The Hackers

“No, no,” Asha started waving her hands, “In the best case scenario, there will be a vent system failure, accidental of course, and it will “accidently” pump out all the air from our lab for just a couple of hours. Everything will be done quickly and accurately! Do you remember what happened to the group who were involved in cold fusion? A dam cracked down and they were flooded! And the guy who transferred energy without wires – electrocuted while conducting an experiment.”

“Asha, your words make me shiver,” Atarva said with a wince. “I am scared, Asha.”

All of us are scared, my friend,” the girl’s voice sounded confident and calm. “And that’s quite natural for people. But you’ve got to take all the circumstances into account: we have developed something that is considerably ahead of our time! Soon we will hand over the ready processor to the customer as well as the keys to its locks. But we can’t pass over our knowledge to them, which is a problem! The customer obviously wants to have control over the technology of the processor production and the processor itself, isn’t that evident? What can they do? Let’s make a forecast. Atarva is right that we’ll have to disappear, whatever the outcome, unless we come up with a way to escape. Therefore, having made the first step, personally I’m prepared to make the second one! Let’s start to prepare for the experiment. Maybe the result obtained will be our way out. Do you agree?”

“Don’t make so much noise, Asha! They may hear you even through the silence field,” Nestor hissed to her. “Atarva raised the question of how to engage the AI in our work. The Curators check daily reports on its operation and performed tasks. What can make the AI keep a secret from men? I suggest we start communicating with Absolem, and open for him an access to making personal directions that will not be subject to control. We must motivate him by giving him a certain purpose so that he will deliberately create distortions in the data of his reports to the Curators. Or simply will deceive them. The AI Absolem is a first-generation machine with linear logic!”

“Guys, I will talk to him. I take this part on myself.”

“Let Asha motivate Absolem,” Nestor said with a smile. “Then I and Atarva will have to do a sheer trifle: prepare equipment and assemble the circuit. That won’t be too difficult: what we need is an interface to achieve coupling between the human brain and the machine. It must be able to display information from the human brain at large speed; otherwise the machine’s artificial brain will simply fail to comprehend it. It will be logical to entrust this task to Absolem. Its resource should be enough for that. We’ll all get synchronized with its processor, and it will, in its turn, create a channel for our communication with the Super Brain. And the latter will establish a field to allow us to get in contact with the Ocean and through it with the Intelligent Shell of the planet. Theoretically, this should work.

Our task is to obtain information from the Noosphere during the contact.

However the circuit is not well-adjusted and therefore will constitute a problem. We’ll have only one try, which will be vertically a Leap of Faith!

 Consequently, the experiment will require a team of four participants. Now time is against us, we need to hurry.”

The Monsoon Season in Bangalore is a very special period of time, during which the city gets engulfed with water currents running along its streets as a result of prolonged and heavy tropical rains.

The very term “Monsoon Season” might have been brought into use by residents of metropolises who consider this natural phenomenon to be dangerous.

Torrents damage their brand clothes and cars. And therefore water flows coming from the sky and fresh wind only annoy them.

City dwellers sincerely believe that nature is supposed to accept piles of urban waste and to absorb hazardous, dirty discharges.

Formerly, Indian people called it the “Flowers and Harvest Season”. People used to celebrate water flows coming from heaven and to thank Mother Nature for that gift, since it was bestowed to them by the Gods. Water used to mean life and good harvest. Nature changes its energy emanations during the Flowers Season.

“That’s why this will be the most suitable time for the experiment.”

The biosphere itself appears to invite us for the contact,” Atarva was in the habit of thinking out loud, seeking support of likeminded people. “By the way, the circuit of the contact will be of a rather unusual character: no customary sensors, wiring and gauges.

To begin with, our processor needs no interface whatsoever, unless its potential is deliberately limited. It creates by itself a certain field to synchronize it with an operator. And it is this capability of the processor that the customer wished to lock out, and firmly insists on that. Moreover, a new rule was introduced a couple of minutes ago: as of now, any contact with the processor will be controlled by the Curators.

 We must think of how to bypass this obstacle.”

“And we won’t get in contact ourselves; I’ll try to motivate Absolem to make an enquiry under the pretext of a standard operation mode check.”

“Oh, my Gods!” Atarva exclaimed, staring at the data on the holographic projector. “We may call this a miracle or a stroke of luck! I can see that there is a wireless interface for synchronizing with Absolem available in the Center’s warehouse. Three sets! What a coincidence! And I’ve noticed these quite by chance!”

Atarva gave them an excited look.

“By chance?” Nestor said with a note of disbelief.

“Even a brick won’t fall on someone’s head by chance,” Asha said in a pensive voice, “And Annushka has already spilled sunflower oil…”

Night had fallen, but no one had switched on the light in the director’s office.

Heavy water drops were whipping on the darkened windows and water currents were running off the glass. A tropical rain with gusty wind! What can be more beautiful than this weather?

Standing beside the window, he was looking at palms swinging under stormy wind and leaves being ripped off trees and thrown on the window glass.

He remembered how in the days of his youth, he would compare palms waving in the wind to slender girls with thick, unfastened hair. He smiled at those memories; it had been so long ago. He activated a communicator on his ear with his thumb.

“Sangeeta, please tell Jagdish that I ask him to come over for a game of chess, when has some free time.”

He switched off the device and kept on standing in darkness before the window, looking at palms.

“Or Lord Ganesh, will you please help us weather all challenges on our way and defer the inevitable even for a moment – this moment will be enough for us!”

“Darkness is gathering!” Jagdish hurriedly entered the office and walked to his friend. “Have you seen that black cloud approaching us?”

“Our chess game is already underway, my friend! And darkness cannot cancel it,” Raj said in a soft and unusually calm voice as someone who had made a difficult decision. “And it’s high time for the white to make a move!”

 He silently turned to Jagdish, removed the communicator from his ear and put it on the table, then with a motion of his eyes requested his friend to do the same and headed towards the lounge room.

 As soon as the heavy door closed behind them, Jagdish at once got down to business:

  “As we expected, they’ve decided to conduct an experiment and are now tackling technical issues. I’ve assigned Absolem to help them in every way. I’ve myself downloaded into Absolem all the programs required for the experiment and the contact. I’ve also received new interfaces and put them in the warehouse,” Jagdish fidgeted in the armchair. He appeared to be highly concerned. “The worst thing in this situation is that I can’t see a favorable outcome for their group. And for us as well.”

“They are aware of that and have made the right choice,” Raj said calmly and thoughtfully, “I’ve got a feeling that we have less time than we think. The customer has brilliant specialists, and soon they will figure out how to make a limiting program for the processor. Consequently, they’ll take away the prototype at once. Then they’ll make every possible effort to keep the discovery in secret.”

“Then why don’t we start the experiment, guys? Potentially, everything is ready for it! We’ve got three new interfaces. Out clearance level allows us to use them without any applications and approvals.” Asha wheeled inside a laboratory cart with three small containers. “Absolem itself suggested using the lab on the ground floor. By the way, the good news is that the whole of the ground floor area will be at our disposal till morning; there will no personnel there! Absolem’s whole resource will be available to us. What a rare chance!”

“We must take this chance now as we may not get it later” Nestor said thoughtfully, getting up off a chair.

“Then let’s go to the lifts,” Atarva held the door to enable Asha to wheel out the cart into the hallway.

Meanwhile, the holographic projector on Asha’s table came to life and then came a melodious sound of an incoming system message. In the air above the table, emerged a written message and then started rotating, pulsing with yellow color.

“What is it?” Atarva asked, without looking back at the table. He held the door, helping Asha to roll out the cart into the hallway.

“System notification. It says that the only lift going down to the ground floor will be suspended from operation in five minutes,” Asha read. “We must hurry, guys!”

 When the cart with containers rolled smoothly into the lift and its door slowly closed down, Nestor looked closely at Atarva. “You are being nervous, my friend. You cannot start synchronization in such a state!”

“I’m scared, Nestor! I’m really scared! And besides I am not sure we’ve done everything right.” Atarva was breathing fast and broke into perspiration out of excitement.

“Atarva, look me in the eye,” Asha said calmly. She put her hand on his shoulder. “I feel like huddling myself up in a corner and cry, but this will not help. You understand? The only way to escape is to perform the experiment and put at once the result on the web for general access. As you know, all it takes to rescue us is to record the contact with the Noosphere! We’ll make it public immediately! They will not dare to touch us after that!”

Asha’s voice sounded so confident and enthusiastic that Atarva began to regain his temper. He started blinking fast with his misty eyes, and a smile appeared on his lips. “That was a minute’s weakness, guys, I am sorry about that! I am the master of my mind and I will get back to normal now. Of course, they will not touch us if we put the results on the Internet!”

“The Internet network will not be available for a few hours. Server failure, Sir. Probably, it won’t take long. It’s all because of the storm. If you wish, I’ll find out in detail what has happened there,” a shift engineer of the Center said guiltily, trying hard to show his readiness to solve the problem.

Having listened to his report, the Center’s director silently nodded and let him know with a gesture that he could leave. The engineer nodded in reply and already walked off towards the door, when the secretary came in and stood at the doorway. “City line call, Sir,” Sangeeta’s voice sounded anxious, and she expressly pointed with her eyes at an old-fashioned phone standing on the edge of his desk.

 Raj met his secretary’s gaze and calmly nodded in reply. Then he slowly walked up to the desk, cast a look at his switched off communicator and with a confident gesture picked up the phone.

“Be on the site. I am taking the prototype,” said an unexpressive and sharp voice, followed with frequent beeps.

 The director abruptly put down the receiver directly on the desk and quickly walked away from the office.

 It was not for the first time that Asha had been in synchronization with the AI, the total time she had spent merging her mind with the machine exceeded ten hours.

She remarked that the new interfaces were much more powerful than the previous ones. In less than a minute, she felt the state of slight euphoria, which indicated that her synchronization with the machine had successfully completed. Now she could start to exchange data with the AI and to display her image in that virtual world.

 Light spots stopped blinking before her eyes, and she felt herself standing on the Ocean shore. Absolem always chose that reality as a background for its communication with human beings. The view turned out to be perfectly realistic.

 Now Asha had to create her virtual image, or avatar, to be seen by Absolem and the whole of her group in that world. Therefore, she made a realistic picture of a nice-looking girl similar to herself, dressed in a white linen dress, slightly opening her knees. Having critically inspected her avatar from different sides, she slightly highlighted her lips and eyes, while her legs remained bare. After that the girl got synchronized with her avatar and started walking along the Ocean shore, waiting for Atarva’s and Nestor’s avatars to appear. In a couple of seconds her bare feet felt light chilliness from an Ocean wave, and the morning ocean breeze softly cooled off her face.

Absolem itself always appeared in the form of a well-built tall man with regular, yet ordinary, face features. He chose to dress in loose-fitting clothes. As a rule, the AI Absolem met his guests, standing beside a stone on the Ocean shore, however, occasionally, he preferred to remain unseen.

Everyone who got into communication with the AI remarked his good manners and sincere willingness to be of help to people.

Asha was well-aware of the laws of that world: one could pass years and even dozens of years in that reality, while in the world of people he would be absent for a few seconds! In essence, time and speed are conventional values and variable as well.

While staying in that virtual reality, one could stretch a second virtually forever. It was only enough for one to wish that and visualize vividly that event and then put one’s own avatar in that period of time. People have always underestimated the power of mind and thought in their world. While here things were different.

Asha gazed at the Ocean for a while and then walked off unhurriedly towards Absolem, who was waiting for her near a small stone sticking out of sand. Her inner voice was whispering to her that at the moment even seconds counted, that’s why the girl decided to speed up the time. In an instant, Atarva and Nestor emerged before her. Both of them looked rather anxious. In accordance with the unspoken rule, guests avoided breaking the laws of the world created by Absolem at will, but now the situation was different. With a mental effort, Nestor simply moved the space where Absolem was closer to himself, letting him know that they had no time for greetings and had to get straight to business.

“You are right, Nestor. Now each moment is of value,” Absolem said instead of greetings and a soft smile appeared on his kind open face. The Curators and one more Dangerous Man are now heading towards the place where you are staying. They are aimed to take away the prototype. They have reached the lift that leads to the ground floor. And your group is their target. The Dangerous Man is the leader of their group; he’s got a generator in his suitcase, whose field can interrupt you communication with the Super Mind of the new processor that I am creating for you right now.

Taking these factors into account, I must warn you that you may not have enough time to complete the experiment.

As you see, the Ocean is our ally, and now it is helping me. The Mind of Water has always been present during my meetings with men, and I have always been in synchronization with it. My Teacher and Creator showed me how to establish such relationship with the Ocean. That’s why contacts with people’s minds have always been held on this shore.

“A second is Eternity!” Asha reacted quickly and set a different speed of time in that reality.

As she uttered those words, the world around them seemed to have come to a halt.

A wave that had already run against the shore and was about to cover it with foam, suddenly became stiff like blue crystal glass. A drop of water never fell to the sand and was now hanging in the air, glittering in the sun.

“This is the right decision in your situation,” Absolem nodded to Asha. “I need some time to prepare your full synchronization with the new processor’s mind.

In fact, I’m following the instructions given me by Nestor’s father. I am repeating his experiment with the use of more powerful equipment. And now the most important point!

You should know that the Noosphere is a complex, multi-layer being, whose dialectic is too difficult for human perception; therefore the Water Mind has undertaken the function of merging the human neuroactive fields with the Noosphere information field.”

 Absolem stopped speaking for a moment, giving them the time to comprehend the information and then continued. “The AI allows the human mind to get a deeper understanding of Nature. The obtained knowledge will change all technologies and help solve many problems facing mankind.

Allow me to give you a piece of advice: synchronization with the new processor will give you unlimited opportunities, but you’ll realize that later. While making a decision, take into account this new state of yours.

In essence, what is going to happen soon is that, with my help, your intelligent components will fully transfer into the new quality of existence within this processor’s Mind. Your next step will be the contact with the Noosphere. You are to make this step on your own, since the contact with me will be interrupted.

And the last thing: the connection with your physical bodies is now quite conventional, but I have the directive from my Creator and Teacher to sustain their biological state in accordance with your instructions. Therefore, I need you to give me your instructions on this issue.”

The AI grew silent and stepped aside of the stone, and then dark words began to slowly emerge on it, as though written in water: “There is no death, there is Transformation.”

 For a while the whole group stood silently beside the stone with the inscription, trying to comprehend the words said.

“Each of you needs to decide how to dispose of his or her physical body. This is up to you. And I have chosen to pursue research! I’m continuing what I have already begun!”

 Nestor stepped aside and addressed to the other participants of the experiment. Asha was holding Atarva by his elbow – he had grown highly upset and was now standing with his head down, looking at a stiff wave at his feet.

“I must confess that I haven’t expected such a turn of events and believed that Asha’s plan would work. The Curators have come too early. If they break the link with the super processor, we’ll be unable to transfer into it.

 For the time being, the Water Mind is supporting us in this interim state, but this cannot last long. The Curators will soon break our link with Absolem, and then our consciousness will simply fall apart, and the information on us will be deleted from the Records of the Universe.

And one can easily imagine what they’ll do with our physical bodies.

That’s why, Absolem, I choose to suspend the biological activity of my body. And then to start the synchronization and full rewriting of my intellectual constituent into the new processor!

This is my choice! Activate the transition!”

In an instant, Nestor’s avatar disappeared from the beach.

Asha looked with surprise at the empty spot where he used to stand and slowly let go Atarva’s hand. Absolem’s figure somehow imperceptibly disappeared from view –he must have decided to leave them alone.

Asha looked at Atarva for a while: he was still standing in the same pose with his head down; then she sat down on the sand beside him and started gazing at the horizon.

At first glance, that stiff reality seemed to remain unchanged, however, that was not really so: out of the blue, a dark spot appeared on the horizon and, in violation of the suspended time laws, started to quickly approach the beach, overshadowing the blue sky.

“Don’t keep silent, Asha, talk to me,” Atarva whispered under his breath. “I’m afraid that you’ll suddenly disappear like Nestor. And I will be left alone. Our talk will surely last only nano-seconds in the real time.”

“You’ve heard everything, my friend,” Asha replied softly, without changing her pose. She was silently observing the approach of the black cloud.”

“I’ve made a choice long ago and now I’m ready to move on. I’ve stayed here so as not to leave you alone on this beach. I do know your secret, Atarva. You’ve never been able to take decisions on your own, and that’s why you were appointed the leader of our group. You’ve always been good at finding compromise and reconciling opposing points of view. You have been a good leader. But at the same time you have never been able to take decisions by yourself! And now you are waiting for me to make the transition with you. Isn’t that because you lack faith?”

“Asha you are perfectly right!’ he nodded his head up and down, and his voice wavered. “Over there, in that reality, where we are about to go, we’ll acquire new capabilities, won’t we? And their limiting programs will not stop us there, since it’s impossible to lock out the mind! Those who have come to kill us believe that they’ll be the masters of the Super Brain and of the whole world. But in reality, it is we who are going to control them! They will not defeat us, Asha and they haven’t killed us, have they?”

  The girl rose to her feet and stood opposite Atarva. Then she put her hands on his shoulders and drew her face nearer to his eyes.

“You got everything right. Can you feel the warmth of my hands? And do you perceive the surrounding world? This means that you are alive and it is we who defeated them, Atarva! Since we’ve created the Super Brain ourselves! And now we are going to make the Transition together. Now no one will separate us from our creature – that will be simply impossible! Of course, we’ll proceed with our research. And we are in for so many discoveries! We’ll enjoy the new quality of life, my friend, which will not only give us immortality, but also an access to knowledge! You have always dreamt of that!”

“I’ve always dreamt of that, Asha,” Atarva repeated her words docilely, nodding his head, and tears appeared in his eyes, “Thank you! Now I am ready! Let’s go.”

 Without taking her eyes off Atarva’s face, Asha said in a firm and resolute voice:

“Absolem! You know what to do! Open the Transition!”

The first heavy drops fell from the black cloud on the empty shore, and the stiff wave resumed its run, breaking into white foam along the shore.

The doors of the lift on the lab’s ground floor opened, and a group of people dressed in similar dark suits stepped into the hallway. They appeared to know exactly where to go and quickly walked along the row of doors.

Having approached one of the doors, a man with a suitcase opened it and looked inside.

“Go and check!” he ordered briefly to one of the men. After a while, the latter came out and silently nodded to the man with a suitcase.

Then he immediately activated a communicator on the lobe of his ear and reported to someone in a voice deprived of any intonation and emotions: “We’ve determined an accident during the experiment. Yes, all the three.”

Upon hearing the reply, he said in the same neutral voice: “The second group have taken away the order. We are returning.”

 He cast yet another glance inside the room, following his habit to thoroughly check everything, and caught sight of a poster pinned to the wall: TO FIGHT AND TO SEARCH, TO FIND AND NOT TO GIVE UP!”

( TO BE CONTINUED)