Chapter 275: (Black Box)

Herod was working on the interactions between inverted hydrogen atoms and uninverted oxygen atom when fused into a water element. It acted erratically, sometimes vanishing during fusion into H2O, other times holding together for a second and then falling apart. It was the ones that stayed together that Herod was paying attention to. The molecules acted strangely, never staying next to one another but gathering unmodified H2O molecules around it.

At one point, once they gathered enough H2O molecules, the unmodified H2O molecules would begin to 'orbit' the modified one.

It was strange, it didn't make sense, but every time he could see it occurring. When he became one of the unmodified H2O molecules, he could sense data that the virtual reality simulation could not make sense of. He had tried becoming the modified molecule but the system crashed every time. Not with a Hellspace Breach, just the system was overloaded with data errors and crashed out.

Victor had informed him that the real-world lab spaces would be done within a few days. The Lunar systems were taking a bit longer than the estimated two weeks, but Victor had stated it was on target for finishing in another three days.

It was beginning to annoy him. He had always preferred the digital world to mass reality, preferred the orderly and well programed virtual reality that was overlayed across the entire of mass reality in the majority of the Confederacy. Only the VR reality wasn't really giving him the data he wanted, instead it was crashing out.

Simulated reality could only simulate what it was programmed to simulate, not simulate whatever was causing the weird orbiting that the simulation kept doing before it would crash.

If the computers were crashing on the data, then the computers were worthless.

Which was something that Herod was not used to.

Eighty percent of advancements come from our parents, not from digital sentiences, he remembered saying to Flowerpatch. At first her answer of 'we study it, simulate it, they live in it' had annoyed him, now he realized that she was right.

He was sitting in a real chair, run off from a creation engine, using the nanite body he had asked to be crafted. He could feel the slight air current from the environmental system. At first he had automatically tracked the currents but borrowing some software packages, patches, and code strings from Flowerpatch and he would have to get instruments to get anything precise now.

Flowerpatch's code strings combined with his ingrained desire for precision to encourage him to double and triple check his results and simulations.

He found that the simulations made a lot of assumptions about things. He had found a series of circuits, basic molycircs, where the induction from the tachyon particles moving down the stretched electron 'wire' caused impedance in the circuit that was automatically figured into the circuit. In layman's terms it meant the circuit wouldn't work without being built in those exacting tolerances.

How much of what we do is cobbled together? he caught himself wondering, a cool cloth on his neck. He looked up at the dataslates and shook his head. SO far he had found three circuits that assumptions made to ensure that the simulations worked had missed critical data that existed in mass-reality but had to be cludged into the simulation data.

The most grating thing was all three circuits were considered design marvels of the Digital Artificial Sentience Systems.

He looked up at the data when his communications link pinged.

"All researchers to SUDS Lab Six," came Victor's voice. Herod realized that he could tell the biobod was stressed by a tension in his voice that he would have missed two weeks ago.

Herod 'walked' to the laboratory, letting himself experience the differences in air pressure, electronic overwatch, and feeling the difference between the virtual space overlay and mass-reality.

When he entered the lab he found that the excitement was already going on.

"...been auto-corrected out of the system before it even uploaded," Torturer was saying.

"Well, it's not. We need to run comparisons, see what the corruption is involved in," Delta said.

"Already parsing it," Victor said. He closed his eyes and inhaled sharply. "Checking the routers now."

Flowerpatch moved up next to Herod, her face concerned. "He just reached across hundreds of light years and 'checks' something we barely understand."

"He lives in mass-reality," Herod answered.

Flowerpatch smiled. "A convert," she said.

"It's coming out of the Lanaktallan War Zone. Can't tell beyond that," Victor said. He opened his eyes and the gathered DS's drew back slightly as purple lighting began to pop and snarl around his forearms. "Something out there is interfering with the SUDS."

"Bring up the damaged template," Flowerpatch said.

"If it was damaged it wouldn't be spreading," Victor snapped. "It's a viable neural template, but it seems to be spreading corruption somehow."

"I want to see it," Flowerpatch insisted.

Herod nodded. "Me too."

"Fine," Victor's voice was sharp, annoyed.

The mental engram appeared in the middle of the room.

"It's missing the big patch," Nexus said, pointing at it.

Victor stared at it for a moment then tossed up a glowing transparent box in the middle of the room. Brainscans started appearing and disappearing rapidly and Herod watched as Victor squinted at the box. To be honest, Herod had no idea what he was looking at, just brainscans.

"Martha," Victor snapped out.

"Yes, Victor?" came a woman's voice from mid-air.

"Get me genetic profiles on corrupted SUDS engrams," he said. "Put it here," he tossed up a box.

Genetic scans started appearing and Victor reached in, pulled one out, and stretched it. He began scanning it, running his fingers through the virtual data.

Herod looked at his fellow DS's and swallowed thickly. He could see easily twenty, thirty, maybe more VR clones of Victor overlapping his meat body in virtualspace. A dozen clones entered the room, all of them wearing VR interface goggles and gloves, all of them going to work. More arrived, then more, the large room becoming quickly crowded, both in mass and virtually reality.

"No, no no no no," Victor said. He tossed a DNA string up. "Martha, check genetic prosthetic overlay sigma tau sigma seven seven two on all corrupted data."

"Data not found," the female voice said after a moment.

"Oh, no," Victor said. He turned and waved up a data-board, the new construct immediately built by nanites in mass-reality and existing in virtual reality. "Martha, check the following genetic prothesis overlays," he said, rapidly writing on the board with a dozen clones.

"What's happening?" Torturer asked. "Genetic prosthesis? On the human genome?"

"Yes," Victor snapped. "Martha, fast scan, comparison to Terran Descent Human genomic base to damaged mental engram linked genome. Show any deviance in the following DNA sequences."

More data appeared.

"Victor, what is going on?" Delta asked.

"Somewhere in Lanaktallan Space we hit a huge problem," the clone master said. He turned and looked at everyone. "Of course, all of you are pig-ignorant because people decided to rewrite history in a hope of creating temporal safeguards so none of you know what I'm talking about."

"Can you explain?" Flowerpatch said, moving forward carefully. She could sense just how much stress the Immortal was under. "So that we understand."

Victor stuck his hand into nothingness and yanked out a gene scan, tossing it up into the room. "That's Pre-Glassing," he threw up another one. "Post-Glassing," another one. "Post Digital Omnimessiah," another one, "Post Overproject Neighborhood," another one. "Modern."

He turned the gene sequences. "As you can see, gene sequence overlays were applied. Not actually altering the genome, but basically a false 'shell' of proteins that left the underlying proteins intact."

"That's not how DNA works," Delta said.

"If you say so," Victor answered. He pointed at the mental engrams he had tossed up. "There, you can see that some of the changes are hardwired into the system, provided by the prosthetics."

Delta moved up the data, staring at it. "An applied at conception genetic prosthesis, an overlay that changes the DNA data. How is it done?"

"Here," Victor snapped his wrist, tossing something to Delta. The DS grunted and staggered back, his form losing resolution for a moment.

"Oof," the DS said. "My God, this data feels like its covered in dust."

"It's the original data. It was a method considered superior to direct gene-tweaking since it can be undone easier and leaves the original data intact," Victor said. "It's in use today in civilian genetic engineering and clone factories."

"What's Overproject Neighborhood?" Flowerpatch asked.

"Something classified and terrible," Victor said.

"Whatever it was, it's missing," Vanishing-Point said, touching the mental engram area. "It coincides with damage to your genetic prosthetic."

"Shit," Victor said quietly. He looked at the data. "Bad enough we've got a rogue signal in the system, but now this?"

"I have worse news," Vanishing-Point said.

"What?" Victor asked.

"That rogue signal? The Telkan Broodcarrier Anomalous Signal?" Vanishing-Point said.

"What about it?" Victor suddenly growled, clenching his fists and causing sparks to jump off his knuckles.

"It's intertwining with the corrupted SUDS templates, preventing further corruption," Vanishing-Point said, pointing at the data.

"Actually, that's good news," Victor said, turning around. His eyes were glowing a bright red. "It's about the best fucking news we could have gotten."

"Why? What does all this do in the human genome?" Herod asked. "What effect does this have on our parents and what's doing the damage?"

Victor closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. "Forces in Lanaktallan Space are under psychic attack. Not the psychic attacks of the Precursor Autonomous War Machines, but actual living brain directed psychic attack," he touched the 'genetic prosthesis' on the display. "We chose the prosthetic because it's wired to blow out and restore psychic abilities if there is a psychic attack upon the person."

Everyone stared at him.

"DNA isn't like that. You can't program a 'prosthetic' to 'blow out' if it detects psychic assaults," Vanishing Point said.

"You can with this data," Delta said, his eyes still far away as he went through the data. "This is... this is incredible."

"And used by every cloning shop in the Confederacy," Victor said. He closed his eyes again. "Which means that we've got a psychic enemy out there."

"How bad is it?" Flowerpatch said.

"It depends on how widespread the attacks are and how many TDH's are effected and how many of them have priority military backup," Victor said, his eyes still closed. Herod could see the blurring of dozens of VR copies of Victor.

"It also depends on how far the mental engram recordings get corrupted," he said. "We can't have it remove too many patches."

"Why not?" Flowerpatch asked.

"Because if they remove too many patches we eventually get Pre-Glassing humanity," Delta said. He shuddered. "Talk about a disaster."

"Why?" Flowerpatch asked. "What's the big deal?"

Herod suddenly understood.

"Because then you have humanity where Daxin and Legion are just outliers," he said. "Statistically rare, but not unheard of."

Victor opened his eyes, purplish sparks in his beard.

"You end up with the men who created me," he said softly.

---------------------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Well, it's not impossible. We just red eyes go ahead and move forward with the whole thing. It's not impossible, just a little difficult to red eyes to do, but that's never stopped anyone red eyes before.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Uh, sis, are you fucking with us?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

MANTID FREE RED EYES WORLD

No. Why?

---NOTREDHING FOLEYESLOWS---

RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

Um, are you OK?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

MANREDTID FREDEYESE WOREDLDEYESS

I've got a red eyes bit of a weird tickle. Why?

---NOTReDeYeSHING FOLLOWSEYEDER---

DIGITAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

Um, TerraSol? Something's wrong with sis!

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

...

MANREDTID FREyEs WORLDS

I feel red eyes fine.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

TerraSol?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

I'll go look for him.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

DIGITAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

Cyb? Hey, Cyb, can you check Mantid's lines, it looks like interference from somewhere.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

MANsoftpodlingwarmpodlingREDEYESsafepodlingTID FREE WOgoodpodlingsleepypodlingREDEYEShappypodlingRLDS

I fewarmpodlingReDeYeSsoftpodlingel fine. Really.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

DIGITAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

Cyb?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

>RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT HAS ACTIVATED ADMIN CONTROLS

MANTID FREE WORLDS is set to read only

MANTID FREE WORLDS is set to ADMIN APPROVAL for postings

MANTID FREE WORLDS has been disconnected from emotional overlay

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Hey, has ANYONE seen Cyb, BASS, or TerraSol recently?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

MANTID FREE WORLDS>Now that you red eyes mention it, no.

RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

CONFED! GET IN HERE!

RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT has PINGED CONFEDERATE GESTALT

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

MANTID FREREDEYESE WORLDS> I'm tellinredeyesg you I feel firedeyesne.

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Trust me, sis, you aren't fine.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

>CONFED HAS JOINED THE CHAT

CONFEDERATE GESTLAT

What?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

Where's TerraSol?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

CONFEDERATE GESTALT

How should I know? I keep track of the whole Confederacy, not my dad.

You go find him.

>CONFEDERATE GESTALT has left the chat (Do your own fucking work)

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Wow, he's in a mood.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

I'm going to stay in chat with Admin controls on. There's something weird going on.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Ya think?