Download

by Fred Warren

Melanie stood in the shadow of the obsidian mountains, alone this time. No ninja outfit, no dodging and weaving her way from boulder to bush, trying to hide from an enemy that wasn't there. Most of all, there was no Carson and no Hamsa. She'd catch hell later for doing the retrieval without them, but they'd just slow her down.

This place, deserted or not, gave her the creeps. It felt haunted. The twisted drill bit embedded in the fractured cliff ahead was Jumbo's Folly, the headstone of a reckless gamer who died trying to break into whatever was protected by the mysterious black wall. Carson thought it was Paradise, the fabled home of the legendary Dreamers. Melanie thought he was nuts.

He'd abandoned life beyond his simulation couch, but he was her brother. She'd never abandon him.

Whatever it was, it didn't want visitors. Two days ago, Carson and his friends had detected a data leak here, and she'd sent a reconnaissance AI into a crack in the firewall. By now, the chameleon program should have filled its memory with the information they'd need to penetrate the enclave without triggering a lethal response.

It was time to recover Flat Audrey and get out of here.

“Audrey, return.”

The slender black ribbon that dropped from the gash in the cliff lay in the grass for a moment, then curled up on itself like a tiny serpent, whistling in a reedy voice, *MISSION COMPLETE.*

Melanie picked it up and set it in the palm of her right hand. “Welcome back, Audrey. How are you?”

*I AM FINE. I AM FULL. I DO NOT LIKE THAT SYSTEM.*

This was an odd status report, even from Audrey. “What don't you like about it?”

*MANY HOSTILE SECURITY PROGRAMS, ALL PURPOSED TO DESTROY INTRUDERS. WE SHOULD LEAVE NOW.*

“No argument here. Were you detected?”

*NO. I AM EXTRAORDINARY.*

“Yes, you are. Let's go home.”

It was a relief to get out of the gaming rig. Melanie used the suite's interface to transfer Audrey from the network into a memory stick, then she returned to her own room and plugged the stick into a stand-alone workstation. She didn't want anybody else seeing what Audrey had discovered behind the firewall.

She opened the first archive and groaned. It was encrypted.

“Audrey, why didn't you decrypt this data?”

*UNABLE. MILITARY-STRENGTH ENCRYPTION. I AM NOT THAT EXTRAORDINARY.*

Melanie chuckled. There weren't many AIs that could make a synthesized voice sound sad. The developers usually didn't bother. Audrey, however, was a labor of love.

“It's not your fault, baby. I programmed you.”

*YES, IT IS YOUR FAULT.*

“Saucy girl.” Melanie could still hack the encrypted files, but she'd have to call in a favor from one of her tech school classmates who had a bone to pick with the Peacekeepers. “Is anything you collected not encrypted?”

*YES. OPEN ARCHIVE 8034-A. INTERFACE DATA AND ID OF GUEST USER EXTERNAL TO NETWORK. ARCHAIC ADAPTER SPILLED DATA THROUGH GAP IN FIREWALL.*

“Do tell. This must be the guy who lit up Jumbo's Folly. Let's take a look.” Her fingers flew across the touchpad, and lines of data, readable data, flowed across the screen. Technical specifications of the user's simulation rig. Network addresses. Data volume and rate of flow. At the end of it all was a standard colonist identification code cluster. And a name.

Melanie blinked. “John Milton?”

She knew the name. Milton was a celebrity, a big-shot businessman, an import-export broker. It didn't make sense. This guy was too busy making money to waste any time on sims. He played his games in the real world with real people. What possible connection could he have with the Dreamers? Why would he care?

He wouldn't.

Melanie smiled. That was the answer. There weren't any Dreamers. The obsidian firewall was there to protect records of shady business deals, or embezzlement, or bribes paid to government officials. That would make a lot more sense than a play world for disembodied relics of a bygone age. If she could prove it, her brother would lose interest in Jumbo's Folly, and the firewall, and the missing memory blocks in the network servers. He'd go back to his friends and his games and stop risking his life sticking his nose where it didn't belong.

It was time to pay a visit to Mr. John Milton.