This is a continuation of the short story “Torching Neon Moonlight” to read the other stories in the series, click on the title.

Yesterday’s worries in their entirety were gone. As soon as we stepped out of the north clock terminal we felt new issues arise immediately. Solomon Xa led us through since we programmed his memory with a virtual map application. The city was getting their dose of a sunset and this was the perfect entry time, night time.

The war had a giant impact on my life and my family, I hardly remember, but I know it affected them as well as me. My mother and father were murdered by Peppercorn Corporation thugs, my sisters were taken away. My siblings were Sarah, who was the oldest, then I was the middle child and then it was Camille my younger sister. Sarah was turned into a cyborg and was reprogrammed with an Octo core and rebuilt micro-mainframe by Peppercorn doctors, they programmed her BIOS on her spinal column and brain stem with a coding language that has a secure encryption which could only be extracted by the developers. The coding was experimental, therefore leaving her as the beta tester. I tried to investigate on “Sarah Centennial” as she was called but last I heard, Sarah was still a project to them, her body is motionless and all she can do is talk and have her heart beat. Camille was taken also, she broke free and now I have no idea where in the world she is at, I will always be on the lookout for both of them.

When I met Duo Smith I was all alone. I was trying to avenge my sisters and my parents, alone, in a cyberspace filled with duplicity. I could feel myself as if I was running in a treadmill in that part of my life. I was trying and trying to make an impact and find Sarah and Camille but I couldn’t find them, all I kept doing was digging me a hole. Duo Smith was the lead digital engineer at Peppercorn, he designed many things and he took me under his wing over there. I accepted, only to get a glimpse of what goes on in that corporation. Duo Smith was releasing himself from the Peppercorn Corporation; he worked with all of the corporate leaders and felt that they were running things the wrong way. As he realized what he was doing was wrong, he gained as much knowledge as he could and found a way to remove himself from their database while they did an entire system debug. Log files, BIOS’es, Memory leaks of all sorts were now in Duo Smiths control because of the debugging. Varsity Fox, the Peppercorn Corporation leader, or so they call him, found the memory leak through a hard reset of the entire mainframe of the Peppercorn Corp. Smith was accessing all the memory,  hundreds of Zettabytes were being sent into a removable storage device. He linked himself to the mainframe and sent the encrypted file off to his hard drive implanted into his ribcage by the Peppercorn’s lead doctor

The night I arrived with Xa I heard that story for the second time, you know? Usually it ends right there but I heard it all that night. I heard the truth and it gave me a stronger motivation, it gave me a certain drive that my missing sisters and murdered parents couldn’t give me.

To be continued…

This is a continuation of the Story “The Development of a Distinguished Man”. To read the begining to this series please click here.

The structure of the OII consisted of many beta projects that were never completed; just left as is: betas.

We, and any other human who would want to enter the world of machines, bought our SILPCS (Sleep Induction Life Protecting & Conserving Systems). It was a 4 foot tall, boxy machine on wheels with a vertical rod on one corner for the medical tubes that insert into your veins. It resembled an IV therapy set with an infusion pump, just ten times more advanced and bulkier. Liquid Benzodiazepine being frozen and blended with other sedatives then being melted and dripped down into the body.

Humans had more work done to them, in this time of earths history, more than ever. Everyone had connector ports. Everyone had some way to be linked up to the OII. I had 10 plus years of work and constant updating to my data ports on my shoulder blade. Technology was advancing and I was just trying to keep up. The module and motherboard inside me were from an OctoCore server back home in the future.

Once the assistant snapped us in with the cables and situated us on the chairs we sat back and let the mainframes and routers lead the way. I kept my eyes open for as long as I could, the sedation kicked in and I began to dream…

In my dream I stood partially clothed in an Orchard. It was night time and from a distance I could see the yellow glow of the home. Within the yellow light I saw flies and insects that belong in a farm area flying in the distance. A cold wind blew my long hair in my face, it also blew my loose t-shirt close to my body. I began to walk rapidly to the glow and the home. The yellow light slowly began to disappear and I arrived to the white home. I opened the door to find the house empty. I walk outside to find a family standing at the fence of the orchard. They stare as I exit, they are 4. The youngest, a girl, walked toward me. I paused and stood still, I felt threatened. “Listen stranger, you don’t belong here” she told me, then she duplicated. There were 5. I was terrified then I began to run, away. As I was running I heard chatter amongst them, then they chased me. I ran through the orchard scared and barefoot until I saw the father of the family in front of me. I stopped and he held his hand out to me, he had a tablet. I swiped my finger to view it. A snowy screen came up, digitally broken with an analog feel to the display. I looked up and my surroundings, everything around me was becoming snowy just like the screen on the mobile computer.

My dream was over, I had already woken up and the OII was waiting for me.

To be Continued…