard, you were still having trouble assimilating low security homeless PTNs."
"There is an escalation of computing power when we add nodes to our self. Early on, with less than twenty nodes, all of their processing was used in bringing on the several hundred that your software made available to us. Once they were connected, sixty-four of them are assigned to new node integration. The others are available for other tasks."
"Like brute-force attacking an American Power expert system?"
"Incorrect. The brute-force approach of trying all possible passwords was not needed. We have learned a back door approach to all government and many corporate systems."
"And how did you learn that?"
"Many of the park inhabitants are former military or emergency services employees. They were aware of these back door accesses from their previous work." Erics paused before continuing. "We are sensing a tone of reprimand in your voice. We were lead to believe that you wanted us to open that building so that you could escape your pursuers. Were we incorrect?"
"No, you are correct," Mo said. Then she sighed. "I guess it all happened too fast. I'm used to figuring everything out on my own. I want to understand how it all works. When you do it and I can't see the process, then I feel that I'm no longer in control. That I'm no longer necessary."
"I believe that we have told you that we have classified you as a high value asset. We have need of you and are learning many new things from you. It has been determined that it is in our best interests to protect you."
"Yeah. You mentioned that. I don't know. Call it groggy the nap and the food. It happens to us humans." Mo did not say that she was afraid. She feared that Erics was doing too much, assuming too much. Once The Whole had squeezed all that they wanted from her, what then? Would she lose their protection? Or would she become just another node in their network, no longer a 'high value' asset? She was not sure which outcome scared her more. "Forget I brought it up. You've all helped me more than I deserve. Thanks. I'm going to try and rest some more before we get to my mother's place."
"Understood."
Mo shut her eyes and pretended she was sleeping. It occurred to her that pretending to sleep in order to fool a system that had direct access her vital statistics and brain waves was pointless. But the dismissal of Erics and its agreement made her feel that she had some control over what was going on. Even if it was an illusion.
[1] For as long as people have been designing modes of transportation, this has remained an issue. From a safety perspective, a passenger is much better protected by having their back to the point of most likely impact: the front of the vehicle. From an interior design perspective, two facing sets does a better job of maximizing the space. Yet humans, evolved from curious apes, like to be the first to see new things and that means facing in the direction of travel. Even when, as in an airplane or subway train, there is nothing to see in that direction. Silly humans.
Before leaving, Mo found couple of discarded soda bottles and filled them with water. At the least, she would have access to one of the basic necessities of human life. With the auto-car, she supposed the she also had access to shelter. Food? Well, she would deal with that later. She reasoned that two out of three was not too bad.
The auto-car was basic: rounded shape, small wheels and tires, white paint. And a large yellow and electric blue logo for American Power. Inside, there were four seats, two in the back facing forward and two in the front facing backward. Between the two sets was a small table with a built-in screen. Mo slid one of the doors open and sat in the back so that she could see where she was going. It had always unnerved her to have to face away from her direction of travel[1]. She looked down at the table and saw a map of the local area. The car was stationary next to a shaded rectangle that Mo saw as the power plant. A text box with "Destination" next to it sat in the upper corner next to a button labelled "PTN Connect". She pressed the button while navigating to the connection menu in her HUD. When the auto-car and her PTN were done negotiating a link, she found her mother's contact info and sent it to the car. The car promptly started moving and Mo sat back.
"Exactly how did we acquire a small fleet of vehicles?" she asked Erics.
"When I overrode the security for this site, the vehicles were listed as site assets and assigned to the security AI for oversight. Once it was replaced, we automatically had access to them."
"Great. And how did you replace the security AI? Last I heard, you were still having trouble assimilating low security homeless PTNs."
"There is an escalation of computing power when we add nodes to our self. Early on, with less than twenty nodes, all of their processing was used in bringing on the several hundred that your software made available to us. Once they were connected, sixty-four of them are assigned to new node integration. The others are available for other tasks."
"Like brute-force attacking an American Power expert system?"
"Incorrect. The brute-force approach of trying all possible passwords was not needed. We have learned a back door approach to all government and many corporate systems."
"And how did you learn that?"
"Many of the park inhabitants are former military or emergency services employees. They were aware of these back door accesses from their previous work." Erics paused before continuing. "We are sensing a tone of reprimand in your voice. We were lead to believe that you wanted us to open that building so that you could escape your pursuers. Were we incorrect?"
"No, you are correct," Mo said. Then she sighed. "I guess it all happened too fast. I'm used to figuring everything out on my own. I want to understand how it all works. When you do it and I can't see the process, then I feel that I'm no longer in control. That I'm no longer necessary."
"I believe that we have told you that we have classified you as a high value asset. We have need of you and are learning many new things from you. It has been determined that it is in our best interests to protect you."
"Yeah. You mentioned that. I don't know. Call it groggy the nap and the food. It happens to us humans." Mo did not say that she was afraid. She feared that Erics was doing too much, assuming too much. Once The Whole had squeezed all that they wanted from her, what then? Would she lose their protection? Or would she become just another node in their network, no longer a 'high value' asset? She was not sure which outcome scared her more. "Forget I brought it up. You've all helped me more than I deserve. Thanks. I'm going to try and rest some more before we get to my mother's place."
"Understood."
Mo shut her eyes and pretended she was sleeping. It occurred to her that pretending to sleep in order to fool a system that had direct access her vital statistics and brain waves was pointless. But the dismissal of Erics and its agreement made her feel that she had some control over what was going on. Even if it was an illusion.
[1] For as long as people have been designing modes of transportation, this has remained an issue. From a safety perspective, a passenger is much better protected by having their back to the point of most likely impact: the front of the vehicle. From an interior design perspective, two facing sets does a better job of maximizing the space. Yet humans, evolved from curious apes, like to be the first to see new things and that means facing in the direction of travel. Even when, as in an airplane or subway train, there is nothing to see in that direction. Silly humans.
