The Coming of Enki IV
Part four of a previously unpublished science fiction story
Welcome to the latest edition of Confections & Reputations! If you’re a new subscriber here for the science and technology history, the next part of my series on the origins of the modern computer will follow soon. In the meantime, you can peruse these past posts…
Who wrote the first modern computer program? (Yes, it even ran before the Manchester Baby cycled through 17 instructions to find the highest factor of 262,144 is 131,072.)
Was Gödel's second incompleteness theorem really von Neumann's? Part I
Was Gödel's second incompleteness theorem really von Neumann's? Part II
For now, why not sit back, relax and read the next chapter of ‘The Coming of Enki’?
Here are links to Part I, Part II, Part III
The Coming of Enki
VI
Gunn played the loop over and over in his mind as he rushed through the Other to Eridu.
The memory opened on a cloudless, bright day. A warm, summer breeze whips and scatters the surface of a glittering lake. On its shore, a crowd of young men and women, some standing, others lounging on picnic blankets, are gazing expectantly at two figures in swimwear who have walked out on to a rickety wooden jetty.
One is a muscular youth whose well-developed arms and chest hint at long hours spent training on the football field. He is the back-up quarterback for the college team. His mouth curves up into a crooked half-smile and he waves once to the crowd, which erupts into cheers, hooting and applause. The other on the jetty is a slim woman whose long, black hair is tied back in a ponytail. She does not have the poise of an athlete but nonetheless looks at ease as she stands on the jetty’s edge. She does not smile. Her eyes are fixed on the far shore of the lake.
Behind them, a man with a starter pistol steps on to the landing. He raises it and the lake falls silent.
“Swimmers, ready! Set!” No one hears the word “go” above the crack of the shot.
The quarterback enters the water first but his dive is clumsy. By the time he comes up for his first breath, she has overtaken him, gliding across the lake with smooth, even strokes. Halfway to the other side, he realises that he will not catch her so he changes from freestyle to butterfly, churning and scooping the water with his arms, his legs propelling him forward with powerful thrusts. It seems to work. After they both flip turn, he emerges ahead of her. Yet she is indifferent to his manoeuvres, the rhythm of her movements continues unchanged.
In the end, the race is won comfortably. His frantic strokes tire him and though he continues to lash the water desperately, his arms and legs no longer move in synchrony. She pulls further ahead, the stretch of water between them lengthening visibly by the minute.
The crowd gives her a standing ovation as she cruises the last few metres with arms outstretched, head down, fingers feeling for the rough wooden landing ahead. They are still on their feet twenty seconds later, when he finally hauls himself exhausted out of the water. His face flushed, he walks over to where she is drying herself and shakes her hand. He mutters something. She shrugs, replies and walks away, smiling at last.
According to Gunn’s analysts, this was a keystone memory. The mighty Adversary, humiliated in his youth. A life-changing event easily exploited by a psych trap. It should have slowed him down, softened him up for the bot waiting to deactivate his neural net, with luck permanently. Even if the attack did not remove the Adversary from the Net for good, it should have delayed him long enough for the Movement to sabotage Vāc without interference. But it had not. As far as Gunn could tell, the Adversary had simply shrugged it off. Clearly, his analysts had misinterpreted the memory. How?
It mattered not now. The movement, gambling that the psych trap would be successful, had released its viruses on Vāc. They were handicapping the algorithm as their technicians had predicted but unless the Adversary could be stopped, all was lost.
In two Net days he would arrive at Eridu. If his calculations were correct that would be just moments before the Adversary broke through to the holy place. There was little superstition in the importance the Movement attached to Eridu. It was a key node, channelling and coordinating computational power they stole from the Funds’ servers, a dumping ground for data that anyone needed to “lose” temporarily and a secure place to test encryption protocols. If compromised, the viruses they had released would lose their potency and fail, the Funds would have time to upgrade Vāc and the Movement would be extinguished for good. He had to focus on winning the conjoining with the Adversary.
Now read Part V.
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Been waiting for part VII..