A Dragon at the Gate (The New Aeneid Cycle Book 3) by Michael G. Munz
Authors: Michael G. Munz
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continued processing.”
“Keep at it.” Michael glanced up to find Jade still at the mezzanine railing. “What about Jade’s email account?” he asked, not without a pang of guilt.
“Accessed. Her message content holds no evidence of deception in her assertions that she is hired solely to protect you, however I did not find direct indication of her employer’s identity. I have collected metadata from message headers that will aid my analysis.”
“Will she notice the hack?”
“There is a chance of detection of less than two percent, in the event she chooses to search for intrusions. Do you wish a copy of her message content?”
Jade turned from the railing with a nod and a wink when she saw Michael watching her, and made her way back to the table.
Michael took a breath, finding his back teeth clenching. “No,” he whispered. “No copy.”
XII
“SECURITY BYPASSED. Data-tether established. Now scanning.”
Caitlin nodded to the A.I.’s report without comment. She sat with her back to the club. The fingertips of her right hand pressed on the corner of Felix’s laptop, as if she were trying to keep it from blowing away. Michael and the freelancer woman sat flanking her on either side of the table.
Caitlin caught herself holding her breath and let it out. What was Felix doing in Gibson? Rue had lost track of him there. She would wait at the train station to try to regain him. Perhaps Holes would find something more substantial on the laptop. She sighed inwardly and wished she had the luxury of being able to feel bad about such a breach of Felix’s trust. If they found nothing, if this was all in her head, then she’d own up to it and apologize when the whole business was over. Yet she knew in her gut something was wrong.
Michael’s gaze caught hers before they both looked back down to the laptop. Jade seemed focused on watching the room. On the screen of Holes’s platform, the A.I.’s quintet of circles spun with an inscrutable, undulating rhythm.
In the sense it could “like” anything, Holes liked having new objectives. While the term “like” was merely a defined state of a higher-than-standard number of active system directives, it was also a label useful for interfacing with its creator and other humans. Weeks after Holes’s intelligence passed the sapience-point in its emergent creation, the A.I. became cognizant of a difference between the human use of the term and its own use. The specific parameters of that difference remained unexplored.
While it was a curiosity, it was not a priority.
Encapsulated within the AE-35 portable processor platform on the table, Holes focused the majority of its resources on an analysis of the laptop computer belonging to Felix Hiatt—this analysis being a subset of obeying all directives given from Michael Flynn, itself a subset of obeying all directives of Holes’s creator, Marc Triton. Specific parameters: scan for and collect data related to the locations and/or activities and/or directives of Felix Hiatt within the past forty days. Additional parameters gave priority to those data that indicated a clandestine purpose. Analyze such data to extrapolate probable employers or other missing details, if possible.
Assuming Holes comprehended the definition of clandestine —one of many terms for which Marc had tested understanding in Holes’s first weeks of awareness—contents scanned so far contained little in the way of promising data, even in encrypted areas.
And yet . . .
Pattern detection continued to return a possible hit on levels barely above coincidence. Holes noted it, raised threat level protocols by a factor it judged appropriate, and then detected a concealed partition on a virtual GNDN drive that Felix Hiatt had created within the target dates. The partition featured encryption greater than Holes would have forecasted for its size and Felix Hiatt’s known level of skill. Counter-encryption required a full seventy-two
“Keep at it.” Michael glanced up to find Jade still at the mezzanine railing. “What about Jade’s email account?” he asked, not without a pang of guilt.
“Accessed. Her message content holds no evidence of deception in her assertions that she is hired solely to protect you, however I did not find direct indication of her employer’s identity. I have collected metadata from message headers that will aid my analysis.”
“Will she notice the hack?”
“There is a chance of detection of less than two percent, in the event she chooses to search for intrusions. Do you wish a copy of her message content?”
Jade turned from the railing with a nod and a wink when she saw Michael watching her, and made her way back to the table.
Michael took a breath, finding his back teeth clenching. “No,” he whispered. “No copy.”
XII
“SECURITY BYPASSED. Data-tether established. Now scanning.”
Caitlin nodded to the A.I.’s report without comment. She sat with her back to the club. The fingertips of her right hand pressed on the corner of Felix’s laptop, as if she were trying to keep it from blowing away. Michael and the freelancer woman sat flanking her on either side of the table.
Caitlin caught herself holding her breath and let it out. What was Felix doing in Gibson? Rue had lost track of him there. She would wait at the train station to try to regain him. Perhaps Holes would find something more substantial on the laptop. She sighed inwardly and wished she had the luxury of being able to feel bad about such a breach of Felix’s trust. If they found nothing, if this was all in her head, then she’d own up to it and apologize when the whole business was over. Yet she knew in her gut something was wrong.
Michael’s gaze caught hers before they both looked back down to the laptop. Jade seemed focused on watching the room. On the screen of Holes’s platform, the A.I.’s quintet of circles spun with an inscrutable, undulating rhythm.
In the sense it could “like” anything, Holes liked having new objectives. While the term “like” was merely a defined state of a higher-than-standard number of active system directives, it was also a label useful for interfacing with its creator and other humans. Weeks after Holes’s intelligence passed the sapience-point in its emergent creation, the A.I. became cognizant of a difference between the human use of the term and its own use. The specific parameters of that difference remained unexplored.
While it was a curiosity, it was not a priority.
Encapsulated within the AE-35 portable processor platform on the table, Holes focused the majority of its resources on an analysis of the laptop computer belonging to Felix Hiatt—this analysis being a subset of obeying all directives given from Michael Flynn, itself a subset of obeying all directives of Holes’s creator, Marc Triton. Specific parameters: scan for and collect data related to the locations and/or activities and/or directives of Felix Hiatt within the past forty days. Additional parameters gave priority to those data that indicated a clandestine purpose. Analyze such data to extrapolate probable employers or other missing details, if possible.
Assuming Holes comprehended the definition of clandestine —one of many terms for which Marc had tested understanding in Holes’s first weeks of awareness—contents scanned so far contained little in the way of promising data, even in encrypted areas.
And yet . . .
Pattern detection continued to return a possible hit on levels barely above coincidence. Holes noted it, raised threat level protocols by a factor it judged appropriate, and then detected a concealed partition on a virtual GNDN drive that Felix Hiatt had created within the target dates. The partition featured encryption greater than Holes would have forecasted for its size and Felix Hiatt’s known level of skill. Counter-encryption required a full seventy-two
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