“Does that date sound familiar, Mr. Morales?”
The young man finally used his strong hands to push his chair forward and wheeled around. He was looking up at the large monitor.
“Rumor,” he said under his breath as he continued to look at the black screen in front of him.
“Excuse me?” Henri said, interested in the goings-on of the world’s most advanced computing system. Morales didn’t look back as he spoke.
“That night I was chasing a rumor when I hooked up with… with…”
“My computer system,” Niles said, falsifying his anger to a degree.
“Yes, I used a little-known Cray algorithm to get through.” He turned to face Compton and the others. “I laid a trap and your system found me.”
“You don’t have to bother us with the details of your crime, but needless to say you broke into one of five Blue Ice systems in the world. Europa is the most advanced of those systems.”
“They are real,” Morales said as his verbal tone went into one of wonder at what he was hearing. “They do exist. How many again, this one and four others? Let me guess, the Pentagon,” he thought, biting his lower lip as he saw it through. “The CIA, FBI, and the National Security Agency?”
Silence greeted his educated guess. His face suddenly turned white. “Your system set me up?” he asked.
“No, not Europa on her own, our computer sciences director found you after your little hacking foray and wanted to know if you could do it again. You did three days later, and that was when Europa trapped you. Thus the reason why you are here.”
“And that makes this young man qualified just because he happens to be good at breaking and entering?” Jenks said with a laugh as he pulled a fresh cigar from his shirt pocket, but replaced it when Virginia raised her brows.
“I’m not qualified. No one is. The Blue Ice system is a system designed to learn at advanced rates. It pioneered the memory sheet for processing. The rumor is that there was one Blue Ice out there with an advanced Bubble Memory processor that has yet to be authenticated by anyone. I suspect this system has that Bubble Chip memory. Who designed it?”
“Dr. Pete Golding.”
Morales looked at Niles and his jaw dropped.
“Dr. Golding, the former chair of computer sciences at MIT?” he asked.
“The same,” answered Compton with a look at Charlie Ellenshaw, who sat and listened but his eyes were boring in on Morales.
“I did my dissertation on Dr. Golding and his AI theories my sixth year.”
“Yes, we know.”
“Can I speak to him? I have a million questions to ask,” Morales said.
“I agree with the master chief,” Charlie said, standing up so fast his chair fell over. “This kid isn’t qualified to take Pete’s place!” He angrily left the dining area and exited the building altogether.
Morales for the first time looked stunned. He turned and watched Ellenshaw as he left. Then he faced Niles once more.
“You’ll have to excuse the professor,” Compton said, but did not elaborate on Charlie’s anger.
“Pete was killed two months ago,” Jack answered for Niles.
Morales actually looked saddened at the news.
“He was a great man, well advanced in his theories.” He turned his chair and then wheeled away.
“Mr. Morales, Europa has been acting very strangely since the loss of Dr. Golding.”
“She’s not using her voice algorithm?” he asked without turning back around. “Refusing to answer certain inquiries?”
“Yes, to both questions,” Niles said.
Morales wheeled around and faced the screen.
“The peccadillos of artificial intelligence, ladies and gentlemen. I theorize that the Blue Ice systems, especially one in which Dr. Golding was continually educating, are very peculiar. They sense change, read change, adapt to change. She would not be happy having someone else’s hands on her systems. She’s spoiled, you might say.”
“So why would she focus on you and only you?” Compton asked, hoping beyond hope that the young man had an answer.
“I don’t know. Why don’t we ask her?”
“Be my guest, but she hasn’t been advised of your presence and has no knowledge you’re here. So don’t be surprised if she doesn’t answer you.”
The others in the room watched as Morales pushed his chair forward and faced the large monitor.
“Really, no knowledge?” Morales asked with a smile. “Europa, are you online and do you currently have optical capability?”
“Yes,” she typed out, but was still silent.
“Identify questioner, please,” he asked, watching the screen. They saw the small box atop the monitor as the aperture on the camera lens focused on the man in the wheelchair. There was silence but only for a moment, and then magic happened.
“Xavier Edmund Morales.”
Looks were exchanged between Group members as they heard the simulated voice of Marilyn Monroe as she answered verbally for the first time in two months. Morales turned and looked at the people behind him.
“Hello, Europa, it is very nice to meet you.”
Jenks looked at Virginia and rolled his eyes. “Love at first sight,” he whispered.
“Europa, members of the staff are curious as to why you chose me among all the other qualified candidates?”
Silence.
“Europa, you are instructed to answer my query.”
Morales continued to look at the monitor. He turned and looked at Compton. Then back again.
“Europa, please power down and go off-line for the next twenty-four hours.”
“What are you doing? That system is needed in other places,” Niles said as he struggled to stand and finally making it with Jason’s assistance.
“Europa, off-line at sixteen forty-five hours.”
The room fell silent as Morales turned away from the monitor.
“You have a very sick Blue Ice system there.”
Compton looked at Ryan and then slowly sat back down.
“I suspect that she’s learning how to grieve.” Morales wheeled to the large dirty window and looked out at the falling sun over the desert. “When dealing with liquid memory bubbles, one has to know that some of those bubbles may become corrupt if the intelligence refuses to accept a certain input.”
“What are you saying?” Sarah asked.
“She is refusing to contemplate that her creator has left the building, so to speak,” he said, and then immediately felt bad for making light of Dr. Golding’s death. “We just don’t know enough about Blue Ice dynamics and how they will integrate to a liquid bubble memory system. She is highly capable of expansion of that system and she doesn’t know how to do it. Dr. Golding wasn’t there to explain it to her. This is why I shut her down until someone qualified can go in and expand her liquid systems to accept new data on operations, and one thing Dr. Golding never instructed her on… death of the human species. Oh, she’s read about it, but never thought about it… she chose me to do it because she really doesn’t trust anyone else. Why? Because I guess she believes I was smart enough. Why, I don’t know.”
“Because you were the only person ever to successfully break into a Blue Ice system outside of Europa herself,” Niles said as he took in Morales.
“I suspected as much. Very temperamental, these experimental Cray systems.”
Compton started gathering his paperwork together. “Good, you’re hired. Salary is commensurate with a first-year government employee.”
“God, the poor kid’s going to be broke the rest of his life,” Jenks said with a laugh.
“Hey, wait a minute, I don’t even know what it is you want me for. I mean, what have you people got planned, and more importantly”—he looked at the tattooed face of his rescuer, Ryan—“who in the hell are you people?”