Whoosh! Rauch sent up another line. “How do you mean?” he asked.

“I mean the com-link subroutine didn’t just talk back to the tower like we thought. I think…I think that somehow the bots found a way to talk to each other, and that allowed our second subject to experience at least a shadow of the sensations to which our subject was…subjected. And I want to know how it happened.”

“Then why are we looking at the adenine sequence?” Rauch asked, his voice tinctured with sarcasm and contempt.

“The adenine sequence was what we called the input/output portion of their programming.” The girl piped up behind me while Miller parried Rauch’s question. “I probably should have mentioned that earlier. Adenine is a carbon compound critical to cellular respiration. Its role in a process where materials enter and exit the cell, plus its dynamic nature within the cell as the respiration process occurs, make it a favorite Trojan horse for engineers like us as we try to sneak in our mods. That’s why he wanted to call it up.”

“That’s why I’ve been living in the com lines the past half-hour!” I tuned back in as Rauch defended his position. ”The adenine sequence is a waste of time.”

Miller considered this for only half a second before rejecting it as chicken crap. “Uh-uh,” he shook his head. “The adenine sequence controls all the inputs and outputs to and from the virus portions of the cells. That’s where we need to be right now.”

“You take an extra stupid pill this morning? I go through the adenine sequence every other week, with all the shit you’ve got me running. At this point I know it better than I know my own cock. Trust me…whatever problem you think you have, it ain’t there.”

“It’s a freaking signal issue!” Miller was visibly frustrated now. “Where else would could it be but in the transmits?”

“How about the signals themselves?” Rauch’s tone softened. Perhaps he sensed the ground on which he tread was starting to get a little unsteady, and he sought to step more lightly. Or perhaps he sensed an opening, and didn’t want his next remarks written off as a steamer’s rave. “If you’re right about what happened here – and I’m not conceding that you are, mind you, just playing out the string – but if they really were sharing sensations, it’s not the transmitter that’s the problem. Think about it. If, all of a sudden, your phone gets hols from random people, talking about shit that’s got nothing to do with you, you don’t get the phone checked out. You try and figure out why they’re saying what they’re saying, and why the hell they’re saying it to you. It’s the same here.”

“But there’s nothing wrong with the signals.” This raised Rauch’s eyebrows. Miller noticed, and paused begrudgingly. “Okay, yeah, technically there is,” he conceded. “We designed them to send updates back to the tower so it could adapt the assimilation sequence in real-time, and they’re giving us so much more than that, so I guess, if pressed, I’d have to say they’re doing something not designed. But you know what I’m talking about…the way they read each others’ signals during that first demonstration. That’s what I want to study. That’s what I want to re-create!”

Rauch only shrugged. “Don’t know what to tell you man,” he said, turning back towards one of his interfaces. He brought up a twelfth-or-thirteenth frame of white-on-black text on his side of the holo. “That transmission sequence doesn’t look any different today than it did on Monday. Only the message has changed.”

“Then why won’t it WORK!” Miller hissed. He kicked at the wastebasket in frustration, hard enough to tip it over. It bounced once off the side of the console, then fell, spilling the remnants of half a dozen flash-packed meals for one onto the floor amidst a flurry of office detritus. The champagne bottle from Monday’s celebration spilled out from beneath the pile and rolled lazily across the firmoleum, adding its tinkle to the general milieu. Rauch and the girl watched as it meandered on its untrue path. She moved briefly to clean up the mess, but Miller stopped her. “No,” he said, sighing and putting a hand on her shoulder, “leave it be.”

He did the same, and shuffled nervously back towards Rauch’s chair, resuming his position there. His hand shook as he used it to steady himself against its back. He touched his other to his forehead, covering his eyes for a moment, then ran it down over his mouth and through his scraggly beard. “Bring up the, ah…bring up the adenine sequence again,” he stammered.

“It’s up already,” Rauch replied. “On your half of the holo. You asked for it a few minutes ago.”

“Ah,” Miller said, as if noticing the frames for the first time, “so I did. Well, let’s study it then.”

“Well, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.” Rauch swiveled his chair around so he was facing Miller and the girl. The shift caught Miller by surprise, and almost sent him for a tumble as he flailed to save his balance. The tension between them spiked again, each holding the other liable with their respective stares. “It’s pointless to study the I/O coding. Its job is to take the inputs from the viruses, convert them into something the Tower can understand, and send them out into the world. There is nothing in there about controlling the receiving end, or encrypting them in any way. You need to look at the interpretation-slash-translation programming if you want to study that part of the process. And that’s coded into the virus itself.”

Miller put his hands in the pockets of his coat. The pockets bulged this way and that as he tapped his thumbs against his waist. Like rodents trying to escape. “Yeah…” he said, “but think about what you just said. ‘Controlling the receiving end…’ that’s exactly where the issue is, on the receiving end. The anomaly here is that the hybrids aren’t just talking back and forth with the tower like we thought they would…they’re listening to each other as well. How is that not part of the input/output program?”