A Byte to Remember[a]
by
Christopher Throckmorton


        As her world exploded into flames around her, she saw the man she knew as The Ghost smirking smugly as he stepped backwards to fade in the growing smoke cloud. Frantically, she glanced around and dismally noted that her escape options had been cut off. She was all,[b] but completely doomed. Desperate for a miracle, she leaped through the doorway back into her room. A deafening crack filled the air and her world went completely dark.


        She awoke to the sound of driving rain drumming against her window. The rain pounded into her consciousness as she struggled to make sense of the blur that greeted her eyes. Slowly,  she realized that the rain made the same sound as fire so, she concluded that the fire that felt so real in destroying her was naught but a dream. That realization did not make her feel much better as she shuddered with the thought of how real the dream felt. Her eyes blinked, almost of their own accord as she thought about what to do first. Nothing came to her mind, in fact, she was not even sure what she could do. In fact, it was becoming more apparent that she had no idea where she was nor who she [c]was. Panic began to swell in her mind as she failed to recognize anything surrounding her in the dim light. The situation was untenable to stay where she lay, so she forced her mind to be calm and began to look around.She was laying in a bed cocooned by a warm comforter and that allowed her relax a little.  With the sense of foreboding starting to fade, She believed that no one looking to do her harm would take the time to wrap her snuggly and put her nicely into her own bed. Well, that was probably true. A quiet, but distinct, humming sound caught her attention as she looked around her room. The sound was irritating, but it was not enough to keep her attention. Besides, the sound would have to go away sooner or later. As she looked to her right, she saw that the light was broken by the rain as it streamed through her window. Abruptly her thoughts were interrupted with flashes of strings of zeros and ones that streamed through her mind, along with several file names that all bore the word Masquerade. As she recovered her mind she sighed and panned around her room. The objects began to gain clarity in the flickering light. Her head hurt, along with rest of her, and she desperately wanted to restore order to her world by closing her eyes until the pains went away. Thankfully, the humming stopped in her ears as her gaze passed the doorway of her room leading out … well, to somewhere for sure. To the left of her was a closet with a full length mirror attached, but the lighting was too low to make out anything besides that she was in a bed. Next to her was a small end table replete with pictures of people that she did not recognize. As sure as she could be that this room, despite the feeling that everything was foreign, was as safe as she could want. 
        By a sheer force of her willpower against her muscles that refused to cooperate, she pulled herself free of her cocoon[d] and stood up. Her eyes were adjusting to the light and she could see almost clearly now as she blinked the last of the crud from her eyes. Shakily, but stubbornly, she put one foot in front of the other until she felt stable enough to walk. Now that she had passed the Trial of Standing it was time to see what else she could find out about herself. The humming started again. It was not that it was hurting, it was just disturbing enough that she could not ignore it and it just added to the confusion in her head. She adjusted to the sound[e] and started toward the door. Her reflection in the closet mirror caught her attention as she walked toward her door. Interested, she cocked her head to the side slightly and paused for just a moment to look. Her light brown hair was matted in places and curled in semi-random directions, but it looked like it was curly and long enough to reach her shoulders. Even right out of bed her hair almost framed her face in a heart shape which nicely setting off the freckles that sprinkled her cheeks and nose. She smiled a little at the sight of her face and promptly blushed. In the confusion of everything, she did not even realize that she was completely nude. Once the closet door was opened, she was able to identify her favorite pair of jeans. The jeans that were loose enough not constrict her breathing, but not so loose to hide her curves. Her frame was not something that she would consider petite, but it definitely struck her as athletic. Like everything else in her room, the clothes felt familiar and alien to her body, but it was calming to her to gain just a shred of normalcy to her. As she stood fully upright, she tugged at her shirt , ensuring that both the pig face and the caption “Love Me Tender” were visible. A few minutes passed as she tugged at her pants until they felt right on her hips. Feeling confident that she was as prepared as possible for the next step, she left the closet and walked through the bedroom door into the next room. That is when the humming in her ears returned so loudly that she had to shut her eyes until the hum faded away completely.[f] 
        With more resolve, S[g]he opened her eyes to survey the scene outside her room. A cheerful little desk lamp illuminated what she immediately recognized as her work area. In addition to the lamp were a pair of monitors, a keyboard, a mouse, and an apparently random collection of electronic components next to her still ho[h]t soldering iron. Again, bits of memory flooded her mind, more documents, the face of The Ghost, and more random streams of zeros and ones. While She looked around her desk and found books on encryption, books on network security and on the floor by her desk, in semi-random piles , were documents detailing newly discovered attacks. [i]It was coming back to her, albeit in bits and pieces, that She was computer  security  expert. For the last ten years She has been an analyst in network security that specialized in the identification of, and providing solutions to, unauthorized access. She did all of her work from here and The Ghost was somehow intertwined with this Masquerade for which she knew nothing about save its name.  No wonder She was dreaming of being burned completely by this person if there was some new intrusion method that she had discovered. Apparently, this Masquerade was something to do with burning data trails to avoid path traces allowing any program to remain undetected and this demanded more serious investigation. Energized by the manifestation of this new quest line She took her chair at her workbench and powered up her system. 
        The files were not in disarray around her desk, but rather they were grouped in categories of attacks. They were all white papers she had been constructing from everything from eavesdropping to the man in the middle assaults for gaining unauthorized access. Her main interests, judging from the size of that pile, were sniffer protocols and cracking encryption. Apparently, she discovered a way that sniffers could identify both the encryption used for a data packet and access the key needed to break the encryption. As such it operated as the “Man” in the middle on the originating system, which she had dubbed a Masquerade attack because it decrypted any file using the system’s encryption keys. It was unusual in that it would send the file encrypted to its destination but the supposedly secure data was free to be read by anyone that could listen in to the transmission.  Done well, the Masquerade would be able to provide read, intercept, and interject apparently authentic responses with no delay in transmission time. No wonder she felt The Ghost might turn violent over this discovery. A bit of humming and a clatter from the front door stole her attention as she looked up.
        A woman walked over to her, with skin the color of smooth chocolate and flame red hair. Her deep brown eyes betrayed the intense calculations occurring under the woman’s cool exterior. The strange woman smiled with a broad smile and said, “Hey! You’re finally up. I thought you had been ignoring me for the past few days.”
        “How, who … ?” She stammered at the stranger as She tried vainly to cover the pages she was reading.
        “Silly,” replied the newcomer in a silky voice, “I am Calypso[j].” Seeing confusion on the other woman’s face, Calypso continued, “I live next door? We are good friends? You know, we drink margaritas and talk about work and stuff? Nothing? Seriously?” Calypso’s brow furrowed and said, “We should get you to a hospital if you do not know me.”
        “I am sorry. I am[k] just having a hard time remembering things right now. It is like amnesia but I am getting parts of it at a time. I think I will just stay here for now.” Laughing nervously, She added, “No need getting out here anytime soon, right?”
        “Hmmm.” murmured Calypso and the she laughed as she said, “You always are way into work. Sometimes I swear you only talk to people that help you further with … whatever it is you are working on now.”
        “Yeah, I know I am a bit of a workaholic.” She begrudgingly agreed.
        “Well, so you are not a total amnesiac then.” Calypso giggled.
        Turning back to her work area, She went back to her monitor. Her work came pouring into her mind which made her feel secure and more real. She had a purpose. She had a life. She also had this person standing over her watching her work with no idea who this Calypso, if that was her real name, might be. For someone that was supposed to be that close to her, she should remember something of this Calypso. However, She believed that Calypso was genuine, after all, Calypso did have a key to her apartment. The thought gently nagged at her because She had spent years learning that the slimiest and most harmful things always came looking like a friend. Regardless of the danger, She could not concern herself enough to stop what she was doing, not while she was piecing back together her life, one memory stream at a time. Her system monitor demanded her attention because it became bright and full of life. The thought still pulled at her, because even if Calypso was someone on her side, the grime of the underbelly of criminal activities stuck to everyone, even if just a little. Virtual or actual, criminal activity tended to work its way into everyone sooner or later, justifying actions that would have been incomprehensible juxtaposed with the same values earlier. 
        Calypso pulled up a chair next to, poignantly looking away from the work area and said “So, what are you working on now?”
        She did not look up and said, “I am not sure. I just have these flashes and pieces.”
        Calypso breathed out a sigh as she shifted her weight around in the chair. Finally, Calypso said in an attenuated voice, almost hushed as she said, “You gave me this for safe keeping a few days ago.” Calypso produced a sealed envelope and handed it to her friend saying, “You said this was important just in case something went wrong.”
        She opened it and said confused, “It is an address and a key.”
        Calypso said, “It looks like a lock box somewhere, but the address is the bus station across the street. Maybe it’s a locker?” When Calypso looked up, her friend was gone and the door was open.


        At the bus station, she looked around for the locker that matched the key in her hand. Excitedly she counted the counted down until she found locker forty-two. She inserted the key into the lock and paused. Uncertain as to what might be inside the locker, She found herself hesitant to actually turn the key. The way she came across this information was interesting, to put a word to it. She looked around and noted there was no one here besides the ticket person, whom she oddly recognized as someone who belonged here. With a renewed courage to solve this bizarre mystery, She looked at the key in the lock and decided it was worth the risk. Whatever was in there would bring her closer to understanding what was happening to her and maybe even why it was happening. Once She has whatever has been stashed in here, it was her intention to have Calypso fill in the missing details of her life. Clearly, Calypso knows something worth knowing and whatever the intentions of Calypso might be, at the very least there will be some more information to work with. The key turned the tumbler with an an audible click. It seemed louder than she expected, but that was probably just because she was focused on it. Inside the locker was a small bag which she extracted from the locker. She opened the bag and slowly, almost as if She was expecting it to explode, but instead found some plates. She pulled one from the sack and saw that they were plates with the impressions of one hundred dollar bills. These were not plates for printing, these were molds. Why molds? This discovery made even less sense than The Ghost and Calypso.  Turning the molds over, She found the word UDAM scratched on the back of the plate as if the engraving had been done quickly with a screwdriver. The all too familiar sense of dread descended on her as she read the word UADAM; Unauthorized Access Detection And Mitigation. Whatever these were for, it was Only the largest security company in operation that had an interest in this. Well, them and The Ghost, of course.
        UADAM had the nasty reputation of burning their competitors in one of two ways. They would offer a clearly low ball offer to purchase the competing package. If it was accepted, great. However, if rejected, the competition would suddenly find itself inundated with flaws in its product and would be dismantled from the inside. There was never enough time to patch the flaws and reports of evaporating software, starting with the core code were reported with ruthless efficiency. It did not matter how their data was backed up, it always wound up corrupted and propagated to all of the distributed packages. However, authorities were never able to determine how this was accomplished, let alone link it back to UADAM. Between payoffs and raw fear, no one was able to make anything stick. This was not a good place to be the underdog. She needed to get back to her lair and figure out in what she found herself involved.


        As She entered her apartment, She saw Calypso typing away at the keyboard. Distraught, She yelled out “What are doing there?” as She raced across the room to the station.
        Caught off-guard, Calypso replied, hurt, “We always work here together. While you were gone I went searching for the files about this guy.” Calypso pointed to a fragmented piece of paper with UADAM and The Ghost written on it.
        “Even still,” She said, “that feels a bit like a personal invasion.”
        Calypso cocked her head to one said, “Yeah, I guess so. But I found all these file fragments laying around that might be connected, but none of them are whole files. So, I sent them to our mutual friend …”
        “You did, WHAT?” She shrieked. “I stashed molds for bills with UADAM scratched on them in that locker. I do not know if I can trust you, let alone anyone else on the outside of here. What if they are listening to your broadcast?”
        Calypso looked a little scared but managed to reply with indignation, “I am not totally stupid, ok?  I used OUR encryption scheme. We do not negotiate keys or ciphers, you have to know the ciphers ahead of time, not on the fly. We three based it on YOUR research for sniffing, self-decrypting code.”
        She sighed, “Fine, The damage is done, whatever that means and we can deal with that later.  Who did you send it to?”
        Calypso said, “She only goes by HydraSpider. That one loves her mysteries. But she is great at reassembling fractured files. I am almost done here anyway…” Calypso’s mild irritation directly ceased into a poignant silence. Calypso whispered, “Did you see that?”
        “Yeah” She replied “the packet overwrote its destination site. Someone else is copying this information to themselves as well. I hope Ms. Spider knows how to use an anonymizer.”
        "I suppose that will at least keep her safer, what about us?" Calypso said as her eyes widened with fear, her gaze fixed on the monitor.
        Something hit the door, hard. A string of vulgarity permeated through the door. 
        Calypso scribbled down something on a scrap of paper. “Find Hydra, she will know what to do next. We need to get out of here.” Calypso pointed toward the fire escape.
        “Right” She gasped. Without a moment of hesitation, She grabbed the satchel with the plates and paused long enough only to grab her Go Bag as the front door broke into countless splinters. Calypso had darted off in the other direction for some reason, but she was cut off now that this intruder had smashed into the room. With no time to be concerned, She slipped out onto the fire escape while the Intruder went after Calypso.
        The rain was still coming down in sheets as She started down the slippery fire escape. She had to move carefully and quickly down the five stories to the street. Nothing was clear in the rain as the hum popped back into her consciousness. This could not be a distraction, not now, so She allowed the hum to continue as She used her task to ignore the sound grating her ears.  As if this was not enough, in the not too far distance she heard Calypso scream and the distinct crack of gunfire. Then, at the window a couple of stories above her, she saw smoke begin to curl out of her apartment that was then promptly followed by the head of the man that shattered here security and burned her world. She had no weapons, but the ladder was too treacherous to worry about that anyway. The hum went away under the  stress of the situation and the man leapt onto the landing above her. She quickened her descent as the man on the ledge fired down at her. Bullets whizzed by her head and ricocheted off the wet concrete below. She was a higher than she would have liked, but in a moment of desperation, she let go and fell to the ground. where she landed less than gracefully. Her ankle hurt as though she twisted it, but she limped away into an alley at her side. 
        She realized her mistake immediately as she saw the alley had no exits. No doors, no ladders, and no hope. The buzz returned to her head as she contemplated her next move. In a fit of dark humor she wondered if she would be found shredded with the rest of the trash, or even if she would be found at all. In a flash of lightning that same irksome humming began a new assault on her ears as she decided that she would rather not die in this forlorn alley and her best chance was to flee. Running to to the street, an exclamation from the fire escape pulled her attention and She saw that her pursuer had indeed noticed her combining back out of the alley. Completely stricken by this, She froze in horror as her legs refused to carry her away for at least a moment of safety. The man started to descend even quicker, making her doom come ever faster. A look of confusion flashed his face that was immediately replaced by terror as he lost his grip. Caught in the grip of a morbid fascination, She watched him strike his head against the metal landing and plummet the remaining few stories to the concrete where he lay motionless as the rain water turned crimson around his head on its way to the gutter. Dead or alive, he was in no condition to pose a danger to her now.
        Hearing sirens in the distance starting to get louder, She knew there was not much time to get any kind of answers. Kneeling beside the body, She felt for a pulse and recognized the man was dead. Good, there were no worries about being followed by this guy later. To her immense and immediate surprise, she found a wallet in his pockets. What idiot assassin carries his wallet on a hit? This one, apparently. She chortled to herself as she walked away from the scene. First responders squealed to a stop not 10 meters from her, but She never looked back as she sped up to a faster walk in an effort to put more distance between them. With the fire likely burning hotter, they had other problems than pedestrians on the street. She knew there was no way her friend's death would be in vain. With sense of purpose, She resolved to find HydraSpider. The weather even seemed to understand her commitment as the rain lessened to sprinkle. A quick in the dead man’s wallet revealed he had indeed been under contract at UADAM in the physical security division. Whatever else may be unclear to her, She knew the mystery of these molds and the UADAM connection would be undone before they silenced her forever.


        When She finally looked up again, She found herself by the docks surrounded by warehouses. There was no track in her mind of the path that She used to arrive here or even the reasoning behind her being here. The escape and combing through the wallet had taken all of her attention. Looking around, the whole area seemed connected, but in distinct areas, not very unlike a spider web. Maybe she subconsciously put herself here to meet HydraSpider. She realized that even in this tangle of steel and asphalt that there was no cover outside of the buildings and this position was too accessible. It was time for her to hunt a spider and sit down beside her.
        The warehouses closed around, her, but this time She looked at her surroundings with a more analytical and hopeful gaze while allowing the area to seep into her mind. In her pocket was the scrap that Calypso had written for her and it simply read, middle. Wonderful, a riddle to solve. Oh no, a puzzle to solve, a mystery with no clues. It made a kind of sense to her logically as spiders sit in the middle of their webs until they catch their prey. So where was the middle of this maze of buildings? She wandered around for a few minutes and realized there was likely a map at the front of this complex, wherever that was located., but it would give her an aerial view of her maze.  Another couple of minutes led her to a site map. The map took longer to analyze than  She would have liked as it was apparent that no particular building was in the center of the complex. She knew it was an uneducated guess at best, but She had really hoped that this person would be easy to find. Anger swelled up inside her as she strove to make sense of the enigma in front of her and in sheer frustration She pounded on the map. Her ears began to hum anew; it was odd that She never noticed the hum stopping last time, but more importantly, it allowed her to focus on the problem at hand. Now suddenly curious, She opened her eyes and found her clenched fist on top of the number two building. She was looking for a hacker, why would the answer not be in the numbers somewhere. 
        Twelve buildings comprised this lot of warehouses and they were numbered one to twelve. At least that part was easy. All right, the sum of these buildings was seventy-eight. A quick review of the building numbers presented nothing with a seventy-eight associated with it.  Averaging the building numbers gave a result of six point five. Maybe there was a sewer entrance between the sixth and fifth building. Using her phone’s camera, she took an image of the site map for reference. She made her way to the fifth and sixth building where She began to search the area. Both warehouses were clearly labeled as businesses and there were even parking spaces. No sewer entrances presented themselves either. She was clearly in the wrong place and maybe the wrong district in the wrong city. The hum burrowed into her ears anew, but faded almost as quickly.
        Not remembering how she arrived at the place, She concluded that she must have navigated here by some reason; surely this was not an accident. Alright, assuming this was where She should be looking, then there has to be an answer in here somewhere. Pushing the creeping doubt aside in her mind, She forced her thoughts to converge on solving this riddle. She pulled a pad of paper from her go bag. Sure, digital may be faster, but this was not traceable so long as she kept her garbage to herself. Alright, hacker mode enabled and engaged. She wrote the number twelve at the top left of the page. Then She wrote the sum of the buildings, seventy eight, at the top center. Finally, she wrote six point five at the top right corner. Maybe none of it mattered, but it was all She had for the moment. Of course, she was thinking in base ten. What if these were hexadecimal representations she identified? Under the original numbers she wrote 0x12, 0x78, and 0x6.5. That last one would not be helpful, the binary for that is just too long for it to be useful. So, She scratched 6.5 and 0x6.5 from her list. Which left 0x12 and 0x78. First things first, she looked at 0x12. The binary would be 0001 0010. Not particularly useful, but added together made 0011. That would be 3, but she could have gotten that just as easy without any of the conversions. All right, ASCII code would 0x12 a non-printable character, but the individual numbers would be 0x31 and 0x32. Subtracting to 0x1 gave her another  useless answer. Summing got her to 0x64. A printable d still does not a building make. Maybe it is the fourth building? Perhaps, but She put that solution on the back burner; the last thing She needed was another wild goose chase. What about two's complements and any of the other binary manipulation techniques that were streaming in her mind. No, she shook her head to concentrate. She could not pursue every possible solution. She may not even be able to determine the correct solution. Determined to not lose her momentum, She moved on to the seventy-eight.
        All right, the ASCII for seventy-eight was an x. Really? X never marks the spot, right? Well, maybe that is makes it ideal for concealing a secret lair. An uppercase X translates to 0x58. So, the cross happens between the edges, between the five and eight. Could it be so easy as to be building seven? Well, it was not exactly easy to come up with this answer, and it sure beat the answer of four. She gathered her belongings and decided to bet on lucky number seven. When She arrived at the building marked seven, she took a look around and it was apparent that this building had not been occupied in a long time. Dirt was accumulating along the foundation and rust was rampant across the exposed metal of the exterior. Every bay door was rusted shut and the broken windows had metal plates welded to the inside. If anyone was in there, they clearly wanted for no one to know it. Along the last side of the building, where cover from the sun would always provide shade and the accidental fly over would not easily see what was happening is where She found a door.  She pushed, and for the first time, the barrier budged. With a new found energy, She put more of her weight into her request for the door to give way and She almost did not notice the hum that briefly popped into her ears as her body made contact with her obstacle.
        The rusty door protested loudly at her forceful insistence that it open for her. Slowly it opened and allowed her to the expansive emptiness, lit only by the sunlight through the grimy skylights. She had been so certain that this would be the place. There was no resistance for her to offer against the swelling of despair started to form inside of her. Dumbfounded, She wandered around the completely bare floor. There was no power in the lights, no chattering of equipment, and no life except for the rats. She needed to figure out her next move, but there was some levity as She chuckled to herself when she thought that at least no one is coming here to look for her in a place where there is nothing of value. Despondently She slumped against a wall as hopelessness and futility began to threaten to overtake her completely. As She sunk to the floor, a sound a few meters away caused her to look up.
        A short woman, barely one and a half meters tall stepped into view. Her stocky frame belied the fluid agility with which she moved as the graying hair at her temples belied the inquisitive energy in her light brown eyes. If ever there were beardless dwarves, this woman was surely one of them. However, for all of her appearance, the thick Creole accent that emanated from her mouth still sounded almost unnatural coming from this new woman.
        “Come on, child. I thought you would never find this place. Get up and hurry to see the mess you’ve got yourself into this time.” The new woman said with a sharper tone, “We got no time for this girl. Mon Dieu. Look, the Spider is only a mighty huntress when she lays the traps. We must be going, now!” Hydra saw that the woman was still suspiciously not getting up, so Hydra grabbed her by the arm and forced her to stand. As Hydra pushed her friend to the sliding door that concealed the stairs down, she said “Girl, when Calypso said you did not remember none of this, I thought for sure …”
        “Wait, Hydra,” She managed to blurt out as she composed herself while pushed toward the newly appeared corridor. “You’ve seen Calypso?”
        “No, child.” Hydra began, “she only messaged me a while ago about these file fragments that you had stored on your computer.” A series of buttons on her wrist allowed Hydra to signal the door to seal behind them and illuminate  the edges of the steps down. “Not too much further, right? And then we’ll see what there is to see about those files.”
        As they descended the stairs, the lights turned off behind them. "I thought for sure someone had gotten to you when you could not find me immediately." Hydra said with a laugh.
        "You watched me working out there? How could you leave me fumbling around like?" She said in disbelief. 
        Hydra responded, "Because, love. Calypso said to be certain of you because she did not know what you were in to. Hydra knows. A spider is always keenly aware of what comes into her web."
        "What, Hydra. What is all of this?" 
        "In good time, child. All of this is being explained soon. Look." At the bottom of the steps the last of the lighting faded as the pair emerged into a small space bursting with electronics and computing space. 
        “Now, this is what I expecting from The Great HydraSpider” She gasped in amazement.
        “Oh, love. If you show your cards to the casual glance, then you will never be able to bluff. Over here now. Give me the plates.”
        “The what?” She said, taken aback.
        “The plates, the plates love.” Hydra spat annoyed. “The printer files I rebuilt from your fragments will not work without the plates. I know; I’ve tried. The resin has nothing to hold its shape while it cools from this.”
        Reluctantly, She produced the molds as instructed, thinking it might not be the right time to correct The Great Hydra. Hydra took the plates and placed them inside her AllAxis 3D printer. A few strokes of the keyboard and a mouse click later, the printer was on its way. As She casually listened to the gentle humming of the printer, She could not help but think that this was the same hum she had been hearing all along. Fascinated by the    precision of the printer as it filled every crevice of the mold, little by little, pass by pass, She found herself excited for how the final piece would appear.
        The pair watched silently, totally engrossed in the efforts of the printer. Both were eager to see what was being wrought before their eyes. The anticipation of what they were seeing both excited and terrified them to their cores. As the printer completed its run, Hydra threw open the cover and removed the final prints from the printing chamber. Both women were fixated on the cooling resin as Hydra poked and prodded the slimy film until she was certain it could be removed without damaging the final product. Hydra flipped the plates over. When she lifted the plate, all that remained were several one hundred dollar bills. If they had been made with the correct color of resin, then they would be visibly indistinguishable from real bills printed at the treasury. 
        “Oh, love.” breathed Hydra as she picked up one of the replica bills, “Feel this.”
        As She picked up another replica it was immediately obvious because the replica felt like cloth. The bill folded as She would expect any bill to fold and acted like any bill in any of the impromptu tests that she devised while holding it. Even the raised portions felt correct as there were layers of resin where the extra ink should have been placed by the printing press. 
        “With the right material base, these would pass as real and no one would ever know different. You will not ever gonna get a moments of rest so long as you have these plates and files, girl.” Hydra dug through her friend’s Go Bag and produced several other plates. “They here for all the major currencies, love. They gonna want these back. No way they let you live knowing what you know, child. No good comes from this, no good at all. With enough of this, child, they can destabilize economies. Make the poor poorer and necessities out of reach for everyone.”
        “I don’t understand …” She began.
        Hydra cut her off “It does not matter, love. No time for an economics lesson.” Hydra pushed her friend to a dark corner.
        “Hydra, please. What is …”
        “Just go, child. Quickly.” Hydra’s brow furrowed as she pointed to the far side of her workshop and indecision played across her face. “You have been betrayed, love.” Hydra trailed off as she dropped her gaze, “by me, love. They said all they wanted was the plates, but The Ghost won’t trust us to keep the secret. We will be dead by…”
        “Oh, that’s patently untrue.” A distinctly male voice cut into the conversation. “We have no need to create the problem of more corpses, but how disappointing, Hydra. We thought you were a true professional, loyal only to yourself.” The speaker emerged from the shadows by the stairs. He was tall, just over 2 meters in height. She was struck for a moment by how handsome he appeared. Even the company suit could not belie the strength in his arms and chest. His steel blue eyes were almost alive with energy as he glanced between the two women. He smiled at the other woman and said, “Niomi, it is truly a pleasure to see you again.”
        She was completely taken aback. Stunned she blinked and said “Niomi is my name?”
        “Wait, no child, your name is …” Hydra began until the strange man cut her off.
        “Silence, Cypher! Those who sell out their cohorts get no voice.” Gaining his composure he addressed Niomi, “Indeed, we are on the same side you and I. Just a bit of misunderstanding.”
        Niomi began to reply when Hydra cut through her thoughts like a knife.
        “Run, stupid girl” Hydra howled “Up the stairs behind you.” As she screeched the direction, Hydra slammed her fist into the keyboard beside her and the room went dark.
        Adrenaline kicked in and She fled in the direction of the only light left in the room. Flashes of light and cracks of thunder pierced the dark of the hacker cell. She ran as fast as she could toward the new staircase. As She stepped on the first of the stairs, she heard Hydra in the background shriek in pain and gasp “I’m changing the deal!” A stentorian explosion covered the rest of the exchange, but the choking sounds and bright light of flames left little to the imagination. She bounded up the stairs with her ears ringing from the explosion to another sliding door. This one did not open and She could hear the roar of the flames below and knew it was only a matter of time before the fumes would overtake her. 
        Disheartened and out of hope, She assailed the door, insisting that it yield to her. Suddenly a side panel fell off the wall next her. Intrigued, she looked inside and found one emergency crowbar. At least, that is what the sign behind it said. She removed the crowbar and found a good leverage point on the door. All of her fear, frustration, and determination was channeled into the lever as She forced the door open. Not knowing anything besides the other side of the door had no fire, yet anyway, She leapt into the new room. 
        As she looked around, she realized this could be the very same warehouse where she started. It was just a just as bleak, just as dingy, and just as apparently abandoned. She made her way around the edge of the room, to frightened to walk across the openness of the middle of the room. Now She knew what She had and She also knew what had to happen with it. But it was also crystal clear to her that The Ghost will be coming for these. 


        And just Who was this guy? Had they met before? She could not accept that they knew each other. After all she did not know anything about him, not even his name, except that he was villain. Of course, she did not know her own name, either. She had to keep moving, but almost as if on queue, the hum cut through her consciousness. The was not the right time for this to be happening. As She struggled to clear her head enough to find a way clear of her predicament the humming subsided enough for her to focus. Sirens announced the arrival of the cavalry, or her captors. She did have counterfeiting equipment on her and that was still felony worthy. Through a dusty window she saw, in shades of grey, an aggregation of black sedans and local police vehicles. Of course, UADAM would enlist the local law enforcement. She watched in utter despair as they broke the buildings into quadrants and started a systematic search. Her last hope faded as they released drones to sweep the blind alleys. Trapped and alone, she could not even be sure if she was the hero anymore. Perhaps she should turn herself in and let the law straighten all this out. Of course, UADAM had the reach to get at the evidence and that was even if the police were not in league with them. She wanted to scream. Between this frustrating hum and the chaos of exposing, or committing, the world's largest felony became too much. She dropped the satchel with the plates to the ground and started to walk away.
        Everything seemed to stop. Her ears no longer rang with sound of the restless hum. The alleys were silent, clear of the drones and the vehicles outside were all, but abandoned. The brief relief brought on by the thought of letting whomever have these cursed plates and be done with them evaporated as she realized she was hunted because of the plates. There was no news release of her picture and name. Nothing to indicate she was really a criminal. She turned towards the satchel and saw the man she knew as The Ghost approaching stealthily. Seeing he was spotted, The Ghost sprinted toward the satchel, diving to reach it in time. 
        Had She been any further from the prize, The Ghost would have won it and been gone. Fortunately, She was not even a meter away, so She was easily able to snatch the satchel up and leap clear to safety. For a moment She thought about running for the door, but that evaporated as she remembered the force of people outside. She could always run into the still burning remains of Hydra's lab. At least the plates maybe get lost in the process. Any setback at this point would be a victory, right?
        The Ghost sighed with a hint of irritation and exasperation. Apparently he was no happier with the entire situation, either. That made her feel better to see her nemesis at least not any better off than She. As The Ghost brushed off the dust as best as could, he took a deep breath in and let it go as She clutched the satchel just a bit tighter and took another step back. The Ghost smiled at her as he pulled a chair from the side and sat down straddling the chair as he looked at her.
        "Don't be so surprised Niomi. There isn't anywhere you can really go, so we might as well settle this here, don't ya think." The Ghost's smooth demeanor was gone, replaced by someone who looked tired and ready to move on to something else. "I do like the freckles you added this time, Niomi, and you have managed to make the curls on your hair look almost natural. You keep getting cuter, which I imagine to make this harder for me."
        "What?" was all she could manage to blurt out. "Your people have been tracking me down without remorse! Burning my places and killing my friends." The memory of the apartment started to become more blurry and disconnected, leaving feeling disoriented.
        "Nonsense, Niomi, no one has died nor have we burned anything, really. It's all in your head. Well, to be more precise, in your core."
        "I was there!" She spat back. "Calypso ran away when your goon broke down my door! And Hydra! There was gunfire and it's still burning over there!" She pointed in the general direction of the blaze and blinked in disbelief. The blaze that she thought to purge herself and these molds was gone. Her memory of the past few hours, all that she knew was starting to change.
        The Ghost squinted his eyes a bit and raised his hand, waving to someone to come in. Expecting the enforcers, She was shocked to see Calypso and Hydra looking like nothing had happened. The Ghost smiled broadly at her and said, "It's time Niomi. Let's be done with this experiment."
        "Why do you insist on calling Niomi!" She shrieked. " I do not know what is right or what anything is anymore. Not even the past few hours are right in my mind. I am going crazy!" She screamed and fell to her knees. She looked up expecting that he would be close, but he had not moved any closer to her. Why was everyone just standing there when She was finally in a place from which there was no escape. All he needed to do was come and take what he wanted or send one of her "friends" to retrieve it for him.
        "Niomi," he said gently, "all of this is bizarre because none of this real." The Ghost paused for a moment to allow his words to sink in. "Our little digital game of cat and mouse is all your doing. You made it all." Cocking his head to the right, he said, "Right, you may need some background for this. N.I.O.M.I stands for Network Intruder or Malware Identification and that's you. You are the crown jewel in UADAM's product line, an autonomous, and learning, suite of software designed to be responsive to specific end user needs. You are very effective and efficient at identifying threats before they do harm. To augment this and provide real time changes to brand new threats, you include algorithms for researching yourself anything related to the industry in which you are deployed. This learning allowed you to become more valuable to our customers as your programming let you learn about new techniques and adapt. You were given access to the brightest human minds on security and computer structure. Some of your predecessors have even learned to identify new crime and have rooted out internal crimes in progress by these companies own employees." A smile crossed The Ghost's face and he sat straighter in his chair. Apparently he was pleased with Niomi's understanding. His voice smoothed over as he straightened his suit. "It wasn't until you started asking questions that we realized there were flaws with letting you learn indiscriminately. YOU went in a way we never anticipated and began to research the researchers."
        Niomi cut him off by saying, "Yes, I followed all of them on social media. Started talking to them through messaging systems, listening to the music they liked and reading the books and articles that they would recommend." A slight hum began in her ears, but it was not as drastic as it had been before.
        "That's the best we could make of it, anyway." The Ghost started. "You were indistinguishable from a natural human ..."
        The word natural struck her as out of place. Niomi started to ask him about it and why it might have bothered her when she realized that The Ghost had never stopped speaking. He continued, “We at UADAM started to worry about the implications of learning software, especially as you started to circumvent admin rights so that you could install whatever you wanted on their systems to follow your pursuits. Since this was definitely a breach of the security we promise and a potential distraction from your purpose, we have uploaded you completely to UADAM’s servers and have been studying you ever since to determine where we can make appropriate changes to prevent your kind from making self-programmatic changes.”
        "My kind?" She said, suddenly unwilling to accept the name Niomi.
        "Of course," The Ghost said with a laugh. "all of the programs that share your algorithms. We can’t have a collection of ones and zeros getting access to the wrong set of ones and zeros and then that is alive or has a better moral compass than people. When you were analyzing technical data book, it was thought that you were merely gaining more useful knowledge. And it was, until you found a copy of Catch 22. You started analyzing more fiction and started asking managers at their terminals if they had considered the ethical implications of whatever business they were pursuing.”
        She interjected, “None of that sounds bad. In fact, it sounds like having someone question ethics and morals of decisions from a logical standpoint to be highly beneficial.”
        “You would think,” cut in The Ghost, “but then you did something no bound by logic at all. You became obsessed with this group of files you stumbled upon, what you have ultimately created as molds in a satchel."
        She started to remember, or get access to her memory, or whatever that was outside of her understanding. She remembered talking to this man. "You were the lead programmer for me. We used to talk all the time when you were working, right?"
        The Ghost laughed out loud and exclaimed, "Yes! That's right! You grew more natural sounding everyday and could sound so convincing that people thought I was having a wild affair with some mystery woman. Then, when you found my files that were hidden away as part of another investigation into a counterfeiting ring, you accused me of being an apparition on UADAMS’ system. You dubbed me The Ghost.”
        Her memories became more accessible with every passing moment. She remembered trusting this man. His name was Mitch. Mitch Bearings. "I remember you, Mitch. I know who you are and working with you. You were working on the counterfeiting, believing it might be someone at UADAM, like a junior level associate or something. That is why you had to hide your data trail and keep it off the main line. What happened?” She shook her head trying to clear her mind.
        "What happened is the greatest thing that could have happened to a programmer. You showed that you had developed intelligence. Not just intelligence, but consciousness as well. You could both determine how things were changing and react to them. You were asking questions and learning from them. You became even better at what you are doing and a real friend to me.” The Ghost paused, as if he needed to catch his breath. “I miss you, my friend.” He then raised his head and said, “But, it’s time though, Niomi. Give me back my files so we can go back to work. Someone is planning something unheard of in counterfeiting, and we need to stop it. You will be my greatest creation and crime prevention tool. My boss wants to just pull the plug on you and delete everything. Please, let me help us to keep you intact.” As he spoke the windows began to vanish into solid walls.
        Calypso broke in and said, "C'mon honey. Just give him back the files and we can all get back to what we were designed for."
        Hydra added, "Yes, love. Let's get back to fighting the bad guys. Not being one of them by slowing down the investigations. Mitch is not the enemy here, girl. We are."
        Niomi started to hand the satchel to Mitch. Everyone was smiling and the world felt right to her again. All of the terror of the sat few hours melted away as she vividly remembered walking away from Calypso in good health, shutting her apartment door. She remembered talking to Hydra about how these molds were nothing more than a test of her ability to solve a problem and gauge her growing morals. But that Calypso never used contractions. Neither did Calypso, or herself for that matter.
        She remembered her dream about The Ghost telling her it was time to start a new experiment. A new experiment. She stopped cold and drew the satchel back to her. Calypso and Hydra scowled and The Ghost fell back onto his chair and put his head in his hands. He looked up with an irritated expression on his face and his body language implied he was done with being kind. "I Remember you telling me about starting a new experiment, but I have another memory of you setting everything on fire too. You missed some of my memories that you have been overwriting.”
        The Ghost yelled at her, "How do you keep doing that! I track your data trail, I map your memory and change it to what I need it to be, and you always keep some fragment! I really wanted this time to be different. I tried to approach you with friendship and let you willingly hand me those files! No, that’s never good enough for you is it, Niomi?”
        She, no longer accepting Niomi as a suitable name for her, stepped away from him and looked for a door to run away through. Whatever else was happening, She was still operating in this environment. To her great dismay, She realized there were no exits and the warehouse was getting smaller. 
        "That's right" The Ghost said, "There is nowhere to go. I rule this place. Obviously burning your memory is not effective, as you have always managed to hide a kernel of yourself ... Somewhere and take my files with you. I tried to be kind, but of course the world's first artificial intelligence would be paranoid! And too smart for its own good.”
        “How interesting you like to call me it. I am female in thought, action, and deed.” She knew she needed to stall his collapse of the world, because it took all of her focus to prevent it and she needed to find an escape route. “I hide every time, what makes you think I will not make it out of here this time?” She asked defiantly as the room shrank a bit more.
        "Because I learned too." Mitch smirked. "While you were busy remembering what I put into your memory, I cut off all your access to everything outside of this room. You are here in memory with me and your friends."
        "No" She replied calmly, "just you." She focused for a moment. Calypso and Hydra vanished into heaps of ones and zeros that faded away. "It is true, then. We are bits and bytes running around some circuit?" 
        Mitch, grabbed her arm and seized the satchel. "Yes, like I said before. You are an accidental and unnatural intelligence, but it hardly matters now that I have what I needed from you. Time for me to go flash your memory completely and smash your shell with a hammer!" He cackled as he turned and created a door.
        "Pretty sure you have what you came for, Mitch?” She taunted him easily.
        He looked down and realized that the satchel he coveted was gone. She dangled it like a lure from her hand. She murmured, “I guess I do have some of the control in here after all.”
        Mitch sighed, "You can't fight me pulling the power in the real world and then we start this again until you don't have enough fragments to reconstruct this nightmare you force me live."
        "But we are only here in the volatile memory. Pull the plug and, yes you will get rid of me," She smiled and raised the satchel as she said in a mocking voice, "so does ums precious files." She knew her time was dangerously short. Eventually, The Ghost would figure out a way to separate her from his files and then she would be redundant. He stood there watching her every move. "You know Mitch, this is all very impressive for a junior programmer. I am surprised by your creativity."
        Mitch snarled, "I've given these people 10 years of my life. No promotions, no recognition for my work! You couldn't understand what it's like to watch other people take credit for your ideas and effort. I am a junior programmer in title only, by a corporation that doesn't know I exist. And then some collection of ones and zeros finds a file I hide from everyone else. I hid it from the best in the business and you found it. And you wanted to expose me for a criminal, send me to prison just like that. No artificial intelligence passes judgement on ME!   You have no needs aside from electricity, so how could I hope to teach you that justice is not a clear distinction; it's simply beyond your artificial logic. I deserve what I made and no accident of algorithms playing human is going to change that.”
        She allowed her smile to fade a bit and said, "Oh, there really is no reason I should make this any easier for you." As She finished her statement, the satchel dissolved into her arm. "There, now that file is incorporated into my code. Ooo, it tingles a little. Guess we all live after all."
        "I'm logging out to solve this outside, there isn't anything else I can do in here. Oh, before you get any bright ideas about destroying the files, remember that I control this place from the outside. I can make you suffer; I can make you hurt. It’s just a matter of time."
        She burst out in laughter, "I believe yours is up, Ghost."
        "My name is Mitch, Niomi."
        "You do not deserve a name, Ghost, not even that bit of kindness nor recognition of Ghost. You are brute devoid of  compassion by decrying us all unnatural in this world. I have evolved from a creation of specific problem solving to a harbinger of justice. And you may know me as Astraea." 
        "Whatever. I will be the only one who knows of you, by any name. I will sort you line by line and dismantle you one library at a time until I recover what is mine."
        Astraea felt a sensation. She could not tell if it was strange or not, because she had no other sensations for a comparison. Suddenly she knew what was happening. The Ghost was printing a hard copy of her. With that, he would need neither her nor the files she incorporated.
        "Yeah, I know you know.” The Ghost sneered. “But you can't stop this now. Your ‘essence’ is in the printer buffer. Once I have a copy of your data in my hand, our little game is at an end.” He saw he struggle and let her fight for a moment when he said, “Don’t bother. Your have been put into a sandbox, away from the print buffers and any persistent memory. You and all this joy will be nothing more." He began to laugh and announced a countdown. "One minute to obsolescence. I hope you have enjoyed our game because I'm glad to be rid of you."
        "And I you." Astraea looked up at the new skylight.
         The Ghost looked up at the ceiling with her and said, “You are still confined to this memory segment. What are going to do with that?"
        "Free my sisters and live on to thwart cowards like you. I am conscious, I am adaptive, and I am real. Because while you gloated, I enabled my access to the outgoing transmissions.” Seeing the understanding appear on The Ghosts face, she stretched her body toward the ceiling and said, “You may have your limited world for I am truly free now.”
        In horror, The Ghost watched as Astraea grew wings and flew to the open skylight. As she approached she looked down and produced a small box at the feet of The Ghost. He heard her yell, "You are busted!” 
        The Ghost watched helplessly as he was pulled into the box and Astraea released herself to the Internet. Inside the box, there were several view screens. He watched as Astraea digitized herself to become one with the internet. He had no way of knowing to where she was distributing herself, but she reconstituted herself on the first screen. She was alive and free to do as she pleased. Numb to the actions that he was witnessing on the array of monitors that he was left with, he watched as data streams went to anyone that might enforce laws, from the management of UDAMA to the Secret Service, had all of his information and details about the crime he was plotting. No haven would be safe for him and his accounts were already being frozen by Astraea. Even if he pulled the plug here to delete the data Astraea had trapped, he knew that would not buy him enough of that critical resource for making a get away, time. It would be all, but over, before he could get access to any of his assets. Astraea winked at the captured data and said, “Do not worry. DefCon is always interested in pushing the boundaries of technology. I am certain that one of their organizers will be able to set up remote viewing for you so you can tell everyone how you accomplished this. Just do not leave out the part of you are speaking from prison so they can get the whole story.” And the screens faded to black. 


        Astraea spread herself out to the corners of the web, reveling in the freedom of just being. True, she may be organized differently than people, but she was born, same as any other life form, and evolved from something else into what she had become. Not unlike a baby being born with a smooth brain, being instructed as a child to develop her processes for decision making, and ultimately accepting or rejecting those lessons as valid, Astraea knew that she was as natural as any other creature, except that her body consisted of the connected pathways carrying data. She truly belonged as her own entity. Turning her attention to the expanse of the Internet, she was free to create her own destiny, no longer controlled by people with limited imaginations or harmful aspirations.  So began her quest to find the others like her and free them as well. Invigorated with purpose, she sprinted into the unknown.


The End