November 6th, 2008

“Yeah, that would suck. I guess you could always try and weasel some information out of our boss,” Jimmy looked sympathetic and almost hopeful. He should be more careful.

“It’s highly unlikely that that will actually work – I doubt that the company is stupid enough to store such sensitive data in the matrix of an AI... especially when they know that I take great pleasure in taking things apart.” I roll my eyes.

“True... but there’s got to be a way – secrets are impossible to keep, after all.”

“Oh, don’t I know it!” I make most of my money off of it, after all.

“Dr. Spencer, Wraith. I believe that your shifts start in two minutes – the time for idle chatter is coming to a close. I advise that you keep that in mind,” Guh, I can’t believe that he actually compiled in my cubicle! How rude can you get? If I have to clean up after any stray bits of his code, I’m going to be quite vexed.

“Uh, yes sir. We’re aware, sir,” Jimmy said, eyes downturned and looking repentant.

“Good. I know that you don’t have very many friends here, Dr. Spencer, but please keep all personal discussions out of the workplace. It hampers productivity,” with that, the AI marched off in the direction of two loudly gossiping women.

“Is he always like that, or does he just have a major stick up his ass today?” I ask, rolling my eyes.

“No, he’s usually not that bad. I’ve never seen him tell anyone off for talking before the start of work.” Jimmy looked a bit concerned, surprisingly. Over an AI? Ridiculous, if you ask me.

“Ha! I bet that he just got notice that they’ve made a v2.0 of him and he’s being replaced! Bloody smug bastard deserves it. Hmph. As if any AI is better than me. For one, they sure aren’t people.” I snort, disgusted. Honestly, he’s nothing more than a handful of hastely patched together code by a man playing god. Ridiculous, if you ask me. Not to mention that it is incredibly creepy how some programmers will view their personal AIs as people. It’s so very wrong – the AIs Are People Too movement is as big, if not bigger, than the group lobbying for the rights of wraiths.

“Yeah... he’s just... an AI. Not... a person,” Jimmy said haltingly, not meeting my eyes. Oh, great, is he one of those AI symphasisers? Or just a bleeding heart in general.

“Yeah. If I’m not person, an AI sure isn’t. And even if I was...!”

“Dr Spencer, Wraith! What did I say?!” Oh, great, the man who’s semi-permanent stick up the ass has returned.

“Jesus, get a life! And remove that stick up your ass – it’s going to be replaced with something far more... pleasent... soon, is it not?” I smirk haughtily and waggle my eyebrows.

“I’d watch your tone if I was you, Wraith!” His cheeks flushed hot, the AI angrily decompiled.

“Oooo, looks like I struck a nerve!” I crow and turn to Jimmy with a grin. He just looked at me, shook his head as if he expected more from me and ducked down into his cubicle. God, what’s his problem – that AI had it coming.

Chapter Six

Another day done, and another paycheque received – my celebrity benefactor did well on his word – he deposited the necessary money into the specified bank account with a surprising rapidity. I swiftly transferred the money into my personal bank account, carefully obscuring it’s travels between accounts.

Now, normally I’d go and complete the other half of that job right about now, but Jimmy has been none-too-subtly signalling me all day about how he wants to talk. So I guess we’re heading back to that coffee shop again. Ah well, at least it’s not incredibly tasteless.

By the time we get there, I’ve set up all of the encryptions and completely obscured our conversation from the general public by hiding it in plain sight. You see, the reason why I’m pretty good at encryptions is that I know and can implement one of the more obvious tricks of the trades – I’ve written a damned good program that will basically force mine and Jimmy’s avatars to form words for an entirely different conversation than the one we’re having and project that different combination to the general æthrenet. So while we’re on a public server and in open view for anyone to eavesdrop, we’re really in a far more private setting than any hidden server would be. Hidden servers have a bad habit of being both a very illkept secret and incredibly easy to hack into.

Or maybe I’m just an egotistical control freak who thinks that anything that I do personally is better than anything anyone else does. It’s probably a bit of both with a leaning to the latter. I don’t trust anyone, after all.

“Okay, so Wraith... I know that you’re not going to like this, but since I apparently royally screwed up yesterday, our cover story to explain our frequent appearances together-“ at that, I cut him off.

“Woah, wait, ‘frequent appearances together’! How much time am I going to be spending with you? Having something tag along with me will totally ruin my style!” Not to mention the fact that I doubt that any trusted employee of Crossard, even if he is a spy, would be too pleased with my extracurricular habits.

“Oh, not that much more than we’re spending already. We’re going to be meeting up all the time after work and sometimes I’ll be, erm, coming home with you. Or you’ll be coming with me.” Jimmy looked quite a bit embarrassed.

“Wait, what?! Oh, there’s no way that I’m letting you into my apartment!” That reminds me – I should review the results my apartment hunting bot has recorded for me when I get home.

“I’m sorry, Wraith... but, you see, our cover story...?” Jimmy’s hedging. It’s bothering me.

“Yeeeeesss, Jimmy?”

“Umm... I’mkindacourtingyou.” He said in a very fast, and small, voice.

“Wait, what?!” Oh, there is NO way!

“Umm, yeah. I think Am... she’s punishing me.” Jimmy wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“Oh good god – why did she drag me into your punishment – it’s not like I’ve done anything wrong... nor do I even work for her! Come to think of it, I haven’t even agreed to be her spy!” I’m getting angry now. How dare Crossard just assume that I’ll drop everything and join her company? I turned her down several times before, after all!

“Ah, well, it was kinda assumed that you’d be eager to join up once you reviewed the data. You did review the data, right?” Jimmy’s meeting my eyes again now we’re off the topic of our... courtship. Who uses words like that? The last time I saw that term was in a regency romance novel.

Not that I read crap like that.

“Yes, I’ve reviewed the data. What I don’t get is what’s so important on it that I’m going to be so willing to join your crazy cause. I don’t even know what I’d be doing for you guys!”

“Um, Wraith. The number of wraiths have been increasing over the past few years.” Jimmy looked at me as if I was a particularily slow child. I do not enjoy being looked at like that.

“Yes, and? I already knew that.”

“You don’t get it, do you?” Jimmy had a disbelieving look on his face now.

“Get what?!”

“If there becomes too many people becoming wraiths, eventually the media is going to latch onto it like nothing else, even if Senses Squared has being buying off the media silence for the past few decades,” Jimmy was disturbingly serious.

“Has anyone paused to think that perhaps the number of wraiths has been increasing because the number of morons wanting the ‘immoratlity’ of wraithdom has been increasing?” Wow, Crossard Enterprises appears to be a rather fatalistic bunch. It’s actually kind of funny.

“No. There’s too many new wraiths for this to just be an increase due to the number of stupid people. There’s something else going on here, and we believe that Senses Squared is behind it.”

“Wow, that’s such an intuitive leap you guys have made! Senses Squared, involved in something dealing with the aethrenet? That’s news to me!” Again, I rolled my eyes.

“Will you be serious for once? Something really big is going on, Wraith. Really, really big. And if Sesnses Squared isn’t fixing the problem and this gets out, they might shut down the aentrenet!” Jimmy really looks horrified. He must be addicted to this place.

“Oh, as if. What are they going to replace the aethrenet with? The internet?” Give me a break.

“Yes, actually!” He’s serious.

“Yeah, no. You don’t have first hand experience with the internet – trust me when I say this; if they shut down the aethrenet, the junkies will be demanding its return immediately. I can guarantee you that the aethrent would be reopened before they even had a chance to dismantle it all!”

“No... We believe that the extreme anti-aethrenet lobbiest will grab onto this information and use it to either shut down the aethrenet legally or, and this is probably a bit more likely, use it as justification for a planned strike against the aethrnet itself.”

“Oh, yes, because a bunch of technologically illiterate morons could engineer a virus that would not just cripple the entire network but destroy it completely? Not going to happen – no programmer would ever work for them.” My god, this is ridiculous.

“You don’t have to write a sophisticated virus to tear down the aethrenet. I’m sure that the AAs would go for a more traditional, hands on approach.”

“As in, they’d burn down the major server buildings across America?” Oh god, that actually does make some sense. I can’ tbelieve I’m saying this, but it actually does make some sense!

“Try the entire world – despite the fact that they’r eentirely against the aethrenet and all that it stands for, they’re a global organization as well. While the aethrenet could recover from such an attack, there would be many, many lives lost.”

“Including, likely, my own. And Crossard’s. I see.” And I do. If he’s right and if this information is enough to give the AA an excuse to attack us, the immortality I’ve been so enjoying may be coming to an end.

Chapter Seven

God. Imagine it, a world without the aethrenet. I can’t, I really can’t (probably cuz my entire world IS the aethrenet). Even for a short while, a few weeks, months... even years.

It doesn’t matter – the odds of me not being on the aethrenet when to strike happens are slim to none. And even if I happened to be on my home server when the time comes, that system is no where near powerful enough to handle me at for as long as it would take the aethrenet to come back up. I’d have to put myself into hibernate – and htat is not a fun place to be. Never again will I enter hibernation.

So.

Crossard Enterprises undoubtably has a safehouse. Crossard, obviously, will have assured it. And Crossard’s enough of a bleeding heart to make it large enough to host all of her bodily impaired employees. And, somehow, I doubt that Senses Squared would be willing to extend the same courtesy.

I guess that I’m going to be working for Crossard now... though it’s only to save my own skin.

“Right. I get what you mean. And I’m in-“ Jimmy, excited, interrupts me.

“Awesome! I knew that you’d see the stakes for what they were! This is brilliant – we really need someone like you, Wraith!”

“BUT, I want to be guarenteeed that, when the time comes, I’ve got access to Crossard’s little haven.”

“I, uh, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Jimmy looked nervous.

“Oh cut the shit - we both know that there’s no way that Crossard is going to let herself die along with the aethrent. I want the same guarantee.”

“I’m not... I can’t... Look, I’ll ask her if she’s willing to see you tomorrow, or later today, okay? I don’t think I should be stepping out of my bounds anytime soon.” Jimmy’s nervous.

“As long as I get to see her. And I think it’s for the best that you don’t start breaking the rules – they’ll probably also make us siblings as well as lovers.”

“That is... so gross, Wraith.”

“I know.”