CHAPTER 2

In the absence of Silas, members at the LOTRY Community Center discuss their plans of retaliation. This car accident incident has traumatized more than he and his supporters, as they sit worrying over their future. The results of this accident are reaching broadcast stations across the District of Columbia and further, causing an upsurge in newscast viewership. Storyboard writers can't ignore reports of spoiled CCS products placing people's life and property at risk. Silas Betts' taxi accident is only one example of a disruptive persona becoming an overnight sensation. LOTRY is a subversive group and its public image is undergoing a startling change. They're garnering a legitimate following of political dissidents as opposed to the wayward hippies of previous.

At the hospital Silas sits wrapped in layers of gauze, breathing through tubes shoved down his neck interfering with his vocal cords. The days spent in hospital bed restraints go by slowly, and before Silas fully recovers, he's confronted by someone different. This time it's a raving supporter.

A nurse decides to ask him about it. "Excuse me, Mr. Betts. Are you feeling well this evening?"

Awakened from his nap, Silas gargles through a worn throat. "Yes, uh, what is it?" he responds.

"Someone would like to see you, a Mr. Clyde Van Dyke."

Silas troubles with the thought of identifying this person before motioning a hand toward himself. "It's fine, let him in."

Van Dyke rushes in. "Hello Mr. Silas, I've heard all about you." He tries to shake Silas's hand, but the hindrances of gauze and tape cause Silas to twist his arm, leaving a limp embrace.

"Yes, and what do you want, exactly?"

"There's a camera crew already at work outside. We want to broadcast what you have to say. Right here, right now, what do you say?"

Silas adjusts himself with the little motion he has available in wiggle room. "I mean, I wasn't exactly prepared for this, but it's no problem." His chest rises in an anxious breathing pattern, and as his voice is obstructed by fuller breaths, a sudden shock of excitement grips him. "Hey, where'd you get that shirt?"

Mr. Van Dyke has on a custom-made shirt for members at the Community Center. Its distinctive logo immediately strikes him. "That's my shirt you've got on!"

"That's right Mr. Silas, and you're becoming quite the sensation after that accident you had uptown."

In the time since his accident, the LOTRY Community Center has held meetings inviting everyone from small grass-roots organizers to big-timers in the media world like this Van Dyke guy. On the surface things spell great for their notoriety and in a split second, Silas is happy to finally get the recognition he was mocked for pursuing. But he recognizes the dangers that a bombardment of praise can lead to, like a sudden fall. Never mind the fact that he lies in a broken heap on a soggy hospital spread.

With the camera on him, Silas imagines his face all over the country. He gathers the gumption to call out Ellis Bartram on a live broadcast when Mr. Van Dyke gives him the go-ahead cue.

"I would like to welcome all of the newest participants and those who have taken the time to get to know LOTRY. Aside from our commitment to fairness and equity, I want to also mention the absolute danger in the CCS being used today. Not just in our vehicles, but the way it's being used to push aside those who can't afford it. All over the country, people are suffering from a failure to make personal connections outside of the internet. I propose a solution, boycott CCS, and put people back to work."

"And why is that?" Van Dyke nudges him on.

Silas grows wide-eyed. "Because it's necessary, it's necessary for our farmers to tend to the crops we're starving for. Things are falling apart because Bartram thinks he can hold a monopoly on every industry in known existence."

"Whose idea was that? Isn't the consumer to blame for that? Isn't he giving the people what they want?" Van Dyke asks.

In another region of D.C. Ellis Bartram sits with an empty glass of water. The chair he's situated in rocks back and forth slowly. Bartram slaps his lap in a fit of frustration. High above him, the projection shows Silas spewing more of his talk, only this time everyone is starting to believe it. Bartram uses his loose hand to caress his forehead beginning to sweat. Finally, he looks at the screen again. Once Silas starts rolling, Bartram's head falls limp in agony at what he thinks is a mockery. The frustration is getting to him.

Silas is undeterred. "I don't believe the consumer knows what they want, they take what's given to them. Who's promoting this fad, huh? That's the real question."

Mr. Van Dyke's attention is interrupted when the conversation seems to implicate him, but it only endears him to Silas more seeing his understanding grow.

In the distant regions of the LOTRY Community Center, private meetings are concocting a murderous plot. Silas isn't as committed to the idea of driving the populace to violence, but the urge to enact a thrashing is silently growing while he's away. Without Silas's knowledge, Mr. Van Dyke himself is engaging in meetings at the Community Center to destroy Bartram for real.

His health isn't a well-known problem, but at LOTRY studying Ellis is like studying a master performer. One comes to learn their lyrics, prominent pieces, and even love to hate them. When Silas is released from the hospital, he spends only a short time at home before returning to the Center. A set of crutches keep him upright with a bad wobble to his walk, but it doesn't keep him from talking. Increased attention has given him the energy to combat CCS in a way that he thinks works, but he could never imagine what some community members have been plotting, and coincidently, the power shifts in a way he always wanted.

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Delphi Corp.'s daily operations are continuing as usual, but not without secret schemes to fix the mess it's making. Now that this Aladdin software is public knowledge, Yasmine focuses her efforts on getting approval for total immersion to commence. Already allocated is a federal spending budget to pay for researchers specializing in artificial intelligence. Delphi Corp.'s main supercomputer is housed at their private center in D.C., and Yasmine peruses the hallways of a dimly lit backdrop in silence. Eventually, she stops to adjust nodes on a holographic module to check computer functions. While gathering some information from her rounds, an inconsistency in records alerts her to something peculiar interfering with the software.

A sudden glimmer in the lights interrupts her. While flickering to a constant blur of bulbs coming on and off, she is bothered by a suspicion of something unusual. Yasmine refocuses on the module display. What she sees is the computing software detecting inconsistency in code.

Immediately reminded of the emergency protocol, she thinks carefully before initiating a passcode sequence. The opening line allows her to input the password, but she fails at the first attempt. Cautious with each try she realizes that she's either forgotten it or it's been overridden by someone else.

Moved by her irritability Yasmine's belongings slip from her grip, dropping to a pile of disheveled papers along the floor. She grabs a chunk of hair that hangs over tense shoulders, but in her frustration, she pulls her shoulders to a shrug before hastily kneeling to pick the papers up from the floor.

"Uh!" she grunts, letting out a profuse exhalation.

Bent to the glossy floor, she incrementally reveals the granite reflection of a muddled image, her face. The flickering lights and tall walls of encased supercomputing surround her. Before she can fully regain composure, the power shuts off to a sudden shudder of sound as the generator turns off. The abrupt transition to silence strikes her in deep-seated dread as a chill overcomes her. Trapped in a maze of darkness Yasmine's eyes swivel in frantic apprehension. The module she was working on is the only thing that remains lit as the dialogue box taunts her, continuing to blink in a request for the appropriate passcode.

Walking towards the brightly lit module, she raises a shaking finger before it shuts off as well. Alone and with nothing aside from miscellaneous paperwork she tries to remember the way she came in and walks timidly in the direction of open space. Her slow creep is startled when met by a dim pointed light. The laser pointer directed at Yasmine's chest in the distance causes her to look that way, straight on. The blank figure of someone in the distance, near a lighted workspace, catches her attention while she stands motionless.

"Is that you, Yasmine?" The familiar voice calls out.

She's reassured. "Yes, it looks like the power's gone out."

"Don't worry, stay there. I've been instructed to assist you."

The darkness is slightly deterred by a door that is cracked open. But walking toward her, the AIS, Aladdin, let it reel to a close, still wielding a bright beam from a flashlight embedded in the index finger until reaching her position.

"It seems to be a problem with the code or something." Yasmine attempts to recapture the module a few paces away.

Aladdin's sense of space is more precise, walking ahead of her. "I see, there's been a corruption of the encryption. Do you by chance know the password?"

She refrains from speaking before Aladdin manages to get the module up and running again through a few blind selections. The illuminated box finally reveals their faces to each other. The glossy exactness of human proportions that make up Aladdin's contours has aesthetic appeal, with smooth synthetic skin wrapped around strong lines. Aladdin likewise is satisfied to see Yasmine, moving closer for better sensory perception. Peering its slender neck nearer is eerie to her in a mechanical stretch, but she's becoming accustomed to the AIS's quirks.

"By my estimation, this sequence of code goes against all standards. The synapses of the Cloud's synthetic computing are breaking down. The data is all out of order." Aladdin rearranges the images of the module at a hyper-fast pace, going through hundreds of frames per second to Yasmine's surprise. Aladdin's had no formal training. A portal of connectivity through an open finger downloads information.

With the display coming to a standstill, Yasmine asks, "So, what now?"

"Are you familiar with malware, Yasmine?" Aladdin straightens its posture along with a rigid spinal replica.

"Like, a virus? Sure."

"Right," Aladdin starts. "This is on another scale. There's been a corruption of the encryption, but I cannot locate the culprit data. It seems as if the cause stems from something within the Cloud Computing itself. The operating system has faulty analytics."

"Is that why the power is out?"

"Yes. The password to the module is in your mailbox by the way," Aladdin says, still analyzing the module carefully. "I believe something called total immersion came across my digital records as an important subject, but it's classified. What is the total immersion?"

The lights finally come back on to remind Yasmine of her surroundings, with a sudden spur of sound and a flash to jolt Yasmine from her darkened view. The subtle murmur of computing waves by as she and Aladdin stand facing each other, there in the brightened, hollowed walkways, she thinks about the new clandestine operation that Bartram's initiated called total immersion.

"Quite the blackout," she says.

Aladdin sways along with its torso's swinging hinges. "I think so. The result of some computing jam."

"I will make note of it. Would you like to accompany me to our total immersion meetings, Aladdin? At least as a precautionary measure for future hiccups. I think that'll do."

Yasmine and her new assistant exit the long corridors of the Cloud hallways to make their way out. Office tranquility comforts them when they meet other members of Delphi Corp, but most haven't been given access to the new immersion program. Things are already off to a shaky start. And along a barren area, a mound of abandoned boxes is pushed to the side. Like high-school audition results, a sheet of paper is plastered to the wall. Instead of names, it lists numbers, 10-digit codes given to each employee. Yasmine is slow to find hers because she hasn't had to use her code up to now, but when she does there isn't much enthusiasm. Her work is only beginning to get interesting.

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Ellis Bartram receives an emergency call from the Mars colonies on archeological hunts. Along the periphery of base camps, provincial rest stations to accommodate the space rangers are made for their archeological digs. Most findings have been dismal, uncovering little more than shriveled up minerals from million-year-old sediments. But buried in portions of deteriorating gravel, the soil begins to sink. Bartram gets a call from a frustrated colonist.

The augmented projection shows the ranger's face above Bartram's workstation. Heavy panting causes the ranger's chest to throb under his suit with rhythmic rises and falls, something he can see beneath his chin.

Bartram clears his throat. "What's going on over there? Can you hear me?" he asks.

The colonist shifts a coil of wiring along the suit underlining that extends over his chin. Peering to something provincial that's laying below, Bartram watches as the colonist struggles to bend over in a reach. The hair atop his head dangles to reveal dark roots where he's parted it aside before going out of frame.

When he pulls himself up, Bartram's eyes grow wide in anticipation but is met only with the ranger's reddened face.

"And," Bartram flails his arms with placating hands, palms positioned to the ceiling. "What in the hell have you got over there, ranger?"

The colonist wavers with stuttering lips, his peripheral vision closing in on himself as the oxygen within the caravan fills his lungs through relieved nostrils. "It appears as if," he starts, pausing intermittently. "I believe we have dinosaur fossils here, sir." He peers down again to the rough patch of Martian terrain that has been concealed over by an enclosed habitat conveyance. The entire site has become an excavation plot.

"If that's fine with you," the colonist awkwardly placates.

Bartram only looks down to a desk littered with unfinished work. "Well, I'd be damned, yes that's fine with me! Wait... maybe not, we've got to keep this under wraps."

"That shouldn't be too difficult. We are on Mars, after all." The colonist tries to reframe the camera for a better view but decides against it. He doesn't want to fuddle with the equipment anymore.

Extended out to in front of where he's sitting is an almost fully constructed skeleton that seems to be related to the genome of dinosaurs that roamed the Earth in prehistoric eras millions of years ago. This tyrannosaurus rex look-alike carries the same characteristics of a similar reptile ancestor on Earth. And only a few feet away are more skeletal remains being uncovered.

"That's not it, sir. There's much more about a hundred feet away. And after that even more. I'd say we've hit the paleontological jackpot, but there aren't any specialists of that kind here."

Considering the implications, Bartram wants to conduct an intense study, but the colonies don't have enough resources to undertake the task immediately. The colonist's projection begins to waver in and out of focus before coming to a controlled image again. Their connection is weakening. But there's something else that he can show Bartram, and it's sitting right beside him.

"I do have something, however. I learned about this in high school, maybe my freshman year of college. Do you know what this is, sir?"

Bartram tries to recall what the object is. The dust and crackled exterior deter him, but the familiar coils of cylindrical gears remind him of something. The colonist holds the stone tool's handles. "Well This Mr. Bartram, as we've come to a sort of agreement on this, is called an Antikythera Mechanism. The first computer from ancient Greece. Except this one is way, way fancier."

"I think I've heard of that, but how did all of this get on Mars?"

"Well," he puts it down. "The better question might be, not how it got itself over here, but why it would be buried with dinosaurs in the first place."

"And it does what, exactly?" Bartram asks.

"Follows astronomical measurements. Perhaps we should figure out what it was supposed to track. The zodiac, I'd imagine." He's realizing why the government put so much emphasis on following Delphi Corp.'s every move. He wants to know who, not what is behind this. Someone else must have known about this beforehand, but no one in the government knew these objects were buried on Mars. This is completely unchartered territory.

"I think I've had enough, please continue the digging. Whoever could have anticipated that we'd send you all over there just to dig?"

"Well, thanks anyway for the correspondence, sir."

Standing against the wall, a blank canvas of thousands of new thoughts stresses Bartram's back. Stirred to action, he stays positioned up against the wall with a remote controller to the projection ahead. Beginning his study, he goes through frame after frame retelling the history of the Antikythera Mechanism. It is mostly just random historical fodder to him. Then, Bartram begins watching a documentary on the extinction of the dinosaurs.

Engrossed in the details of vegetation and fights among dinosaur kin, Bartram is startled when a vehement knock comes to the door to break the hypnotism of obsession. The double taps almost break him from his trance to the floor, but he catches himself with a planted leg. Unable to shut off the film in time, he monotonously calls for the person to enter.

"Yasmine, good to see you. How have things been going for the daily operations bit?"

"Um... fine. Are you, okay?" She slips in and closes the door with a quiet clasping of the door frame. She catches the image of flying dinosaurs in the vehement attack of an ancient predatory rival before seating herself. She thinks nothing of it.

Excited to start on this total immersion project she readies a few questions, but what she wants is to mention the blackout that happened a few hours previous.

"There was a problem with the cloud computing's code sequence. According to Aladdin, some malware corrupted the system that resulted in a shutdown. It went dark," she informs Bartram.