Abukoff House Books

“You can’t store people in the aether. It’s impossible.”

“No really, you can. It’s just a matter of data storage. File size. Build a big enough server.”

“Unlimited really doesn’t mean unlimited.”

“It literally does. Because they-.”

“Go to an ‘all-you-can-eat’ restaurant and try it. See how limited ‘unlimited’ really is.”

“No, that’s not the same thing at all. Because the Amber system uses a quantum compression matrix. It can make things nearly infinitely smaller. As small as they need to be. Twenty years ago, a teleporter would have needed a computer big enough to reach from here to the sun just to teleport a house plant. Two light-days long. Now I could fit one in my basement.”

“When you can fit one under your fingernail I’ll be impressed. When you can fit a dozen under your fingernail, I’ll accept your definition of ‘unlimited’.”

“But they’re just numbers. Ones and zeroes.”

“It doesn’t matter. Enough of anything- even ones and zeroes, will eventually fill up a room. A single one and a single zero equals two bits. You know how much space you’d need for a person? Sixty zettabytes. That’s a gigabyte with twelve zeroes behind it. Times sixty. Eight million bits- four million pairs of ones and zeroes in a megabyte. And a quadrillion megabytes in a zettabyte. That’s one, with fifteen zeroes behind it. Times sixty for one person. Fit that in a briefcase and I’ll start to take you seriously.”

“I never said it made sense. I’m just saying it happened.”

“And let’s not forget, just so we’re clear on this, that it’s not even your basement. It’s your mother’s.”

“Thank you. Thank you very much for that.”

“And even with the most advanced system available today- taking into account that Amber Inc won’t let anyone inside their systems, the only one that anyone has any specs for is part of ESE Defense. It takes up the whole of Gravett Island, and that one huge hard drive can’t store sixty zettabytes.”

“But-.”

“If you had a hard drive the size of Jupiter, maybe you’d have a working system. For…” she stopped to think about it. “How many Unlimited accounts on Amber right now? Twenty thousand? No, you’d need maybe six parsecs full of Jupiter-sized hard drives to make this practical. And if that setup existed, the Empire would have seized it years ago. ’Eminent Domain’.”

“I can show you if you want,” he said. “I’ve seen it.”

“Online videos don’t count.”

“It’s not an online video.”

“Come on-,” she said. “This is getting boring. I think I have something more interesting to do.”

“No really, let me show you. Five minutes. Meet and greet.” He hesitated. “Well, meet anyway, it’s kind of weird.”

“I don’t think I want to do ‘weird’ today, if you don’t mind.”

“Sixty zettabytes. In my basement.”

“Your mother’s basement.”

“Whatever,” he answered. “In five minutes, maybe less, you can have your boring day back.”

“Somehow I feel like it’s a loss already.”

Downstairs, in the basement…

“Replimator 2000,” she said. “Impressive. You must have been saving up your allowance for years to get this. Or did you get an advance?”

“Whatever. The thing is, the Replimator doesn’t just download the 3D model, it downloads the formula for the material needed. And synthesizes it. It’s like a replicator! I can even upload it back and recycle the material.”

“Yeah I know, Star Trek. But can it hold 60 zettabytes? I’m guessing no.”

“It doesn’t have to. It downloads and loads the formula, then downloads and prints the model. It doesn’t need storage space, just bandwidth.”

The Replimator was essentially a ten foot by ten foot stainless steel encased box, with a horizontally hinged door on one side, opposite a mass of pipes and cables that led into it from the wall.

“Okay. So show me. Cause I’m pretty sure I have some important television to watch today.”

“Sure,” he said. Then he turned a handle that unlocked the door, and lifted the door. A rush of cold air came out, and once it cleared, he pulled a shelf out.

“Oh my god.” Her mouth hung open until she remembered to close it. “That’s a woman. A naked woman.” Instinctively, she’d wanted to cover her, so she took off her coat and laid it over the woman. “What the hell did you do? Is she dead?”

“She’s not dead. Not really. The scanner shows minimal brain and heart activity. Like she’s in suspended animation. And I just found the pattern and downloaded it.”

“That’s creepy! Send it back!”

He shrugged, and then started to slide the shelf back in.

“No wait.” Despite herself, she was fascinated. “What is she-?”

“Well I’ve glanced at the breakdown of file contents-.”

“She’s not a file! She’s a person!”

“Well yeah. But she’s also a torrent. A download package containing a number of different files and programs. She is a product of her contents. We all are, really. But in her case, if you wanted to change her- say, make her stronger or taller, all you’d have to do is change one of her components. One of her programs. One of her files. Rewrite her.”

“But she’s a person! A woman!”

“I know. I can see that!”

“You’re disgusting. She’s-.” She was silent for a moment, thinking furiously. “Jack- they- this is how they cured cancer! By rewriting DNA. Rewriting and repairing genetic structure. But why would they store her in the Aether Cloud?”

“I don’t know. But what if they need a template? But no, cause there’s things in here that have nothing to do with curing cancer.”

“Sure, doctor,” she scoffed.

“No, look.” He started tapping away at the keyboard. “There are lots of files in here. Lots of programs. Some active, with a green checkmark, and some inactive, with a red checkmark.”

She glanced at the screen. “Yeah. So?”

“Whoever programmed her… they put some wild things in here. That again have nothing to do with curing cancer. The program names are computer gobbledygook, but contain real reference words. Like most programs do.” He began reading down a list of red-checked programs. “Blood chlorophyll. Photosynthesis. Hyper-Adrenal Gland. Protective Memory tablet.” Then he backed up from the file folder. “There’s another inactive folder. No contents. Called Adaptive DNA.” He looked at Sarah. “I think that’s a future upgrade. This isn’t a cancer cure. This is… genetic engineering. Augmentation.”

“What did you stumble onto here?”

“Unlimited storage,” he answered, looking back at her.

“Well, still, no. I mean, she’s just one. Sixty zettabytes sure, but not unlimited.”

“No, I really mean ‘unlimited’.” He exited out of the woman’s file folder and the explorer window. “I was browsing through the account holdings-.”

“How did you get into it?”

“Browsing. Did you know there’s a way to mask your trail? My location has bounced around the globe- while we’ve been talking. I found this while I was piggybacking off of an IntelSat that shares an orbit with Europa. Boosted by a long haul Conestoga parked at Lagrange Point L1, that is currently sitting between Earth and Mars. That’ll move on eventually but by that time I’ll find another carrier.”

“You’re a hacker. That doesn’t encourage me to spend time with you. Not really.”

“My point, though, is that their Aether storage is huge. I scrolled and scrolled until I got bored. Hours. Literally.”

“Scrolled through what?”

“These. These programs. File folders. Whatever you want to call them.”

“They’re people! Call them people!”

“Fine. Let me show you all the people I found.” He swiped at the screen, bringing up the Ministry of Health Aether account holdings. “First, notice the background.”

“Glossy black. So what. Nice color scheme. A twenty dollar in-app purchase gets you that.”

“No. See, if you click on the background, it opens up a second account.”

“The background shouldn’t be clickable. It doesn’t work that way.”

“It doesn’t for anyone else. But look.” He clicked in the glossy black between folders in the file, and a dozen similar file folders appeared. Then he clicked the same glossy black background in that folder, bringing up another hidden folder. He repeated this several times, and each time, there was a folder within a folder within a folder. “Let me show you what’s in the files in each of these.” He selected one, designated AB-Z 1138. Then he opened it. More files, some with green checkmarks, and some with red. “The greens are pretty much the same as hers-,” he nodded at the woman still laying unconscious on the Replimator’s shelf. “But the red ones- wow.”

She looked over his shoulder but couldn’t quite make out the words. “What does it say?”

“It says AI infiltration.”

“Okay,” she said. “That’s creepier than the naked woman you downloaded.”

“It gets worse.”

“I don’t want to know.”

“There’s a text document. Unsecured. Plain text. I guess they figure nobody who isn’t cleared would get this far.”

“Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”

“Parents terminated. Grandparents Sam and Trudy. Divorced. Contract active.”