Clone Earth : MELVIN
ZIG and Solitude

Out of breath Ari panted as she rounded the corner. The last boy had left for the afternoon lecture, the door secured behind him, leaving the corridor abandoned for approximately five minutes. Her calculations were usually accurate; however, Ari could never account for the inconsistencies of human beings. Compared to computers they weren’t programmed right. Which meant an adult might pass by unexpectedly at anytime. In other words, she needed to be swift.

Running her hand over the doors keypad, Ari typed in 77926 -

ERROR

She sighed heavily and tapped her fingers against the faded white wall as she ran the familiar calculation through her memory. The third week of the eight month, which means the program isolates the third and fourth numbers in the sequence, multiplies them together, and gives the replacements. Then it adds the new number to the first two numbers, which gives their replacements, and the last number is always plus one … she punched in the new sequence, 95187.

With its usual ‘shhhh’, the door slid open.

“Stupid program,” Ari mumbled, hurrying down the new corridor. “They’re so concerned with security but will they let me rewrite it? Nooo-”

She cut off her mumbling to peek through an open door. Completely blacked out from the lack of lights she could faintly see the darker outlines of the bedposts and closet. Satisfied, she entered the empty room and closed the manual door behind her.

The room lights flickered on at the closing of the door, however her heart jumped into her throat as she caught sight of a blurred figured resting lazily on the far bed. Ari’s back pressed into the cool metal door waiting for her eyes to adjust to the light. After a moment, the patchy blur stabilized into her long, skinny, unmoving older brother’s duffel bag. It wasn’t packed full, resulting in odd shapes and bulges. Anyone could have mistaken it for a person.

Shuffling through his belongings Ari noted she had been correct, he had just as much sentimental attachment as she had to the thing they’d been issued on this hunk of metal. The one and only thing that mattered to him lay on the bed beside his duffel bag.

Picking up his personal computer she quickly entered his passcode and began shuffling through his recent files. Each file consisted of the usual political and human rights research. He had tried to explain all his exciting finds, such as how planet laws differ from those on space stations and nomadic transports, but Ari never cared to listen.

A few detailed files did catch her eye on health and healing. It seemed he’d been doing more research on his ability but with their limited resources on the station, he hadn’t gotten very far.

Glancing at the countdown clock on the systems main page Ari calculated she wouldn’t have enough time to get to the Communications Hub. The Hub was part of the stations main community, not connected to the school or orphanage, which put it on the far end of the Station.

It was the place with the strongest outsourced signal. Though at this time it was occupied by various programmers and maintenance prepping the station for departure. So, though the signal would be weaker, she had plenty of time to access her outside resources through to the Hub remotely.

Which could be tricky, due to the person who was over authorization.

Typing quickly, Ari grinned as the rough image of the Hub manager appeared across her screen. “Hello Margiene.”

The old woman leaned close to the screen, clearly struggling to focus on Ari’s relayed image through the thick lens of her spectacles. “Miss Kana, last I heard you have been denied outside transmission.”

“That is not true,” Ari waved her metallic disk in front of her camera before sliding it into the side panel of the personal and submitting her code, “I earned my time.”

Margiene’s expression narrowed further as she shuffled through the request sequence, glancing back at Ari’s image several times with suspicion.

Ari had once succeeded in perfectly programing a voided disc for unlimited Hub usage, and managed to use it for two weeks before Margiene caught on. Now the old woman did a through inspection until she was satisfied that she wasn’t being made a fool.

The curt throat clearing, signaled Margiene had completed her inspection, her expression more rancid than ever; who’d have thought a legit pass could cause such disappointment.

“Thirty minutes only. Proceed.” Margiene grumbled, pressing the button that made her own image disappear and allowed the authorization screen take over.

“Thanks as always, Margiene!” Ari mumbled. Moving quickly through the login process.

Ari’s eyes lit up as the screen showed she had an awaiting message. It seemed to be heavily encrypted - which meant it was from someone particular. Someone who had a talent for making the decryption process really tricky.

ZIG was his handle. He was a self-described universal technology guru, and had a decryption process that Military analysts wouldn’t know how to crack - which, knowing ZIG’s penchant for paranoia, was exactly the point. His encryptions were catered to the recipient, and turned the decryption into a scavenger hunt. Using data collected by none other than ZIG himself.

Ari’s eyes narrowed as she studied the complex encryptions; this would take up most of her Hub time.

Again she pulled a stolen utility driver from her pocket and selected the thin digital attachment. After the brisk glance over her shoulder, Ari slipped it into the slot and after bypassing the maintenance codes, she saved the encrypted file under layers of maintenance programs. That way if it was confiscated it would be well hidden.

Though she was anxious to know ZIG’s opinion on her theory, it would have to wait until she had more time.

She slipped the driver back into her pocket before she proceeded to the sectors FAQ for a little self-indulgence. Scanning the basic issues posted for the day Ari found one boy in a frantic search for help. More specifically he’d been typing Ari’s name, repeatedly, for the last hour.

ARI: What?

Zenaido-Tobec: ZIG’s gone.

She couldn’t keep herself from laughing.

ARI: ZIG’s never gone.

Zenaido-Tobec: ZIG’s been officially offline for a week.

“Strange. ZIG never does anything officially.” she muttered, and leaned back against the wall, pulling her knees up so the personal could rest comfortably on them.

Ari: That’s not really a tragedy I can help you with, Zenaido-Tobec.

Zenaido-Tobec: Right. I can’t access anything from the OPC. It crashed for several seconds a few days ago, and now they’re saying the most recent logs were wiped clean.

She frowned. That was a problem, for him at least. The On-Planet Catalog was one massive hard drive open to any registered resident of that particular C.E. planet. It allowed them personal data space plus access to the main computer, loaded with information, turning it into one collaborated library. Any crash, no matter the length, would lose hundreds of thousands of files, identities, and anything else planet people trusted to save on such a public system.

Ari: Don’t worry, even erased files still leave an imprint. It won’t be in its original form but you’ll be able to view the image.

Zenaido-Tobec: Great! How do I find it?

Ari: Well, I can’t suggest anything for you to do, but I can get it for you.

Zenaido-Tobec: Perfect. Do it.

Ari: Okay. Your computer is going to start thinking on its own. Please don’t touch it until I’m finished.

After a second of no response she trusted Zenaido-Tobec had backed away with his hands in the air, so Ari set to work. Racing through firewalls was her favorite pastime, and here she had a fairly legal reason to do it. It was more difficult to do through a personal hand monitor but she found the challenge inviting.

Once inside his computer Ari had access to the boy’s logins. They let her enter the Catalog and leave with no implication that a space station computer had any connection. The OPC’s programing made finding public access and protected files, easy. As expected there was a small imprint of every file lost during those six seconds of the crash. Which also computed to thousands and thousands of angry human beings.

What Ari found odd was the lack of safety features that were in place to prevent that kind of crash. For such an important system, the back-up programs and security should have been three levels higher, at least. There were traces suggesting the mistake was being corrected, but it never should have existed in the first place.

Unimpressed at the lack of intelligence planet dwellers seemed to exhibit, her head shook. Just because a computer could keep humans alive in space didn’t mean it was infallible; they do everything you tell them to but one tiny glitch and its mass asphyxiation. At least that’s what the Magistrate keeps reminding her.

After finding the markers, identifying which files belonged to Zenaido-Tobec, Ari restored them to his computer. As she disconnected she carefully put the firewall back into place behind her.

Zenaido-Tobec: Thank you! I couldn’t believe it was gone!

Ari: No problem. Out of curiosity, what caused the catalog to crash?

Zenaido-Tobec: They claim it was a tremor, but aren’t giving details -

The screen was overtaken by the SESSION CONCLUDED message. Ari ground her teeth in frustration, “I still had ten minutes!” She protested to a black screen. But no response would come, she tried to access the authorization counter again to voice this protest but was denied.

“All outside links are powering down,” Trevon’s sudden appearance made the personal jump out of Ari’s hands and land flat on the bare mattress. “I asked you not to touch my personal.”

“Just checking a few things,”

“And changing basic programs so it won’t work properly without your coding.” He picked it up, looking down at his sister. His smile softer than before.

“Your bid was denied,” Ari assumed.

“You have to stay with Meckam,” He sat down to be eye level with her, which due to her last growth spurt, he almost was. “But I don’t want you to worry. I will find a way to get you back in three years. I won’t let you be stranded out on some new region of space.”

“So …” She swallowed, “You plan on striking it rich? Gonna hold up a C.E mineral depository. Get your hands on some gold?”

He lightly punched her in the shoulder and together the two enjoyed some tense laughter.

“But really, don’t freak out. Your future isn’t on Meckam.” He repeated. She could see he was genuinely worried about leaving her alone. She’d never once been without him. He’d always been around to fix the problems she caused.

“Okay.” She smiled. His eyebrows narrowed at her sincerely positive response but then three short low tone beeps interrupted the internal comm system. Understanding washed over them both.

Trevon dropped his personal into his sparsely packed duffel. Zipping it closed he hoisted it over his shoulder and looked down at his younger sister.

“Ready?”

Ari nodded, “Nope.”

CHAPTER END

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