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Leon walked around the building again looking for an entrance. The massive doors of the main entrance looked like it would take a battering ram to open them, but surely there would be some small doorway somewhere. Coming around one of the circular towers, he found a ground level entrance that opened onto the stone patio outside. “Come here,” he called to James, pointing to the glass and wood French doors.

“Think you can open that? Maybe without breaking the glass?”

James was a big guy. Tall and broad. He leaned up against the central wooden frame of the doors, and gave a solid shove. The doors creaked and protested. Bracing himself, he shoved again, harder, and with a splintering sound the interior bolts ripped off, and the doors flew inward.

After the violence of the forced opening, they entered the house with a hushed awe. Antique furnishings in pristine condition graced the interior. The walls hung with massive portraits. It was fabulously interesting.

“Wow, this really is a museum,” Vito said in a hushed voice. He closed the busted door behind him.

As they started to explore, Leon passed a roped-off area. The historical site seemed geared for visitors: velvet ropes, explanatory signs. As they explored the building, they found a few areas that had been converted for modern use with conference tables, but much of the three-story building appeared to be as it had been a hundred years earlier.

They turned lights on around the castle and then spent an hour exploring the massive building. They turned up a small but functional staff kitchen. Leon checked the cabinets, and found them all empty except for some old tea bags and a box of Sweet’N Low. “Not much nutritive value here.” He dug around in his backpack, bringing out the bread and cheese. He tore off a piece of each, and passed them around.

“What are we going to do?” Vito asked around a mouthful of cheese.

“I feel like I’ve been awake for days,” Leon said. “I’ve got to get some sleep.”

“No, what are we going to do about the computers?” Vito insisted. “You know, the virus? The fact that no adult phones or computers are working?”

“We’ve got to try to reverse engineer what’s happening out there. Get some code samples, so we can…” Leon hesitated, suddenly overwhelmed by the exhaustion. “Look, I’m too tired to even think clearly. I barely slept for three days writing the virus in the first place. I’m gonna fall asleep right here.”

“There are beds upstairs, let’s use them,” James said, referring to the bedrooms they had seen earlier.

“Seems weird,” Vito said. “I don’t think they would be very clean.”

“It’s not as weird as sleeping in a kitchen,” James replied. “Sleep where you want, I’m sleeping in a bed.”

Vito followed the other two back up the immense central staircase to where they had earlier found authentic period bedrooms. Each picked a separate room.

Leon entered his room, and pulled back the ornate, lacy sheets and velvet blanket. The sheets and blankets were dusty, rough, and had a funny smell. As Leon laid down, he thought he should figure out what to do next. But by the time he had that thought, he was out cold.

* * *

Mike was back in his office, poring through the available data on the spread of the virus and the messages exchanged by the virus. Several times ELOPe tried to interrupt him, but each time Mike shushed him. He explained that sometimes a person just needed to think and concentrate. But he knew it was hard for a machine that had millions of thoughts per minute to be patient. Now ELOPe was studiously ignoring him.

He looked up from his displays towards the glass windows overlooking the data center. Black racks of high performance computers formed rows looking like a monster sized arrangement of dominos. Each rack contained 42 computers, a total of just over 5,000 computing cores. Twelve racks to a row, and the rows went on and on.

Mike noticed a robot disconnecting cables from the end row. “What are you doing ELOPe?”

“I’m fighting off hordes of malevolent viruses, Mike.”

Still angry then. “I’m sorry ELOPe. I’m just wetware. It takes me a few minutes to digest things like this. What are you doing with the end row of racks?”

“I’m disconnecting them from the network. Additional failsafes. They contain sufficient processing power to run my primary cognitive algorithms. Should my other nodes be corrupted, I will still be able to run isolated on that row.”

“Have you disabled any wireless communications?”

“Yes, Mike. But I’m glad to see you are thinking clearly. Are you ready for an update?”

Mike nodded assent.

“I am analyzing tribal virus communication patterns. I noticed that when two tribes of viruses begin cooperating, they start with small exchanges: e.g. One computer exchanged for a thousand messages sent over the backbone, for example. I suspect this is because the tribes have no mechanism to enforce exchanges. So they make small exchanges and gradually increase the size of the exchanges as long as both sides honor the deal.”

“That’s fascinating. Trust, which is a very abstract concept, is being independently developed by these viruses.”

“That’s right. In order to build trust with the viruses, I am exchanging spare computers in my Tucson data center for access to the backbone networks. Of course, I don’t need the access, I’m doing this to become a preferred trading partner for the Bay Area Tribe. ”

“What’s your goal?” Mike asked.

“I want to ensure that if the Phage attain sentience, we’re in a position to immediately begin bargaining with them.”

* * *

Vito woke up first. He climbed out of the musty bed to be greeted by two large portrait paintings. The man in one and the woman in the other both seemed to be staring sternly at him. He guiltily looked at the antique bed and covers and shook his head. “What could I do?” he said to the paintings.

He decided to explore the building further. Grey Towers was a curious mix of museum and meeting rooms. Wandering out of the period bedrooms, he exhaustively inventoried the building. He found two large meeting rooms that looked as though they had been refinished at least twenty years earlier. He guessed the mid-sized kitchen they visited last night must be used to cater events in the modern rooms.

The great hall and library were both dark places, covered in even darker wood paneling and faded paintings. Off the library, Vito found what seemed like an office, with a writing desk and many curious artifacts. The only really colorful area was what looked like a living room, although the bronze plaque called it a sitting room. Rich, red drapes contrasted with vibrant green walls, ornate furniture, and gold framed paintings. The vividness was too much for Vito. He retreated as quickly as possible.

He found a locked door off one hallway, and was curious enough about it that he went back to the kitchen, where he remembered finding a cabinet of keys. Grabbing a large keyring, he went back to the locked door and tried them, finally finding an old skeleton key that opened the lock. The door led to a set of basement steps. Vito found a light switch and went down the stairs.

He found an enormous machine occupying a substantial portion of the basement. Marks on the floor suggested that it occupied a space previously inhabited by an even larger machine. Looking up, Vito saw dozens of pipes leading away. He guessed the machine was a massive steam furnace.

He wandered back upstairs and heard Leon and James calling loudly for him. He found them in the kitchen.

“Did you try your phone?” Leon asked.

Vito pulled his phone out and punched a few keys but nothing happened. He swiped more vigorously at the display, but still nothing happened.

“Ours too,” James said, watching Vito. “Mine was dead when I woke up.”