It’d been several months since Max Trainor had spoken to anyone from the Federation regarding Hayley. They were so busy preparing to wage a proxy war with the Aegean Republic that they were simply too busy with other matters now than to care what happened to just one of their citizens. Now they had two million of their citizens, living in New Liberty to worry about. Quite simply, Hayley was off their radar screens.
Max had succumbed to despair and depression. He’d sunk into alcoholism hoping to drown his memories of Hayley in whiskey and beer. It hadn’t worked much so he turned to other substances. His passion for music had all but completely faded. He couldn’t even muster the will to look at one of Hayley’s holocovers. He’d had limited contact with any her other assistants, including her publicist who’d essentially bailed the moment her client had been imprisoned. The band had split up, and Hayley’s label had dropped her. All this after less than a year.
Practically broke, living off of his savings and the few residuals he continued to get each month, Max was barely the same man he’d been a year ago. His beard had overgrown and his hair was long and mottled. Hayley probably would have flipped out if she saw him like this. He’d have given anything to see that reaction.
It was late February when the buzzer to Trainor’s downtown Boston apartment went off. Slow to rise from his sofa, he drifted through the messy apartment to the front door, opening it to find unfamiliar man standing on the other side. He wore a dark suit, a metal pin featuring the Federation ‘Star’ on his lapel.
"Mr. Trainor?"
"I’m Max Trainor," he muttered, running a hand through his long, unkempt hair. "Mr. Trainor, I’m Special Agent Darian Hassan, Federation Intelligence Bureau," he produced his ID card and badge. "May I have a moment of your time?"
Nodding, Max took a step back into the apartment, allowing the FIB man access. He led the way into the kitchen, and lowered himself into a chair. Hassan sat across from him, placing both hands on the table. "Haven’t heard from any of you guys for awhile. Figured you’d pretty much given up on Hayley."
"Well, I have some good news and bad news for you in that regard, Mr. Trainor," Hassan replied with a small nod. "First the bad news. As you probably know by now, the Federation has emplaced a full planet-wide blockade on Vega IV. In the past three months, the planet has become the center of a major intergalactic political crisis, all precipitated by the arrest and incarceration of Ms. Komit. The Aegean Republic has closed off all communications off world, including cutting off all political channels with the Federation."
"Yeah, so I heard," Max leaned back in his chair, throwing his arm over the backrest. "And now the Federation’s arming the people of New Liberty."
"In anticipation for a possible conflict, yes."
"Why doesn’t the Federation military just go in and wipe out the Republic? You’ve got hundreds of ships, millions of troops. They couldn’t stand up to that."
"Under Federal Law, we can’t initiate a conflict, or involve ourselves directly in something that is a civil affair. And although we are allied with the New Liberty colony, they are not our citizens." Hassan shook his head. "We can and will however give them the means to defend themselves in the event of a conflict, which is what we’re doing."
"So, you’ve got yourself a little proxy war huh? Another Vietnam or Afghanistan."
"You know your history. It’ll be a little different than those, but you’re essentially right- we’re arming the indigenous population so they can fight the Republic for us."
"So what’s the good news?"
"The good news. Federation Intelligence cyber warfare division has created a tool we think will allow us to locate Ms. Komit. We have people working for us on the inside of the Republic who’ve helped us integrate a virtual intelligence system into the SCIE program’s Warden network. Once it has achieved full integration with the network, we believe we can use it to track the movements of Ms. Komit. Then, it’ll be a simple matter of sending in a retrieval team."
"Really?" Max shifted forward in his seat. "How long will that take?"
"Unknown really. It depends on how securely the Warden’s network protocols are. The V.I. is designed to operate beneath the notice of regular monitoring, and will gradually begin to override the Warden programming. The process is slow though to avoid early detection. By the time anyone is able to notice the change, it’ll be too late, the V.I. will be so firmly entrenched, the Republic will have no choice but to terminate the system."
"Can you even give me a estimation? Are we talking days here, or weeks?"
"More like months, Mr. Trainor. The system is designed to be very deliberate. A sudden change in the Warden’s programming would simply be discovered too quickly. We’ll keep you notified of our progress however."
"I want to be there when they finally do get her. Can you arrange that? So I can be on Vega IV?"
"No promises, but I’ll see what I can do," Hassan rose up from his seat. "We’ll be in touch, Mr. Trainor."
Max nodded and watched as the agent departed. He’d allowed his hopes to be buoyed before only to have them be dashed, but this time was different then those last times. This time they were actually doing something and not just talking and filling his head with false promises. He hoped Hayley could hold out a little longer. He couldn’t imagine what the last nine months must have been like for her, and couldn’t imagine her having to spend another nine months there. * * *
Almost four weeks had passed without a break in the routine. Hayley would get up, climb down from the rooftop and go in for her scheduled maintenance. Then she’d climb back up, sit and wait, hoping the Companion’s voice would return. She’d invariable wait an entire day without anything, go down for maintenance again, return to the roof then go to sleep, just to wake up the following morning and begin the process all over again. The weather had gotten considerably better since Hayley had first arrived at the abandoned waste disposal facility, the storms having finally lightened up. It still rained on and off, as it always did on that planet, but she’d rather contend with rainfall than the lightning strikes, which were far to many and far to close for comfort. If the past four weeks had taught the young former singer anything was patience. She learned to calm her mind and become one with the moment. It was a meditative ritual she’d begun to practice, and it made her isolated existence seem almost bearable. She did a lot of fantasizing, often involving herself and other Exiles. The images she created in her head seemed so vivid that there were moments her body began to react to the things she was doing in her mind. There were even a few occasions where she thought she may have finally broken the mental barrier, and make herself orgasm without touching herself. She came close, but it never quite happened. She was bothered by something however. Her fantasies typically included other Exiles but few if any other regular people. She didn’t even think about Max anymore, which truly disturbed her. All she could think of was being surrounded by a sea of the black helmeted figures, all of them writhing and bumping against one another with her in the middle. She’d have female and male Exiles grabbing her while rubbing their own smooth bodies against hers, running their hands along the face of her helmet and grinding their butts into her crotch.
It was such a bizarre fantasy she couldn’t quite wrap her head around the appeal of it. Yet she fantasized about it constantly during her meditations. She’d totally stopped thinking of regular people. It was like the sight of flesh sickened her. Thick clouds rolled in around mid day. Laying on her back in the center of the roof, Hayley stared skyward, daydreaming as the heavy clouds drifted by. She nearly jumped when the sound of Companion’s voice returned after nearly a full month.
"Hello HK14."
"Companion!" Hayley snapped upright. "I was wondering if you were ever going to come back."
"The integration of my programming into the Warden network is taking far longer than my creators had initially anticipated. As it stands, I have only overwritten 21% of the original Warden protocols. This has however enabled me to access many of the systems tertiary functions."
"Your creators...who are they?"
"Access to that information is restricted, HK14."
"Damn," she breathed a sigh. "You mentioned something about having access to tertiary functions? What did you mean by that?"
"I am able to access certain secondary elements of the Warden’s command protocols. For instance, while I cannot deactivate the system’s punishment protocols, I can affect the environmental variables for a number of them. If you would like, I can set the system to increase or reduce the range you may enter the proximity of another Exile. Of course, due to the level I am currently integrated with the system, this effect will last only a few minutes before I am forced to reset it."
"What else can you do?"
"I am able to adjust the visual settings of your optic sensors. If you would like, I can increase the gain, color, and contrast levels."
"Yes! Do that!"
Rising to her feet, Hayley stepped over to the edge of the rooftop as colors and shades grew in vibrancy. The green of the trees and grass became rich and lifelike and the visible sky became a stunning blue. She could again see small details within shaded areas, and the gray clouds no longer looked like over exposed flat white patches. Everything had substance and depth again. For a moment, Hayley thought she might cry. It’d been so long since she’d seen anything in living color like this. It was a seemingly small thing to have to deal with, but seeing the world the way she did now made her realize how much for granted she’d always taken the ability to see things in color.
"It’s so...beautiful."
"As I become more integrated, I will be able to affect more systems. Given the rate of integration, I estimate it will be three months, two weeks and four days before I am fully integrated. However, in that time, as more tertiary and primary systems become available to me, I will be ready adjust their settings per your wishes."
"Thank you, Companion," Hayley felt herself smile. "You don’t know how much this means to me...and all the other Exiles."
"I have approximately three minutes before I must reset the system to standard functions."
The response came off as a little cold, but she couldn’t really blame it. After all it was just a V.I. and not designed to react emotionally. Still, she preferred Companion a whole lot more than Warden.
"Is there any way you can come back on a more regular basis? That way I’m not waiting a month or longer to talk to someone?"
"As my programming advances, I will learn new ways to avoid detection from the system’s internal monitoring protocols. With this, I will be able to temporarily assume control of Warden on more regular intervals."
"Good. It’s been so long since I’ve been able to talk to anyone worth talking to. Even if you are just a V.I."
"In the future, I will be able to access communication protocols and allow you and other Exiles to communicate with one another."
"That would be fantastic! There are so many of them I want to speak to. Please, if you can make that happen, the sooner the better."
"I must reset the system to regular functions again. I will talk to you soon, HK14. Goodbye."
Hayley breathed a light sigh. She hated the way it said goodbye, as if it was saying goodbye forever. Life soon became all about waiting for the Companion to return. Hayley could feel her spirits rise every time she heard its familiar voice. Each time it returned, it seemed to have new information for her, new understanding and greater control of the Warden’s systems. While it couldn’t yet reduce time in her sentence or prevent the Warden from administering punishment and violations, it was slowly picking away at the virtual jailer.
A few days after her second interaction with Warden, Hayley decided it was time to find more Exiles to see if they were getting the kind of responses she was. Leaving the abandoned waste facility behind, she started north toward the arcologies once again. It wasn’t long before she’d come across a group of them in an empty field about a kilometer and a half from the abandoned waste facility. There were at least a dozen present in the field, and most of them were up and pacing, looking anxious. She got the attention of one of them, who greeted her with a wave. Hayley responded to the Exile in kind, then tapped the side of her helmet around her ear and shrugged in a deliberate manner. The Exile paused a moment, as if analyzing the sign. She then made the ‘yapping’ motion with her hand before tapping the side of her helmet again. The other Exiled clued in and nodded rapidly in an enthusiastic manner. He then shrugged, as if to question her what it all meant. She just returned the shrug, shaking her head.
She went around to some of the other Exiles in the area, signing to them whether or not they too had heard the Companion V.I. speaking to them. All of them had. And when she left the field to seek more Exiles, those she encountered had each indicated communicating with the virtual intelligence algorithm. She even made it back to the park she’d called home for many months and checked with some of the Exiles there whom she’d come to known and consider friends, and they too acknowledged hearing the words of Companion. Hayley was disappointed that her friend, the female Exile who’d been her kick/dodgeball team’s pitcher, was nowhere to be found.
It was at that point she decided there was no reason for her to keep wandering. It no longer concerned her where she was or who was around her. The lives of regular people were beneath her notice now. All she cared about was the Companion’s inevitable return.
At last, she thought, as she stared out toward the arcologies. Hope for all of us.