soul | part two

it’s dark outside when Seoul wakes up
immediately she hears the fans of the rig
and knows she’s fallen asleep where she lay, must have slept right through the light-hours
her eyes and throat feel like sand
and her stomach is slightly cramped
she hasn’t cried like this in years

the first thing she does is go to the toilet
at first she thinks she wants to throw-up
but it’s just the tightness that comes with grief
even from the bathroom she can hear the rig
it’s then that she decides to turn it off

the rig hasn’t been off in 18 months
during that time she has serviced single systems at a time
or had components out to modify or upgrade them
but rarely does she power the whole thing down
perhaps because it rarely gives her any sense of discomfort
there is a tingle in her brain every time she walks past the WNI hot-zone
and now for the first time it’s unwelcome
she truly wants to be disconnected
from everything

all at once the fans wind down
like the final sigh of death
her ears pick-out the hum of the amplifier in the next room
and she goes in to turn it off, the red power light eventually fading to nothing
she goes to her bedroom, closes the door and lies down reversed, feet at the pillow, head by the foot of the bed

it’s much quieter this time when she cries
she doesn’t weep with her entire body, rather she lets her sadness seep from her face onto the bed
her thoughts are less random now
less pure wild grief, and more sorrowful reflection
she thinks about the other elites – Durban, Vitoria and Moscow
how they had all somehow lived through it all
she thinks about what the government had called ghost-class, Kyoto, Venice, Cairo and Auckland
their abilities had been more subtle
the elites were all young then, full of enthusiasm
a certain flair for showing their brilliance
but there was a gravity to the ghosts
a seriousness and an understanding of life that gave them something more than just talent
a gravity that gave them the ability to care for her
to love her
a love she hadn’t felt since her parents had died when she was a child

the Inverse Task had been the single worst event of her life
it had caused them to fragment and hide throughout the world
worse than that, it had taken the lives of two of the closest friends Seoul had ever had
they were anchors in her life
strong fortresses in which she could take shelter
though they were separated now, knowing that the others were alright might have been easier to bear if only Kyoto and Venice were a part of it
but the meaning that grew out of their lives together was gone
gone forever
a new wave of tears floods over her, but this time they are brief
she is so exhausted that her body closes down into a half-doze
she knows she’s still awake, and her thoughts are still full of sadness
but her energy is totally depleted

after a few hours, Seoul gets up and shuffles to the bathroom again
she turns on the water in the shower and steps into the warmth, clothes still on
for a while she leans against the wall of the shower, then when she gathers enough will, begins to slowly remove her clothes
the water is somewhat therapeutic
as if every tiny droplet gives her a miniscule touch of strength
strength to begin washing herself
strength to think about what she wants to eat

strength to keep on living

she doesn’t know how much time passes, but eventually she turns the water off
immediately her ears attempt to find the whisper of the rig
but only stillness greets her
each drop of water coming from her body makes a tiny splat un-coloured by system noise
she stands for a moment, then reaches for a towel

wearing underwear and a singlet, Seoul goes to the kitchen
in the refrigerator there is yoghurt and fruit
some salad from the last time she ate
she picks at the salad, has some of the other things
makes herself a cup of jasmine tea and takes the mug into the room with the record player
sits on the arm-chair and folds her legs beneath her
the last time Seoul had to power-down the rig, she had almost gone mad in the silence
now it was welcome, bringing about a calming sense of relief

she sips from her mug

eventually morning comes
light begins to seep past the edges of the closed curtains
though her sleeping patterns are hardly regular, Seoul is rarely up for first light
she sighs to herself, then goes back to the rig
switches it on
the fans wind up to their normal pitch, and several sub-components power up with a high-pitched tone until they disappear from audible range
she feels the tingle of the WNI synchronising with her brain
then receives a confirmation pulse when it’s fully self-configured
before the screens display anything, the four system cases emit a series of diagnostic pulses through the WNI
the rig is rebuilding a significant part of its ice
nothing will load until the ice is fully running again, and has evolved for a duration of fifty-thousand cycles
finally the screens fade into view
the same photos
and the rig is ready for use

over the years she has slowly found them all
one by one they had given tiny indications of their existence
the thought that they were growing lazy never entered her mind
the traces they left would be unrecognisable to anyone but one of them
they did it to somehow try and let each-other know that they were alright
creating seemingly insignificant nodes in the net, swamped by extraneous data if you didn’t know how to look for it
Durban and Moscow’s nodes had even come together now and again over the years
but they were the only two
Seoul had made her presence known to no-one

why does she keep track of them?
why does she never generate nodes of her own?
usually ice this complicated screams out with brilliance in the net that something worth hiding is here
but she had spent more than a year coding and re-coding her ice to the extent that it was effectively an A.I.
the others had severely reduced their activities on the net
but she made herself truly invisible so that she can still have unrestricted access to it
what is she looking for?
she stills her hands on the keyboard and pauses her neural commands
maybe it’s denial
maybe she’s looking for the spiritual ghosts of Venice and Kyoto
as if they might be floating around somewhere in there, and all she has to do is look hard enough
maybe in a way, she is looking out for everyone else now, repaying the debt of care
if she was, she certainly doesn’t feel like she owes anything
everyone had given of their friendship freely
and so now she conducts her activities in secret
constantly searching for records and references to their actions in the past
erasing them
changing them
making them all disappear from the world more and more
at first she tried to make them disappear even from herself
but they still dropped nodes into the net, and she’d realised what they were doing

Seoul also looked for others like them, and for a while found nothing
she eventually found three school-children whose activities burned brilliantly in the net
the kids had already had run-ins with the law before Seoul found them
and their actions were dramatically more skilled than the average mature-age hacker
they were innocent though, curious – intelligent, and culture was slowly rejecting them
Seoul had then begun to hide their own activities, until they matured and begun making less noise
learnt how to cover their tracks and block back-hacks and tracers
they are now in high-school, and semi-focussing on studies
some of the security firms around the world kept a casual eye on them
Seoul now let some of their nodes slide for the companies to pick-up on
if they wanted careers in the business, she wasn’t about to deny them the option
but if they ever wanted to cut and run, she had stable but invisible nodes of ice to help them

she begins her data gathering sub-routines and abnormal activity immediately becomes evident
unknown nodes have formed bright pathways through the net
and every one of them ends in one of her friends
it’s strange though
anyone who was able to find one of them should easily be able to hide their tracks
but even a high-level coder might be able to find the traces left by the new pathways
the problem is at the other end though, she simply can not see a connection to a source
even the kids had been triggered
Seoul examines a back-hack from one of them – Riyadh
it seems to connect with something, but she has fragmented her data-shuffles well
Seoul won’t be able to crack it in a short amount of time, so she returns to examining the other nodes
she recognises the rigidly structured normality that constitutes her rig’s presence in the net
a seemingly simple convergence of random data channels and passive server-space
none of the suspicious nodes have gathered around her at all, most likely because she makes no sound, leaves no trace in the net
examining the data surrounding the others, one or two references to herself are there, but all data-paths stop at dead-ends
nothing has come remotely close to finding her, let alone gathering accurate information

it was tightly done
and the more Seoul examines the nodes, the more she is convinced the creator of them has ulterior intentions
the activity is coded in such a way that it is invisible to the average hacker
even a skilled hacker might have trouble finding any evidence of them at all
yet for one of the rare elite, the presence of the nodes is hard to miss
examining them closer reveals some tightly packed passive ice
traces of countermeasure code showing just beneath the surface
this isn’t just good work
this is exceptional
and Seoul quickly surmises that it will take a lot of effort to actually trace this data
Riyadh had done it though
or she’d seen something
activity showed that all traces of their movements stagnated
and she and her friends’ cell-phones hadn’t left campus, though their classes had ended hours ago
they’d kept their phones on and left them at school
clever
Seoul thinks she just might have to speak to these kids in person
it would mean flying, constructing a personality to move through the real world in
creating a nothing person to leave the same obvious traces of themselves that normal people leave

she keeps working at all the data until she finds a small cluster of nodes in Japan
the ice around these nodes isn’t passive at all
but seething with a tension not unlike an animal of prey, poised to strike
her non-intrusive observations haven’t raised any notice
but she recognises black-market signatures in the surface of the ice
before she even gets to making a decision as to whether or not she should crack it
her mind begins working the code, second-guessing how to do it
and when she is satisfied with her theories, she considers going in
it might be a risk, but she trusts her own sub-AIs to keep the rig safe from back-hacks
not to mention her own active monitoring of the data movement

instead of an aggressive attack, instincts give her the feeling she should try a passive pass
she sends a general enquiry ping right at the face of the nodes
the speed at which their ice acts would have been surprising if she wasn’t expecting it
immediately the enquirey is copied a thousand times and broken down for assessment
a thousand stealth queries fire back in her direction, and she lets a sub-AI generate a random government body for them to encounter
the enquiry is made to look like a simple location mistake – human error, the sort of thing that still happens all too often in the net
the ice units are satisfied with the response, and no back-hack is launched
by now though, each of the thousand copies of the enquiry has retrieved a single data-bit
data so small, duplicated and acquired so fast, that she won’t know if it was successful until she receives the return from the nodes
‘Incorrect Department-name or sub-Department. Please verify host lookup service or trigger protocol.’
but locked inside the code that represents the plain screen of text, is a single filename

inverse.coredata

she stares at the code before her eyes
then gathers her sub-AIs and unloads them from the net as slowly as she can
satisfied that she hasn’t withdrawn too quickly, she begins pulling all of her passive protocols and enquiries from the net
with each module she unloads, she allocates CPU time to the ice
by the time she’s finished, there are only two general activity modules running that are receptive to the outside net
everything else is ice, and it is now three times as thick as before

Seoul needs to think
she gets up and goes to the listening room
puts on the same minimal piano record she had listened to the day before
then returns to the rig
she stands behind the chair-back and stares at the screens
her ice is now so thick that if anyone penetrates it, all they’ll find is the other side of nothing
and more ice
she considers shutting down the last two modules when one of them triggers
a word fades in an out on one of the screens

‘incoming call’

she steps forward around the chair and into the WNI hot-zone
the sound of an office voice-server rings quietly in her brain
she stares
decides to pick it up
200 milliseconds to get there, 200 back
and the return node makes her widen her eyes
she speaks aloud, and the WNI translates the voices directly to and from her brain
– Vitoria?
– hi Jase, it’s Alice at Turner and Wilson…
she runs the company name, and screens Vitoria’s nodes for what the name Jason might mean
it only takes a second
– shit
the ice had already begun fragmenting the data transfer of the call, but she sends her own neural commands to speed it up
adding the randomness of a human mind
– i’m going to be out of the office tomorrow so you won’t be able to catch me
– when
what would have been a brilliant line of data-traffic is now unrecognisable, as if the call wasn’t taking place at all
– well it was sort-of arranged lunch-time today, but you know details are sketchy, it just got passed on like it always does
Vitoria gives what Seoul knows to be an artificial laugh
– stay at work until the end of the day, leave your phone switched on and on your desk like you’ve forgotten it, don’t go back to your apartment, hop the first flight out of there, i’ll see you in the morning
and she hopes Vitoria knows where to go, where they all agreed to meet should something go wrong
it’s been years, but it’s not the sort of thing one forgets
– no that sounds fine, we can arrange it for next week, i’m flying out in the morning so i wouldn’t want to cut down our time
– take your time, i’ll be waiting
– ok – i’ll see you then
Seoul almost wants to shout out to wait, that she wants to hear her voice for even just another few seconds
but she stops herself, and hears the line click out
the ice on the screens looks untouched
changing and evolving as it has been programmed to naturally do
the initial outbound call from Vitoria’s office had attracted the usual tracers, plus one or two more unusual ones
but each of them had been taken care of by her ice with speed and efficiency

something is beginning
it has found everyone except her, though in a way it doesn’t have to
it is entirely possible that the way each of them have been sought out is intended for her to see
none of the others would be as active in the net, but in-case anyone was, the right things are being done to draw attention
Seoul feels strange
in a few hours she may see Vitoria again, and she cannot help but feel the beginnings of excitement
but her fear of Inverse is significant enough to make her consider running
running so far away that she never has contact with the world again
however that isn’t what she wants
though Inverse or whoever was onto it now, hadn’t been able to find her
it had found the people she had loved the most – still loves now
and no matter what it might mean in the future, it was bringing them together again
that thought alone was enough to keep going

without sitting down, she begins to create the many false personalities she will use in the physical world
and with each node of data she creates
memories of happiness and sorrow return
one by one
like the notes of the piano coming from the room behind her