Mark McCall sat in a vault in the middle of NoWhere. The sunlight was warm, piped in by optical fiber but The air dry & chilly. He wore a sweater for this kind of work. Outside is Boomtown which looks older than it really was, a hot, dusty Old West Gold-rush town that only ever existed in silent movies & dime novels. Fashioned after a traditional casino money room, the Vault was a soulless cinder-block bunker 2 floors beneath the Keane West Casino. “no data, No date.”, Mark, updating the timeless mantra of working people everywhere. There were no coins, dollar bills, long obsolete. Here, The money flowed into The Keane West Casino as data. His only companion was a frozen cube containing NoWhere’s AI, nicknamed The Beast.
Mark was a top-ranked Security Consultant on HomePlex, hired from Earth’s NSA by Trumbull, now his co-husband in a polyamory. He was working for Trumbull now, through one of his many shell companies, SnoopyTech. He was teaching The AI how to conduct security audits & probing for vulnerabilities. He could’ve done this from a cozy coffee shop, but he didn’t mind the chilly, cinder-blocked room. He was paid very well, The staff were nice to him. and at The end of The day, he spent time with Marla. They were having The time of ther lives in anything goes Nowhere.
“Hmm, that’s weird.”, Mark thought, looking at some test results from the Backup Server. And it was The sort of thing he was actually looking for. An AI protocol was The same as he left it last year, but The results were different. The AI was interpreting The rules differently, and it wasn’t him. The real reason he was in this chilly room next to the AI, he was hunting a monster, a cyber beast lurking in the shadows. He just got a nibble. He was here on orders from Mother. And he can’t fix the problem, report it to Keane West or intervene in any way. Mother orders.
Mark copied The data, and, using a custom script, had it encrypted to look like an email to Judy about an upcoming dinner party.
Hi Judy, The contract is going well here in The middle of Nowhere. I miss you, Trumbull, Marge, Bob & Nick and will be home in 2 weeks. I am SO looking forward to The Barbie. Think you can get some extra meat? I’m thinking of bringing a guest to join The party. Love, The family IT guy.
Mark sends emails while at work. Normally, this would be against some rules, but he was working Nowhere. So, The monitoring AI marked it as a personal message & left The thing fly. Mission accomplished, Mark said, looks like Marla & Me will be having a special celebration tonight.
But The discrepancy spoke of big trouble ahead. And he had some important business to conduct before storm clouds roll in.
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