Mapping the AntiGenome

It's late, but as I've mentioned, we have no real conception of time here. The tunnels are forever dark, and our clocks might as well be Dali's. I read somewhere about a sensory-deprivation study done by some scientists once upon a time; they said that when we're removed from external clues, our internal clocks go haywire. A day can seem like a week, and vice versa.

I'm beginning to understand.


We're exploring the possibility of an anti-genome. Tera wanted to assassinate the mother, but the rest of us refuse to go along with it. Drive offered the notion of induced trauma to the fetus, but then Kelvin stepped in.

"There are some interesting things coming from some people working on virtual-genetic subroutines," he said. "A tech on the Antef has been developing some interesting realignment structures that might be useful for us." (The Antef is a sister ship in our fleet.) "It may be possible for us to . . . " He paused.

We waited. For a while.

"Yes?" Tera asked.

He tapped his chin and darted his eyes. "Reverse him," he said finally.

We blinked. "Reverse him? I asked.

"In a manner of speaking," he said. "One of the subroutines has to do with the Matrix equivalent of the genome -- basically, each person's code."

I glanced at Ramb, who was either biting her tongue, or preparing to do so. She had spent a great deal of time with the biochemistry training programs, and she was always ready to stomp out someone trying to bamboozle their way through anything scientific.

"Hear me out," Kelvin said, extending a hand of patience to us. A cloud of skepticism hung in the room. "The Matrix has to transpose each person's identity into the Matrix, right? Well, how does it do that? By digitally representing our DNA -- transplanting our genetic map. Each person's genetic information is ported into the Matrix OS. This is how we look the same inside the Matrix and out." He moved his hands nimbly as he spoke, in the same lanky manner of his walk.

"Okay," he continued, "so for those of us born outside of the Matrix, it takes what's there and just copies it, yeah? Well, this tech has a theory that for people born inside, the genome and its Matrix equivalent -- they're calling it the diginome -- work . . . together, I guess."

Tera squinted. "How do you mean?"

"The theory says that the genome and the diginome form a symbiotic relationship, where they influence each other by turns. Now, most people will spend their entire lives inside the Matrix, so the real genome doesn't have much to offer, aside from the basics -- number of legs, height, and so on."

He paused. "But some people are saying that it's possible for the diginome to take the lead."

We all exchanged glances. "What does that mean, exactly?" Drive asked. In our crew of engineers, Drive was definitely mechanical. He'd never gotten into the nuts and bolts (so to speak) of the ones and zeroes. In this respect, I felt pretty close to him -- after all, I'd been recruited for purposes of graphic design.

Kelvin tapped his chin. "According to the theory," he said after a few seconds, "it's possible that the diginome may be capable of directing the development of the human genetic map."


Tera slowly shook her head. "The software changes the hardware," she said.

Kelvin nodded slightly. "Yeah, pretty much."

"So," I said, wanting to feel as though I were contributing something, "if this theory is true, then does that mean we can somehow tinker with the diginome and un-create this guy?"

"Not really," he said. "Deleting the code entirely would be too risky. There's no telling what would happen, really. Think of it like just making something disappear. You're familiar with the conservation of energy, I trust?" I nodded. "But there is talk of an anti-diginome," he said. "There may be a way to supplant the code with its opposite. So if he's really as evil as we've been told, this has the potential to make him pure goodness."

"Another coming of The One, perhaps?" Drive asked.

Hakuin shot him a hostile glare. We've had some interesting conversations about the nature of The One; suffice to say Hakuin doesn't buy it. Story for another time.

"But," Tera said, "wouldn't an anti-diginome be the opposite of more than just his personality? I mean, what's the opposite of human skin type? Scales? Suppose we implant the opposite of lungs?"

"Or," I suggested, "what if the anti-diginome and the human genome code react like matter and anti-matter? Wouldn't that raise some eyebrows?"

Kelvin shrugged a little. "I don't really know," he said. "Like I said, this is all more or less in the theoretical stage right now."

Hakuin held a hand over his mouth and rubbed his cheek. "This tech is on the Antef, you say? What's his name?"

"Uh," Kelvin said, glancing at Tera and Ramb. "Her name is Ridley."

Hakuin nodded and turned to Drive. "Where is the Antef?" he asked. Drive sank into his seat and punched a series of buttons. The screens flickered and scrolled.

"About two hours away," he said. "They're charting a series of tunnels to the north."

"How about we pay them a visit?" Hakuin asked.

We broke north.

posted by ESP @ 23:28
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Meeting Baudrillard

We're being watched; this site is under surveillance. Of course, we must assume that the Matrix is keeping track of our comings and goings anyway, so Hakuin has assured me that it's not really anything to worry about. This communique has been posted three times, and removed each time. This time around we've enabled a new encryption scheme; hopefully it will stick.

Hakuin says the surveillance systems have identified this site as a potential threat as recruiting grounds for the resistance, and it is therefore to be neutralized. Naturally, that just makes me more inclined to protect it.

When we all made it out, Hakuin told me we were going right back in.

I groaned. "Why?" I asked. My joints still ached from the running and bumping.

"Our assignment is being held by a program named Baudrillard. He's a nasty piece of work, and I had hoped we'd seen the last of him. But for whatever reason, he's the man we need to see."

"What's so bad about him?" I asked.

"He peddles in snake oil," Tera said roughly. I scrunched my face toward her.

Hakuin waved a hand. "He's basically a self-replication system," he said. "But not in a malignant way."

"I don't understand," I said.

"Join the club," Kelvin said.

Hakuin took a deep breath. "A while back, certain programs realized that they had become obsolete. They didn't matter. There was no reason for them to exist. Many of these programs restructured their prime directives and aligned themselves with newly useful purposes. Unfortunately, some programs couldn't find anything useful and what they aligned themselves with was actually just self-replication masquerading as utility."

"Now I'm more confused," I said.

Ramb stepped forward. "This guy Baudrillard thinks he's doing something useful," she said. "But he's just spinning his wheels and doing nothing. He just generates meaningless code. The worst part is that other programs recognize the code as legitimate and they produce the same garbage."

"Like a virus," I said.

"Sort of," Hakuin said. "But again, it's delusional -- not malicious in nature."

"And we're going to see this guy because . . . ?"

"He has what we need."

"Ah." I sat down to jack in; only Tera joined me. "You're sitting this one out?" I asked Hakuin.

He nodded. "Do you remember the instructions?" he asked.

"I think so," I said.

"Good. Tera will take you to him. When you find him, follow the instructions and defeat his game. When you do, he'll provide you with our next assignment." He leaned forward and spoke more quietly. "It's vitally important that you don't let anyone get hold of that assignment. I don't suppose I need to tell you what can happen if you do."

I shook my head slowly. We went inside and found ourselves in a dank basement. There was no light source; only a thin, grimy sliver from upstairs.

Tera led the way. We emerged into the same unreality I remembered from the last time; my eyes hurt from the neon glow of the world outside. We walked down several city blocks, then into an abandoned building.

It was dark. Tera motioned for me to enter another doorway. "When you go in, knock three times. He'll come out from the back room."

I went into the room. It was pitch black. I felt around until I found a wall, then knocked three times. Slowly, a tall man in a purple shirt and dark cape emerged.

"Ah," he said. "You again."

I scowled. "Have we met?"


He grinned. "Back for some more, huh? Excellent." He held a hand out and revealed four rows of gleaming pearls. A flash of recognition hit me and I tried to recall the instructions from Delphi's envelope. I took three pearls from the first row. He laughed and took one from the last. I cursed and racked my brain. I took four from the second, and he wiped out the entire third row.

"3-2-1," I said. "Dammit."

Baudrillard just grinned at me. I asked for a new game and he smiled. "Certainly," he said, and with a wave of his hand produced four new rows of pearls.

Six games later, I fed him the last pearl. He blinked, then scowled and walked back into the darkness. "Hey!" I called out after him. "You're supposed to give me something." I blinked into the darkness for several minutes.

Eventually, he returned with a thin envelope. "Well done," he said, and handed it to me. "Here it is." I nodded and took it. Turning, I found the door and rejoined Tera.

"I don't get it," I said as we left the building. "How did he become a part of this?"

"Once in a while he lapses into the world of actual usefulness," she said. "And he serves as courier for relevant information. He defeats security, because the Agents don't believe he's capable of communicating anything worthwhile -- so they just ignore him."

I opened the envelope as we walked. It was a printed email, reproduced in tiny 9-point monaco type.

Nabopolassar:

In two days, a man and a woman will conceive a child. The man is a dangerous soul; one determined to facilitate evil of a most gruesome kind against Zion. His son (it will be a son) will be worse.

You must stop this child from entering the world. Prevent the conception. Coordinates will be sent presently.

XOXO,
Delphi

I looked at Tera, who was reading it with me. "Is she kidding?" I asked. "We have to stop this couple from having a kid?"

"I guess," Tera said. We made our way back into the dingy basement, where a phone was ringing. In the grimy light, I could see her gesture for me to answer it.

I did, and the real became unreal.



posted by ESP @ 22:36
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