He brought up his viewscreen and had the data projected onto it, but even then the sheer amount of information was overwhelming, so he decided to improvise. He hacked a nearby hub and borrowed some of the processing power to implement some word searches. Every “war” word he could think of he then programmed into the search, and he fed “hits” to the main screen. This worked a lot better, and slowed down the mammoth amount of data by vetting most of it out, but it still didn’t give him a clear enough picture of what he wanted to see.
Now he had to really think. He wasn’t hamstrung by artificial or self-imposed limitations—that was the main reason why his brother had recruited him. His gift was that he didn’t know what he could do until he did it. He solved problems more like a farmer than like a technician, who can often be limited by artificial protocols or learned patterns. A farmer had a tendency to just try things until something worked, and the task was the main thing, not the method.
As Jed pondered on problems or obstructions, the words he needed (along with their definitions) and instructions would appear to him floating in the darkness. This was part of the program Dawn had placed into his BICE from the beginning.
The term multi-task appeared in the ether, and the definition explained to him that he could use the computing power to do several things at once. Without even a second of doubt as to whether his ideas could even be accomplished, he thought about it, and instantly the screen expanded and then divided into nine smaller screens laid out like panes of glass in a window. Now he could watch data stream by, and his eyes just naturally followed it all. Then he focused again and assigned a certain amount of his BICE chip’s computing power to each of the nine screens. Soon enough, he was flying through the data as it flowed by, and he was understanding everything he was seeing.
Drones.
The word caught his attention, so he focused his whole mind on it. He re-established all of the search parameters on all of the screens until they were all focused on finding anything and everything being said about drones.
He wanted to get comfortable in a way he couldn’t really explain if someone asked him, so he made up a grassy hillside in his mind, and he sat down to study the data as it arrived.
Drones, manufactured in the old world, and brought here using a secret portal somewhere beyond the shelf, were being prepared for an attack…
An attack on what?
Hard to say. Overall, there was a gist… a leaning… in the chatter that seemed to make Jed think that perhaps an attack on the east by Transport might be imminent. He paused his searches and pulled up his communications interface. He sent a message to Amos, and then went back to his work.
Amos.
He wondered if his brother was watching him work, so he looked around in the corners of his vision to see if he could see the AT10S code anywhere. He didn’t, so he just shook his head and laughed.
Well, if Amos is watching me, he probably wouldn’t let me know at this point. He only did that before because he was using the information to drag me into this world. It was only bait, and I was the fish. Now look at me, swimming in this ocean of the Englischers’ data. My brother is the high prophet of the worldlings, and I’m his little prize.
He wondered then if he could catch his brother spying on him. In those previous iterations, Amos had made the code visible in order to ensnare him; but what if the code was still there—only invisible—when Amos didn’t want to get caught? Was Amos a good enough hacker to hide from his younger/older brother?
The next thing Jed did was to disguise himself. He left an avatar of himself sitting on the hill, and made himself invisible to his own rendering system. He hid himself in the numbers and code, until even he couldn’t see where he ended and the data began.
Jed looked up into the corners again, but now he looked even deeper. Of course, the “corners” were not really there. All of this—everything he could see—was just part of the interface that the BICE and his brain had concocted to help him understand the bits of data that were flooding through his mind. So he looked still deeper. He made himself an invisible part of the code and began processing it all, looking for anything that was out of place. Combing through bits and elements, scanning for something that stood out.
And that’s when he found it: another entity. Another code looking down on his avatar, spying, taking it all in. But this time it wasn’t his brother. Even his brother was not this clever. This entity was watching Jed’s avatar watch the data he’d hacked, and up until now, the entity had been totally invisible.
Jed studied the entity’s data with intensity and caution. He parsed all of the code that made up the entity, and examined it until he knew what data was part of that code, and what data the entity was using outside of itself. Then Jed wrote a quick program, using his imagination with some help from Dawn’s helper program, and created an avatar for the entity. An avatar that only he would see. He didn’t know what made him think of it—of the figure he’d bestow upon this being. He didn’t know if this entity was good or evil. He didn’t know if it was friend or foe. But Jed created an avatar based on one of the most hated antagonists of his youth: the mahogany wasp. The rendering was done so quickly, and so perfectly from his memory, that Jed actually shivered and shrank away when he saw it.
Now, he could pull back and watch the wasp watch the avatar he’d made of himself.
I have to find out who is controlling this thing, Jed thought.
So he caused his BICE to stop rendering the drone data. Then he walked his own avatar back through the process that he’d used to break into the hubs in the first place. And as he pulled back, the wasp followed. The wasp appeared to be heedless of the drone information. It didn’t care about preparations for war. It was following Jed.
(36
THE FARM BUREAU
FRIDAY
A red light in the corner of his vision and a chiming sound woke Jed from his sleep. It was around three a.m., and it took him a moment to figure out what was happening. But then he remembered that he’d made sure to set up an alert in case Amos tried to contact him during the night.
Jed shook the cobwebs from his head, and then, when he was fully awake, he pulled up his BICE control interface. He hadn’t taken a Q since early in the previous evening, but the system still seemed to work pretty well for him.
Once he’d logged in and entered his control room, he found Amos there waiting for him.
“I got your messages, brother,” Amos said.
“Then you know?”
“I know. But I’d like you to brief me.”
“I hacked into Transport’s—”
“Just… please,” Amos said, “get to the part about the drones.”
Jed paused, and then nodded. “I put it all into the files I sent to you, but here’s the gist of it: Transport has an armada of aerial attack drones, white spheres much like the ones I saw when I was in the City. They have other support and attack craft readied as well. They’re preparing an offensive as we speak.”
“Any ideas about their targets?” Amos asked.
“Your ship, for one,” Jed replied.
“Of course. Any other targets?”