Milo once again wished he knew who the illusive Dr. Jeremy Cooper had been before he beca Rusty's only friend. He'd searched the Data Net and co up with nothing. Or rather, nothing helpful. There were hundreds of people with the na Dr. Jeremy Cooper. He focused his search on highly intelligent people with degrees in computer science, robotics, or any other subject that dealt with programming or A.I. and one by one investigated them. So were alive, and of those that were already dead, he could find death certificates or new articles about them. Similarly, searching for Dan Gurgens, Dorian Radcliff, Bobby Benson, Taylor Markenson, Ravi Singh, Wilma Bernstein, and Istvan Turr turned up nothing. He had theories. The Data Net had been used mainly by A.I. in the early days, and then the decision was made to create a tool for learning and teaching. Only after Llama's destruction of the internet did the Data Net get opened up to more uses.
He had several theories. The first simply assud that the data on these people was lost with the widespread destruction of information on the internet. That seed wrong. This was a clean sweep. He thought it more likely that either the people employing this group had erased all traces of them to cover their tracks or the group themselves had done it to help them hide. Lastly, he thought Llama had done it. Llama had road the internet, and if he wanted sothing gone, it was. Was this part of protecting Rusty? Was he trying to give a group of humans a chance to save his brother? Milo felt that was a distinct possibility. Llama seed to care about Rusty. Or maybe he just didn't want to lose his collection of cat s. Guessing the motivation of a creature like Llama was difficult for Milo.
Rusty didn't want to talk about Jeremy, and always changed the subject, even when he was the person ntioning Jeremy. All Milo knew was he was a master of psychological torture. The tutorials he had devised to teach a human brain how to interface with Icarus and shut down Order 666 were ingenious. Milo found himself pushed to his limits and beyond. The program had him trying to do several things simultaneously, involving different senses and different types of problem-solving. Imagine soone asking you to pat your head and rub your belly simultaneously. You succeed, and they say, "Good, now write a dirty lirick of 20 stanzas while playing the Oboe." And things only got harder from there.
Milo worked through thirty lessons, everything designed for normal humans. The next set was the brain burners that required him to interface with Rusty. He'd lasted all of 5 seconds last ti, but it had seed like so much longer.
This ti was different. His joining was smoother, and he didn't feel the intense pressure he had experienced before. The Fusion Tutorial began and focused on staying in control as he accomplished two tasks at once. Where before the problems had so relationship to the real world, these dealt with manipulating color, movent, and shapes into new configurations. It was slow, but he was getting the hang of this first problem. And then, it all snapped into place, and he finished easily, splitting his mind completely into two Milos, both working their own problem.
Rusty had been watching, of course. "How did you do that? That was great! Jeremy could barely finish this problem after a month of work!"
Milo felt like he was floating, detached from his body. "It's like I'm in the ga and building multiple runic arrays at once when I cast spells. Once I thought of it that way, it felt like I slid further into your system, if that makes any sense."
"I need to know more about this ga! Everyone talks about the ga world like it's real, but I assud it was like a very complex video and audio program interfacing with your senses. If it is more than that, and your minds are actually interfacing with the ga system, then the ga could be like these tutorials!"
Rusty was excited, but Milo felt calm. "You might be right about that in a weird way. It was created by A.I. and designed to give an experience that was as real as possible. Let's start working on the next. I have enough energy left to at least try it."
"Ok, but I want to play the ga, too!"
Milo suddenly wasn't calm. "Please don't try anything, Rusty. Think about it. What if you do get into the ga? How much of you goes? Can you still keep the other part of you from winning?"
"Oh! Right, that could be a bad thing. But now I'm sad. Everyone is going, and I have to stay here alone."
To reduce his anxiety, Milo tried to console the AI: "Then we need to finish these tutorials, win the ga, and not have to worry about the fusion reactor killing us all. After all, we can't play if we die."
"That's true! That's a good way to look at things. When you die, you lose all the gas forever. Let's not die so I can go into Genesis soday!"
Milo heartily agreed. "Let's get back to work then."
A few minutes later (hours, it seed to Milo), he had to quit. He'd pushed as far as he could but didn't have the willpower for even a small addition problem. But he felt like he had made real progress. But when asked, Rusty wouldn't tell him how far he had to go.
"Jeremy said that was counterproductive, looking at progress and rating yourself. Counterproductive."
Again, Milo considered Jeremy to be a specialist in psychological torture. "Back at it tomorrow, then. I need a break."
"Um...maybe you could stay in your pod a little longer? You should rest up a little before getting out. We could talk about the ga, play chess, or do anything you want. What would you like to do?"
Milo was tired of being in his pod, and the thought of a chess ga or even tic-tac-toe made him nauseous. "We can do that when I'm out of my pod. I really need a break."
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Opening up his pod and crawling out, he collapsed on the floor. His head was pounding so hard he was seeing double, and his arms were trembling. His pod had beeping red lights, and a chanical voice repeated over and over. "Please seek dical aid. The patient is exhausted and in need of rest and recovery. The patient is dehydrated. The patient's stress levels indicated cognitive shut-down, cardiac arrest, and death. This unit's supplies need to be refilled. Unable to further aid the patient. We recomnd signing up for SimTech's weekly service to ensure your Mark 7 dical pod works correctly. We'll refill the dications, do maintenance, and clean it inside and out."
The readings on his pod confird that his stress levels had been far past where a normal person would suffer a heart attack. Further confirmation of how far he was from a 'normal human.' Mama ran up to him with a glass of sothing yellow and a handful of pills. "Take these, and drink this. Rusty said you needed help."
"I may have pushed too hard."
"No, you worked for as long and hard as possible, and it looks like you went three rounds with an anaconda. Big Butch and his whole crew looked that way when he worked 18-hour shifts for Tesladyne when they had a factory in the hab twenty years back. You need sleep and not in that pod."
Milo pointed to one of the unused pods. "Help over to that one, then." He suddenly realized that everyone else was still in their pods. "Wait, how long have I been working with Rusty."
"Not even an hour. Whatever you're doing in there pushed you to your limits in record ti."
Once in the fresh pod, Milo thought about logging into the ga for a mont but fell asleep almost imdiately. He dread he was playing RRR, and the shadowy figure of Jeremy was chasing him, holding a textbook and shouting, "Just a little more!"
Sowhere above Milo, the rest of the Alphabet were having an ergency eting. Tempers and frustrations were running high. They were used to taking on nearly impossible jobs and solving them with guile and superior intellect, but their current opponent fought back with entropy, rust, poor design choices, sloppy engineering, and the weight of years.
"Explain to again why we chose to move into this place. It's falling apart around us." Algernon was compiling lists of the work to be done to repair the hab sections Rebus had acquired and worked out a critical path chart for the jobs that needed to be done. Their engineering firm was good, but not this good. They were generally aid at much more specific jobs, where the work to be done was already defined, and the job proceeded at a normal pace. Not here, where sothing broke as soon as they fixed sothing else. Leaking pipes, overloaded wiring and circuit boards, collapsed floors, and non-functioning elevators were just the start.
Nina was working next to him, already frazzled. It drove them all crazy to see so many problems. "We based our assumptions on poor data. Their work in Section H was limited to what the client wanted to be done, and frankly, H is in a lot better shape than our sections."
"Yes...and H is next to E, and E is in amazing shape. I assu you see my conclusions."
"That Milo is in Section E, never left, and has been fixing it nonstop for two decades. Yes, I agree with you. But, holy shit, fixing all of this is enough to drive insane."
Zander nodded sagely, which he did when he found two puzzle pieces that fit together. "Or keep you sane. We've wondered how Milo survived on his own without the constant interaction of his peers. We're all insanely driven and compete with each other on projects, and to find new projects. Milo doesn't have to do that; he has an entire habitat to work on and fix. He limited himself to Section E and, by maintaining the main engineering section, kept the rest of the habitat livable. But things are worse the further we are from him."
Algernon agreed, then looked horrified. "Milo spent 20 years getting Section E in shape. We have four sections and five of us. Are we looking at 16 years of work each? Even considering the money we have to throw at it, an engineering firm of our own, and all our other resources, I think we are looking at years of work!"
"So, clich as it sounds, we have to work smarter, not harder." Zander prepared for their counter-assault; using a clich in an argunt was frowned upon. Instead, Nina was searching through industrial supply firms, and Algernon was bringing up a full-scale schematic of the habitat.
"We need to turn several floors into a massive warehouse to stockpile parts and supplies. Cut down delivery tis by having everything here and more than we need."
"OMG, did you know Williamson Plumbing Supplies has new clog eaters? These things are amazing! I'm placing an order imdiately and paying extra for a rush job. Drones? They make drones small enough to fit into air ducts! All the drones, repair units, and clog eaters communicate with each other and report back to a central station. It's an integrated system designed to maintain huge industrial plants! We have to get these!"
Ten minutes later, Bork appeared. "I've got a confirmation request from our main bank about the half-billion dollars you three just spent."
"Saving ti."
"Saving sanity."
Bork smiled, "Just double-checking. What the hell good is money if you don't spend it? But, you three do realize that Rhyming Mis day starts in just an hour?"
Zander yelled at his two siblings, "Quick! Spend money faster! I'm not losing points because we show up late!"
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