From Quills to Keyboards
Saturday, September 01, 2001
* * * * * * * * *
Robin was still sitting beside me, near one of the monitors, already out of the trance, but still in shock. It usually happens, you start remembering everything, and it all... no time for rambling my thoughts. Concentrate on getting whoever was tailgating me out of my back. I typed commands quickly, trying to get rid of them. Finally I lost them over a connection in New Paris.
"A virus." Robin spurted out.
"What?" I turned to her, Yukio froze in his place.
"A T dash four five x at t u k dash e l six two four dot n t exclamation mark. It is an equation, a command, a password, to get the information on the virus."
"Virus? You mean this is the Vox! Your mother was the creator of Vox?" Yukio certainly knew what he was talking about.
I was afraid to ask, but I felt I had to, but I wish I hadn't, "What is Vox?"
* * * * * * *
She swung the door open, not angry, just desperate. Anyone would get like that by climbing up 10 stories. Robin's eyes glazed around my apartment, taking mental note on everything that was there, especially the five monitors I had on my desk.
"What is it you want from me?" she asked in her sweet, but tempting voice.
I had called her, right after I had talked to Yukio. "You know why you are here, you are living proof of your mother's work."
"How do you know about my mother... ok, I'll rephrase that, what do you want from my mother?"
"He wants what everyone involved on the New Genesis project wants," Yukio had come, he was standing in the mist, "he wants power. And your mother's work was very important to the Genesis project, so he wants it for his 'improved' version of it."
Yukio walked around the room, and he and Robin shared glances. They didn't understand, the New Genesis project was the only way mankind could possibly survive this filthy world we are living in, but I wasn't going to tell them that, their ego would just grow too much.
"Right, if we ever want to rescue what your mother was working on is inside you, Robin."
"What?" her voice was... lovely.
"He wants to enter your mind. Rape you from your memories."
"Yukio, you are not helping. Robin, this is important for all of us, let me get in you, let me find whatever information I can on your mother, we need it."
"What do I get from this?"
"You'll get... anything. Once the New Genesis project has been established and starts to work, you'll get anything you want. A small island to control, yours. Fame, fortune, you name it."
"Fine," she strolled herself to a chair near the monitors and sat. I walked towards her, Yukio observing my every move.
I plugged her finger on the jack, and placed the VR-glasses over my head. She closed her eyes, and I pressed Enter.
A flow of information was in front of me. A digital rendering of her thoughts and memories. I went straight forward to what I was looking, childhood memories. So many to choose from, so many, I focused, seven, she was seven when it happened. Lab, her mother must have worked on a lab. Images popping up and disappearing as I searched Robin's memories. Then, in front of me was the most important link in all of the Genesis project.
AT-45x@tuk-el624.nt!
This? Her mother worked on genetics, how could this possibly help the Genesis project? It was a program code, or... something digital, yes, definitely digital-related. I grabbed a paper and wrote it down, and was out.
It took me a while to recuperate, but even longer for her to do it. As she did, I showed the scribbles I had done to Yukio.
"Do you know what this means?"
He shook his head. I went over to the main keyboard and typed it in, allowing the program do the mystery-solving by itself.
When Robin had awokened, the computer started beeping, my line was being traced.
That command line was important, very important, now I knew.
