Day 12: Early Afternoon, Lubeck - North Germany
Florian waited for Max to continue. He knew that tone of voice and waited for his friend to get round to it. Sometimes you had to wait for him to stop a complete conversation with himself. “More seriously though Flors, I’m going to get Massimo’s team in on this. Are you okay with that?”
“Ach Massimo,” and he stopped himself launching into a German monologue on Quollwood’s skill set. “No, no problem there Max. He and Thorsten should get on well!” Parrish guffawed from the other end on the line and Florian was thankful for the automatic sound level control his headset had built into it. “Well as long as you can get Sigi to keep the two of them apart …”
“Not sure Sigi will agree to that. You’d need a fully armed shield maiden to keep those two apart if they start up at each other!” Max only chuckled at that. He knew the problems that could arise. Thors girlfriend at the time had fallen for Massimo hook, line and sinker, and he hadn’t really known what hit him until she’d arrived in Sydney and knocked on his door.
Thors had taken it very badly and still blamed Massi instead of his ex, or maybe his own over commitment to a grueling work schedule. “I’ll speak to Thors about it before we all become Team AIME, but it’ll better to sort something out so they just don’t have anything to do with each other.”
Max mumbled something about being a cute sheila but no brains then, “Okay, yeah, well I never really understood that so, yeah best if we keep ‘em separate. There’ll be so much data to scan for patterns we’ll need one of them at each AIME so there should be enough distance between Hamburg and Jervis Bay ...”
“Yah, sure, that is if they don’t end up cyber dueling like last time.” “Ooh forgot about that,” and Max well and truly guffawed this time. “Yeah that really used up some broadcast spectrum, what was it they crashed two or three ISPs and satellite server …” There was a scuffling sound as draws and objects were moved around.
“Yep here it is, I saved a copy of their last effort where they drew in three separate multi player games and hacked all the players to their own sides and conflict scenarios. Ya know everyone still raves about how brilliant it was!” Florian allowed himself a chuckle. He too had a copy of the last hours of the ‘Le Grande Hack’ or the Great Game. The two of them were immortals in the gamer world.
“Okay,” Max began, “I’ll check back in with you this evening after our first simulations.” “It might be evening for you, but it won’t be for us! Auf wiedersein!” “Ciao bro”
Florian stepped back and the door opened at the same time. Sigi and Thorsten stood in the doorway and didn’t move. They were spellbound. “Please come in and shut the door you are leaking data!” Florian implored with the Fractal still propagating and fading in the holo behind him.
The spell broken, Thorsten walked straight up to the holo fractal. He ducked, prodded and walked all the way round it. “So this is their carrier wave then?” Florian smiled, “In a word, yes!” Thors inspected every aspect of it he could get visually then waled over to Florian’s standing work station.
Sigi came over and stood next to him. She slipped her right arm through his left and leant her head on his shoulder. “So this is what a fractal genome looks like?” Florian chuckled at his beautiful Sigi’s perspective on it! “In a word, yes!”
Thorsten back tothe holo dispaly and let it play over his hand. “Here’s a glitch,” and he waited, “just here and he used the remote tot pause the display with what he meant illuminating his hand. Florian smiled to himself, you’re a genius alright Thors!
Thors turned to Florian abstractedly, “Oh by the way I’ve sent Obomsawin to meet with Al-Latiff. I thought maybe they could sort each other out better in a public space while we got a handle on this.”
Florian just nodded. He turned his head a little and whispered, “Your idea?” “Of course,” replied Sigi in hushed tones. “So how far do you think Deepwater have got?”
Florian sucked air through his teeth as he thought this through. Sigi didn’t like that habit of his but there were more important things in life, like whether you squeezed or rolled the toothpaste or had a tube each!
“Far enough to be somehow involved in all of this Incarna stuff but not far enough or they wouldn’t be involved!” Sigi nodded against his shoulder, her mind racing with possibilities and the shock waves each one of them could make across the societies of the world. … and we are at the centre of it, and she felt a tremor of excitement rush through her.
Sigi pulled her head away and partly turned toward Florian, “So, two or three players involved?”
“Not sure, but possibly more. There are the Penetrator and the Bank Interventions that are obviously two different players. The appearances of the Djinn and the other creatures is baffling as if it’s not part of the core program so to speak.” Sigi didn’t comment but just let the love of her life think out loud.
“If that glitch in the carrier wave is collapsing the field in some way it maybe producing an unexpected effect. We’ll see how many interventions can be simulated in the AIME at Hamburg that Max has given us access to, and then what is left undescribed. That’ll give us some idea of how many other players we need to look for. … and then we need to find the sources and transmission points.”
Sigi frowned, “and what about how they make it propagate the appropriate signals?” Florian turned and looked at her as if he hadn’t thought of that. “Oh you’ll be in charge of that as a stage two. We’ll send Thorsten over to the AIME 2 at Hamburg and you’ll be running the rest from here.
Sigi pushed back and held Florian by the shoulders, “Oh tell me you’re not …”
“Only logical thing to do really. I’ll take Latiff and Obomsawin to Jerusalem and run this by Davies! He’s been exposed to it for the longest so whatever mechanism is being used his body should have the most obvious traces.” Sigi closed her eyes and shook her head knowing that it was what he had to do!