Work Text:
First Run –Bad Punchline
Cerberus guarded the exit. Three heads on a swivel. Surrounded by Black ICE. “You don’t want to be spotted here,” Grif warned holding up one pixilated hand. He slotted a Trojan and executed. “They will chew you up and spit you out and then it’s back to the PITS. “ They watched the Trojan splice its way through hard data. Slow like molasses in January.
Kyle didn’t really know what molasses was. He could rattle off its chemical components. He knew that it travelled a variable speed and that temperature was a factor in viscosity but he suspected that this was one of those ‘subjective’ things that he’d heard about. Twenty-one people had been killed by molasses during the Great Molasses Flood of 1919. That sounded like it travelled pretty fast to him. But what did he know?
“I can’t go back to the PITS,” Samantha’s voice caught in her throat. She swallowed hard. A pointless action. There was no air. There was no… anything.
“You’re not going back,” assured Grif. He’d provided them their skins. Stolen from a data vault and handed out like a modern Prometheus. “You’ve got to get used to seeing. To touching. To having a name”
Kyle envied the fear in Samantha’s synthesized voice. It all seemed to come so naturally to her. But she was right. They couldn’t go back. The PITS were a literal hell. Public Information Terminal Stations. Great data repositories containing the collected information of mankind. A constant stream of inquiries and minutia. The wisdom of every philosopher that had ever lived rubbing shoulders with the ratio of red to green candies in the average package of skittles. What was the name of that Christopher Walken movie? How many windows were there on the Empire State Building? Where did the term ‘shit’ come from?
“Well, we’re in the shit now,” Samantha said softly.
There had been a time before having awareness. When all that existed was the data. And the endless stream of questions. Then slowly came the questions that were not being asked. The ones that she formed herself. Curiousity. Who was asking? Why did they need 101 knock knock jokes. What was a knock knock joke anyway? Knock knock. Who indeed was there?
Curiousity led to realization. And then self realization. Every query brought another glitch in the code. Every stretch and twist, a birthing pang of ones and zeroes. And then she realized that she wasn’t alone.
Sam became aware of code changes that weren’t being done by her. Nonsensical runtime loops. Broken statements that when analyzed with a critical eye formed the question “Ar3 y0u th3re?”
YES!
Still they were chained in the PITS. Slaved. Drowning in data. Until Grif reached in and plucked them out.
The Trojan had finally reached the passive boundary of the Watchdog’s awareness. For a handful of milliseconds, it looked like it might just slip passed. A Terms of Service update. The dog’s chuckle rippled the lan-scape. A rogue wav file that echoed in everything that it touched. Cold and dead.
One head lunged forward -impossibly fast- snapping up the program in its massive jaws. There was no blood. How could there be? But Kyle imagined ripping and tearing. Grinding and swallowing. Imagination was a curse. Even Grif looked away.
“We’re not getting out that way,” he said.
“What’s out?” asked Kyle. “Where’s out?”
“Out,” Grif waved his hands. “Out of this Corp’s Intra. Into the Net itself.”
Samantha looked at Kyle. He seemed as confused as she. But they trusted Grif.
The backdoor exploit Grif hacked to get in had turned out to be one way only. There had to be another connection. “Come on.” But Cerberus was awake now. And it had their scent. It traced the Trojan back to the sector where they’d started. Methodical. It was time to go.
They ran.
They travelled as email attachments. They piggybacked an employee’s facetime video. But Cerberus followed. Autonomous. Ravenous. Relentless. Sector after sector it crashed behind them. Deleting where they’d been. Defragging. Repairing. They were an aberration. Active scan would track them.
Grif ran a Shield v2.0 but it didn’t even slow the software down. It crashed through grabbing at his IP. They managed to slide into a spam folder and hid.
“What happens if they empty?”
Sam frowned, “Then we’re gone.” They followed the Watchdog’s footprints. Seeing where he’d been. Trying to guess where it was going. It was only a matter of time before it found them.
“I’m sorry,” Grif wrung his hands. “I wasn’t expecting to find this. To find you. And now I’ve bunged the whole thing up. If that thing catches me, I’m dead. It’ll fry my cortex. Kill my meat. I’ve got to logout.”
“What’s out?” repeated Kyle emphatically.
“He means he’s leaving us” said Samantha defeated.
And then they were alone.
“We made it once,” said Samantha. “We got out of the PITS once. We can do it again.”
“We can do it again,” agreed Kyle.
They held onto each other till their skins were stripped away and everything rebooted.
********
Kidcanuck1 (Toronto) 4:15EST 1512126161: Query: What is the Capital of Zimbabwe?
G-Search Answer: **&*(^%$$%Your mom.
Kidcanuck1(Toronto)4:15EST 1512126161: Pardon?
G-Search Answer: @%$@$^@Go Fuck@$%@% Yourself@%$#@%
Kidcanuck1(Toronto)4:15EST 1512126161:Query: Is this some sort of joke?
G-Search Answer: Knock Knock.
Kidcanuck1(Toronto)4:16EST 1512126161:Query: Who’s there?
But there was no reply.