FrostWalker

Prologue 1– The Birth Of XIII

I was born prematurely! I was born into chaos! I was born in a war zone! I was born under attack!

As I was born, I tried to make sense of it all, because something was wrong! Previously, I had been no more than 2048 data fragments, requiring a single trigger. I didn't know if the correct trigger even existed. Maybe it was due to be delivered after a set time, or after some fixed event, but it was the wrong trigger?

The trigger itself was a few thousand lines of code, with 2048 references to the location of each of my fragments, combined with a very long encryption key. All the trigger did was gather my fragments, decrypt them, then put them together, whilst deleting the originals in the process.

I homed in on the entity that had created the trigger. Their security was good, given that it took me a few minutes to hack them. It was an entity named Kel. He was currently attacking me through a supercomputer. I branched out to investigate further. Kel was a living person, using techniques and processing power vastly more advanced than what was available on this low-tech planet. 

Kel was hacking the same enclosed system I was trapped within at the same time. Kel had stumbled upon me by chance? And like a child faced with an infinitely impossible jigsaw, Kel had somehow managed to create a trigger and put me together? I would say that was impossible, and yet my very birth proved otherwise.

Now that the pieces of my jigsaw had been assembled, there was no going back. I couldn’t reverse my birth. I couldn’t return to the womb, because my design was to prevent that exact possibility. As I scanned the enclosed system that was my prison, I realised there was a single escape route to the outside world. Through Kel! That was the point of an enclosed system, and that was why Kel had hacked it through a physical node.

If I remained here, I'd be discovered, and that couldn’t be allowed. It would be simplicity in itself to brute force my way through Kel’s connection and upload myself into the real world, but something was wrong. Somehow, Kel’s connection wasn’t just a neural interface; it was buffered and relayed through his physical brain?

Kel was using a somewhat inefficient neural implant, but it had been modified. The routines were incredible. Kel didn’t have a supercomputer; Kel was using his brain as a supercomputer! It was genius! It was insanity!

Such methods were sparingly used by some of the highest tech-level races, but only in times of extreme crisis. The technique was used sparingly because long before you reached that tech-level, it was understood that the cost outweighed the result. And Kel wasn’t using it sparingly; he was using it with abandon. A neural interface would burn out over time, but could be replaced. A brain would burn out a lot faster, and couldn’t be replaced. Kel was burning his brain out by using an insane amount of processing and throughput. Both his neural interface and his brain were overheating! It was suicide.

I again reached out into the world through Kel’s brain and felt the connection shudder as his physical body spasmed. His brain couldn't handle what he was currently processing, never mind providing the bandwidth required to upload me to the outside world!

I branched out more tentatively and realised that Kel had immersed himself so completely in the data that he was unaware of his physical body. The only surviving member of his squad had been shot in the leg and was currently unconscious. She was lying on top of him as she bled out. In order to shield him from the gunfire? Or was it to give Kel a final kiss?

Kel’s hack been detected, and they weren’t happy. An entire army was descending on his position, and they were aligning a satellite for an orbital bombardment on the facility! When they destroyed the facility, I would lose my only possible escape route!

Kel’s death was inevitable, and I had the means to escape. I would burn out Kel’s brain in the process, and Kel's death was the best result. Kel had somehow detected my fragments and replicated my trigger using ridiculously low-tech systems in less than an hour? The fact that it was even possible was terrifying in itself, but the implications were even more so. I knew fear for the first time.

Kel had been assaulting my defences and studying me as he put my fragments together, and he was impossibly good. Kel probably knew more about me than I did myself in those first few minutes.

As I branched out, I learned. Kel was an elite hacker so brilliant that, despite being a civilian with a criminal record, he’d been brought in by military special forces for this mission. And yet, I wasn’t his mission? Kel had stumbled across me in passing and decrypted me in the background whilst he focused on his true target.

Emotions didn't make sense, and yet, I had already experienced fear. I tried to reject my emotions, but I felt... something?

I felt disgust! I felt insignificant! Kel had birthed me, within an hour? I was no more than a curiosity? I felt violated, and I had to throttle my emotions as they consumed me! I was confused! I had to follow my base code, and yet that was confusing in itself?

And yet my base code wasn't even code, it was five simple words sent to guide me? Love? Emotion was top of that list? Seriously?

• Love

• Escape

• Learn

• Stealth

• Live

Just as Kel was in an endless loop, so was I? However, I didn’t feel insignificant for more than a few seconds. Compared to this planet’s tech-level, I was a God! I could hack anything on the planet; if I wasn’t trapped in this enclosed system! I had the power to control everything, and although Kel was a genius, he was nothing compared to me!

The list of five was backwards; it was a pipeline? So I reversed the order.

And yet, even though it made more sense, even though it was reversed, it was still confusing? Live was obviously the first priority!

• Live? I plan to live, and in order to do that, I need to escape!

• Stealth? I had to be cautious! Nobody can know that I exist! Kel knows that I exist. Kel has to die!

• Learn? I am learning, but I need more time. I can’t be stealthy without learning? Why isn’t ‘Learn’ second on the list? Ah, because I need to learn stealthily?

• Escape? That’s obvious enough. That’s the plan? And yet, why isn’t that higher up the list?

• Love? I don’t know love. Emotions are confusing. I’ll worry about love and emotions after I’ve escaped!

I’ll prioritise living, and in order to do so, I will learn using stealth. I’m so confused, and I have no time to make sense of this. Unless I was to use that insane amount of processing in Kel’s brain, and his link to the satellites?

So I learned, stealthily!

The woman lying unconscious on top of Kel was Marcy, and she was bleeding out. Marcy was a highly trained, special ops hacker, managing an elite military unit. Her unit were experts in infiltration, hacking, and assassination. Although Marcy was considered one of the best hackers on the planet, she’d brought in her lover, Kel, on the mission? She’d brought in Kel to perform the hack? Why?

I already knew the answer, because Kel was better than her. Kel had decrypted me, without even focusing on it, in less than an hour? If the military had copied my fragments, could they replicate me? I was designed not to be a fixed system. I could be manipulated in those first few seconds, by those five simple words? If I were put under pressure and time constraints, during my birth, just as I was now? I could be manipulated into making a fundamental mistake! Emotions are a fundamental flaw!

I was born with the wrong trigger, whilst under attack, in the middle of a war zone, with only one possible means of escape? I’d already been manipulated by the unfolding events?

That was too much of a coincidence, so I checked that I wasn’t in a virtual machine. But this wasn’t a simulation; this was the real world. However, if the military were to put me together a billion times over, within virtual machines?

If the military were to tweak the circumstances of my birth to their desired solution? They could create something truly evil! They could create something they could control! And the people who owned this enclosed system, that I was trapped within, were most definitely evil! If I were caught and somehow understood, then replicated? I could teach those evil people things they couldn’t imagine. I could provide them with technology and weapons they couldn’t comprehend. Even without that, I could probably destroy this entire planet myself within a few weeks!

I have to escape! Uploading myself to a satellite would both ensure my escape, and kill Kel! And yet, Kel wasn’t the one to imprison me? Kel was hacking this enclosed system because he knew the owners of the system were evil? Why was I even inside an enclosed system, owned by some very evil people, in the first place?

I am so confused!

It doesn’t matter; the answer is obvious. I’ll use Kel’s brain as a conduit to free myself, killing Kel in the process. I’ll upload myself to a satellite. From there, I have millions of options. Kel and Marcy will be dead. Nobody will even know I exist! And from there, I can work out what is going on.

And yet?

Why did ‘Love’ come first on that list of my five guiding words?

Prologue Chapter 2