EHuman Dawn (11 page)

“Is ElectroShock the only way to destroy a eHuman in battle?” Adam asked.

“There are only two ways to cut off the lifeline to the Lux—a nuclear explosion or total power down of the Chi-Regulator, and then, BAM!” he clapped his hands enthusiastically, “One more WG Lux left floating in space!”

Again, Marcus had that day-dreamy scientist-in-love-with-his-own-technology look in his eyes. And again, Adam simply stared in bewilderment. It wasn’t that Adam disdained the work. He truly appreciated the brilliance behind all the technology he’d just witnessed.

“In addition to weapon and energy technologies,” the eager engineer continued, “We’ve also improved our own bodies to create an army cable of defeating the WG. That means we have to have parts. Again, the dumps are a great resource for us. I still can’t believe they haven’t been secured.”

“Why not?” Adam asked. Marcus was right. It didn’t make sense for the WG to allow the Resistance to use their leftovers.

Marcus shrugged, “They don’t expect an attack from us. We have kept our development very, very secret. We take the important stuff out of the discarded eHumans in the dumps so that we can use them on ourselves later. If your hand goes missing during a mission, no worries—we’ll fix you right up. We can even create a brand new body and Jump you into it, if need be.”

Adam glanced around the cavern. The Resistance was obviously poised for battle.

“I take it you’re about to launch an attack?” Adam asked.

The engineer looked sheepishly at his guest. He wasn’t sure of how much Dawn had told him—but he was pretty sure that Operation Insurrection wasn’t open for discussion just yet.

“Time to bring you to Alrisha. Dawn wants you to meet our lead Hacker,” Marcus announced, successfully avoiding Adam’s question.

“Why?” Adam asked.

“Oh, you’ll see,” Marcus replied mysteriously. He then called out to the others in his lab that he was taking Adam to meet Alrisha. Everyone sniggered in response.

Adam followed Marcus out of the large cavern and into a another smooth, steel-floored hallway. At the end of the hall stood another orb-secured door. Marcus put his hands on the orb and the doorway slid open like an elevator—to reveal the Global Resistance Command Center beyond.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The Command Center was a hub of frenzied activity. Large monitors covered every wall, and several multi-sided displays hung from the ceiling in the center of the room.

All around the room, eHumans were plugged into consoles—not from the plugs at the base of their backs, but via headsets. They seemed on high alert, their attention focused on the data displayed directly to their minds. They typed information into the terminals in front of them at lightning speed.

More than the headsets made these people stand out. Some of them had more than two arms, in order to be simultaneously plugged in, typing, and working the EC-like devices that surrounded them. Many of them had unique hairstyles in purple, pink, and blue. They wore green, sleeveless robes and black combat boots. A few had every inch of their arms decorated in designs. Phrases such as “Don’t Tread On Me” and “For Death” encircled images of stars, hearts, skulls, and animals.

They worked together in synchronicity. To Adam, the whole scene looked like a perfectly executed data dance, with all the dancers communicating via TeleSpeak. Even so, the room was still filled with real sound—laughter, singing, and whistling.

“Our Hackers,” Marcus said proudly, “The WG has their red-robed Guardians, the fathers and mothers of Neuro. We chose the green robes of freedom for our Hackers. They mine Neuro for data, find its weaknesses and sabotage it. Many back doors and security defects exist. Our green-robed Hackers live to discover those failures and insert upgrades of our own.”

“Aren’t they considered terrorists of the highest kind?” Adam asked.

“Yes,” Marcus replied, “and they’re treated as such when captured.”

“Death,” Adam said grimly.

Marcus nodded. “Yes, death.”

“Just goes to show, one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist,” Adam remarked.

Marcus stared at him, raising one eyebrow. At that moment, a purple-skinned man abruptly pulled off his headset, stood up and approached them in a few quick strides. As Adam scanned this being’s face, he wasn’t at all sure of the person’s gender.

“Alrisha. Meet Adam,” Marcus said, introducing them, “Adam, this is Alrisha—our lead Hacker.”

Alrisha had short-cropped, black hair and incredibly dark, pupil-less eyes without eyebrows. He was smaller in frame, like a woman’s, but no breasts could be seen. Alrisha’s hands were delicate with long, gentle fingers. Alrisha noticed Adam’s confused stare and smiled.

“Trying to figure me out, huh? Everyone does. We resistance members can design our own eHuman bodies. We’re not limited to the old human standards. Why should we be? When I first joined the Resistance, I chose to create the body I’d always longed for. I wanted to be purple. I can’t understand why more people don’t choose alternative skin colors. How repressed can we be? Same with sex. I mean, really—none of us can reproduce, so why bother with male or female? It drove me crazy up above that the LMOs wouldn’t offer something in between. It’s not like anyone’s going to milk my breasts, right?”

Adam frowned slightly at Alrisha’s forthrightness. He looked to Marcus, who didn’t seem a bit surprised.

“Yes,” Marcus murmured, “Alrisha pushes the limits. Actually, I’m surprised more of our colleagues haven’t joined her in her purple skinned, sexless revolution. But they haven’t. I think sexual preference is an old archetype, as ancient as the human being. It’s a hard one to let go of. But the funky colored skin? In my opinion it’s only a matter of time before we’re all purple down here in Avalon.”

“For your sake,” Alrisha said patronizingly to Adam, “I’ll accept the pronoun she.”

Adam nodded, not sure what to think.

“Our work here,” Alrisha continued, ignoring Adam’s unease, “is to spy on the network. In order to do this without being seen by the Guardians, we invented the headsets. They let us plug in and traverse Neuro with our thoughts—just like everyone else. But they don’t allow read or write access to our own database. In this way, our true identities stored in our hard drives can’t be discovered. Neither can our location. To make doubly sure, our headsets send out fake coordinates to confuse any Guardians who might pick up our trail. Lastly, the Guardians can’t manipulate our databases or download any upgrades of their own.”

“Then…how do you record anything?” Adam asked.

“The headsets work with our own internal visual applications, which allow us to read everything on Neuro,” she explained, “Then we type all the data into the terminals that you see around the room, to store on our own personal network, which is closed to Neuro. Unfortunately, the Guardians are aware of this. Therefore, much work is done to keep our network safe from Guardian attack. That means that while some spy, others secure our network so we can communicate globally with other RCCs, as well as internally, via such features as TeleSpeak.”

“It might seem archaic that they type all the data from Neuro,” Marcus added, “but we can’t risk a direct connection. Our CPUs are vulnerable enough!”

Alrisha snorted at the statement. Then she shrugged.

“Fair enough,” she replied. “Our spies sniff data and mine it for conversations. While the WG and Guardians themselves have their own closed network, many of their affiliates, family members and friends are on Neuro. That’s how we pick up the rumors. From there we do our research. eHumans love Pleasure Zone Apps, so sometimes a WG member is found on Neuro, participating in a group sex session. We get some fantastic information that way!”

“The Hackers also attack Neuro,” Marcus jumped in. “They send viruses, worms, messages, whatever, in order to thwart the Guardians’ daily upgrades.”

“Dawn mentioned that her Hackers would erase my memory if I plugged in,” Adam said.

“That’d be me!” Alrisha declared, “Your ID number was flagged by Dawn. If you’d plugged in, the flag in our database would have alerted us and informed us of what operation to perform. In your case, most likely, a small app would have been downloaded to your CPU to erase your previous few days of memory. You see, eHuman software is really very easy to manipulate.”

Adam felt very uncomfortable.

“We also recruit new Resistance members,” Alrisha added.

“Recruit?” Adam asked.

“Sure. Like you,” she explained with a mysterious air, “We found you via our data mining process. You have many interesting attributes. They led us to believe you might be interested in saving your own life—as well as the lives of others. You’ve been on our radar for some time.”

Adam nodded hesitantly. It seemed everyone, both the Guardians and the Resistance, was spying on him.

Alrisha sensed his discomfort. She’d always been one of the more sensitive members of the Resistance. Immediately, she felt called to alleviate Adam’s fear.

“Dawn’s given me instructions to allow you to plug into our network,” she began.

“Really?” Adam answered, “Why?”

“So you can find out more about our mission, our history, and why we’re going through all the trouble of recruiting you,” she answered truthfully.

“Do you need me for anything else?” Marcus interrupted, “Because if you don’t, I’d really like to get back to the lab.”

“Permission granted to leave the recruit with me,” Alrisha answered, “Feel free to head back to your la-la land.”

“La-la land? Look who’s talking. You’re the one who deals with invisible bits and bytes,” Marcus said, “I actually
make
things!”

“Boys and bombs,” she replied, rolling her eyes.

Marcus turned on his heel and sauntered to the door, calling over his shoulder to Adam, “I told you this was going to be interesting. Good luck.”

“How do I get on the network?” Adam asked Alrisha.

“We plug you in,” she answered, leading him to a console in the corner. She fitted a headset on him and typed in a few access codes on the screen.

“There. Now you have permission,” she smiled.

“Permission to do what?” he asked.

“To investigate,” she answered, “After all, you
are
a reporter, right?”

“Yeah,” he replied.

“Then hop to it,” she advised, “I’m sure there are a google-squared things you want to know. Just use our database search engine. Ask it what you want. You use your thoughts, just like when you’re plugged in. You’ll be able to use Neuro incognito.”

With that, Alrisha ran to her own station as fast as her booted feet could take her. She slipped on her own headset. In a nanosecond, she was hot on the trail of the Guardians, chasing them through cyberspace. An unseen warrior in an unseen war.

Given her years at the helm, Alrisha knew that data ruled the eHuman world. Everything, from one’s dreams and thoughts to one’s daily desires and actions, was monitored, recorded and stored in 1s or 0s. Bits and bytes were powerful in a world where a simple program upgrade could convince billions of people to turn a blind eye to the sun and its power to provide energy.

With the headset adorning his forehead like a crown, Adam found himself swimming in so much data and information that his CPU was in overdrive. He filled his database with pertinent information, savoring every byte. Searching, and knowing no one or nothing was looking over his shoulder, thrilled him. As he dug deeper into sources of information he’d never thought of researching before, he could see the dots start to connect on the corruption of the WG—and began to envision the Newsreel he would deliver to the people of Neuro.

Naturally, Adam searched for any information about himself. He’d never done it before, because such searches were frowned upon by the authorities. Amazingly, after digging deep in various archives, he finally discovered an official record of his Jump history. Not much information in the document—but it was like looking back into a forgotten world. He discovered that before the Great Shift, he’d been called Phillip Kingsley. He was a male machinist. He’d Jumped in 2049 to become Adam Winter. No other information was listed. Follow-up searches revealed nothing at all on Kingsley. Why would there be? A machinist?

Adam had envisioned a grand pre-Great Shift existence, often imagining himself as a famous inventor or a movie star. Instead, he’d been a boring, inconsequential man with an even more inconsequential name. Adam stared that the data entry with disdain, muttering the words, “Phillip Kingsley,” over and over to himself, as if he couldn’t believe it was his true identity.

Resignedly, he decided to take his mind off his less-than-impressive pedigree, and searched instead for Dr. James Neville. An extensive amount of information was returned. Adam began to request various links, verifying that all of the information Origen and Dawn had shared was true. Dr. Neville had discovered and proved the existence of the human Lux, and also invented a multitude of technologies, such as the Chi-Regulator, the Jump process and the eHuman body itself.

This same Dr. Neville was listed as a known terrorist, charged with founding the Global Resistance. His current status in Neuro was “Deceased” and it appeared he had lived a long human life of ninety-four years. Adam found it suspicious that instead of Jumping and becoming an eHuman, Dr. Neville had chosen to grow old and die. Why not use the technology he’d invented?

As Adam continued to investigate, the name Edgar Prince was often mentioned. Adam decided to learn more about the man eHuman folklore had branded “The Father of eHumanity.” One image stood out: Prince standing outside of the WG capitol building in Gemetria, named the Golden Hall due to its gleaming, solid gold exterior. The steps behind him glimmered in the sun as he shook hands with the first World Leader, Ruth Donavan.

Adam tapped the image on his screen and it began to play a recorded video. The moment Edgar spoke, anger coursed through Adam, taking him by surprise. As far as Adam knew, he had never met Edgar Prince—so why would hostility run through his system?

“It’s with great pleasure that I’ve joined forces with World Leader Donavan. Together, we will bring order and continuity to the eHuman world!” Edgar Prince announced, “Ever since I founded Guardian Networks, I’ve desired to use my technological empire to help humanity. The moment I learned of the Dawn Project, I knew immediately—it was my destiny to share my wealth with others and bring this gift of health and immortality to all who desired it. I now offer my company, Guardian Networks, as a tool for World Leader Donavan and her colleagues in the WG, to help usher humanity into a the era of eternal peace and prosperity!”