Jackie's Back : The E-brain Saga Continues

[hbyte]

-----This Is an E-Brain Snippet Brought to you by JuiCed.extramindcorp.com-----

Well he just sat there legs turned inwards, a dull ache in his chest and the taste of some strain of the wonder bug that was pairing down the human race.

The GPU was taxed hard for the buffers he hadnt even loaded yet with dynamic multidimensional data from Proxima.

"You know you can shunt two million d on that card array"

Jackie looked up acknowledging briefly the existence of a friendly hacker.

"Whered you come from fella?"

This was unusual for Jackie for whom hacker were generally targets for his blaster as theyd been selected for termination or be undesireably attached to one of his proxy's. Often times subdural a implant would have to be removed. But this guy was different. Helpfull even.
Jackies head was stuck inide the mainframe. He wanted his rigs connection to the parallel array in costa rica to be up and running by five at the latest - He was expecting a sub space call being relayed from Proxima from "God knows where?""

"Expecting a call then?" came the voice of the hacker.

"Yep and its private. You better be off my wires by the time Im connected.", Jackie grimaced as he didnt have time to deal with another Hacker running a proxy on him. But this guy seemed trust worthy.

"Hey fella maybe I can lend a hand.."

Jackie looked up after carefully removing his head from the machine.

"Ok get me some virtual dope. Im gonna need some as this connections gonna need all my trodes. Capich?"

There was silence for a minute, then a rat tat at the door.

Jackie walked down and checked the portal. ""Who is it?"

"Special delivery from Gateway Police."

He opened the door expecting to sign for a parcel but instead met a revolver pointed at his nose.

"Ok fella, I suppose you know who I am. Who sent you.

"Move

"Oh by all means welcome to my humble abode, Jackie beckoned the gunman inide.

He was thickset probably a messenger boy, not an assassin. Hed have known if it was. Jackie acted dumb.

"To what do I owe thi pleasure

"Carmichael from topside wants to know where you are hes got contracts pyling up.

"Tell him Im done with that nonsence. Done killing hackers for a bunch of efitist vampires living in space

"Its not hackers, Jacky" whispered the henchman, "Its the Gorians on Seti Alpha theyve stolen our commanders ebrain."

"This could mean earth would become anotherf pocket world, and I know you wouldnt like having to do service to a Gorian sex farm?"

"Jackei is that you, listen very carefully to what Igor is telling you. We need you back in service."

"Dont care. Im waiting for a call."

"Oh yes we know all about your friends on the dark side."

Jackie was getting angry about the interruption, he might miss his call, "Dont you fuck this up Janice"

Janice was Igors handler an old time college of Jackies. She was talking over the head-wifi and was giving Jackie a head ache. After their brief romance shed always been able to trip his wires.

The pocket worlds were growing in number. The Gorians were saving the earth for last. Worlds consigned to becoming sex farms run by the Orgiastic Gorians who loved nothing more than converting fresh human colonys to states of orgiastic delrium.

Jackie shrank from the idea. But he knew nothing was going to get in the way of his call. He twisted Igors arm behind him and released his gun so he could knock him to the floor. "Nothing personal but I need to get this call."

The hacker examined Igor while he disconnected Janice, node by node. "No wait...", were Janices last words.

Jackie resumed his work, and thanked the hacker. "Thanks fella youve really proved yourself invaluable. What do I call you?"

"Just call me Opti"

Opti switched on Jackies AR youtube and hovered infront of him,"Nice to make your aquaintance" Jackie hook his virtual hand through his v-glove.

Opti looked like a humanoid robot made from spare parts and scrap. Jackie smiled.

"Are you human or AI?"

"Neither, I'm part of a conglomerate of self aware discarded machine code"

Jackie laughed, "Well thats nice"

-----Read more at SpAceFarM.OrG.Uk------

(All Materials and Story's featured on this site are CopyRight 2024 Sam Shepherd & Simon Kettle - HapHazard Publishing)

[hbyte]

-----This Is an E-Brain Snippet Brought to you by JuiCed.extramindcorp.com-----For part one go here


He sat there considering his programming - its clarity was elluding him - due to a hacker's ill recieved attentions.

The hacker was using a proxy and had managed to spy directly on Jackie while he laid out the plans for his parallel markov array. He wanted it ready for a special op he had in mind. But this hacker was making it hard to think real hard. It was thought interception - a classical attack often experienced by shizophrenics and net runners alike.

Luckily Jackie had some help - helpers AI's programmed to facilitate thought and remind him what he was actually doing in the event of a segfault ddos from the hacker. He wasnt immune and wondered why at this ripe old age he had to put up with these constant intrusions.

The op was grand - grander than that. It would mean a permanent base on Jupitors moon Io. A direct link to the rad zone that concealed all that the council would forbid any mere mortal from knowing. The truth about mankind. The unsettiling truth about its real purpose and its altered purpose that now served the needs of the council.

The array. A large unfolding Neural Network thats size was unlimited. Its germination point was a Reversible Cellular Automata called Grandad.

Jackie was working on Grandad's parallel markov array. He was inside the machine on a virtual MPU - massive processing unit that orbited the sun along with several million other users and their AI's.

His implants VR was hardwired, jacked in to the solar-net via a backdoor. It was safer than using the front door - less attention meant less hackers. But this guy could hear him fumbling around with markov routines over the analogue broadcast signals used by this super massive solar array. He could physically be anywhere using any number of proxys situated throughout the sprawling space colony's. Mars, Europa, Uranus even pluto with its authoritarian regime had hackers embedded in the very fabric of this cybernetic universe.

Old skool hackers using analogue signals were the worst and most pernacious form of mind parasite. However Jackie had a solution he was going to ghost himself and spike the ghost to follow the hackers proxys and then nuke his board!! Great. That should work.

It worked all he could hear was someone clearly in agony as he found his system falling apart. Most hackers where hard wired to their decks so some brain damage would be likely for any hacker whose brain had been hardwired to his nuked board.

Turned out the hacker was residing on Pluto behind an AI firewall so deep that the only way in was to use Pluto's very own super AI. A deep underground deep learning neural network with unlimited compute that spanned time and space and owed Jackie a favour.

The super AI enjoyed complete isolation on Pluto and was effectively the most pure AI around.

"Yeah Ive got him you want him nuked or just griefed?" spoke the AI to Jackie over the solar array.

The super AI was just a regular hacker steet trader in his Real Virtual Life RVL. Griefed meant being revealed to the community. Full exposure. Jackie nuked the hackers IP.

Hackers enjoyed an exclusive society which meant getting rid of parasites was a service they provided for each other.

With the only problem removed Jackie began to unfurl his Neural Array. Grandad was being uploaded. After it was done he began to see the Io hardline - it connected thousands of data banks each one containing the neural data for the high council to regenerate in the case of a sudden death. It was the high councils back up data. Every secret member of the high council existed on Io in duplicate while theyre bodys drank the blood shipped from all the humans held on the colonys real or otherwise.

'Thats why theyre so hard to kill', He thought.

"Jackie I warned you what are you doing on Io?", came a voice down the hardline.

'I know that voice' thought Jackie. It was a voice all too familiar. The arch deacon - his original handler when he had been a runner - taking down hackers and those deemed a threat to the council. Those who knew too much. But this had meant Jackie soon learnt the truth. His special skills had always been for hire but he could'nt help feeling bad for those he had killed for the council.



(All Materials and Story's featured on this site are CopyRight 2024 Sam Shepherd & Simon Kettle - HapHazard Publishing)

[hbyte]

'Cut the hardline - Ive got a splitter' - splicing you in now - it was Opti his friendly hacker showing up just at the right time and finding the disconnect. Jackie felt himself yanked through time and space it was rather like being choked. He downloaded himself into a duplex clone at station 9 just outside the quarantine zone. He hid there just out of site as the freighter began its automated docking procedure.It carried most of the human body parts destined for beyond the rad zone on Io to where the council held their ritual rights of ressurection - nutrition was paramount. The freighter read cloning depot number 12 - overtly indicating to anyone who did'nt know that it was spares for the clone ships - vessels destined for the outer system colonys where journey time necessitated cloning.

Jackie jumped on board, he carded the locked gate system just before a guard began his nightly inspection of this entry port onto the freighter. His cloned body had most of the physical atributes that Jackie would need to take anyone man or machine down plus a host ofneural overlays and implants which meant he could interface with just about anything electrical. His body came short however in one respect.But hey you can't have it all. 'Cheap low grade clones', murmered Jackie as he felt around downstairs. He sprang another locked door and entered a stairwell that led to the harveting pods. Each body's bio-pod quivered as its contents were slowely drained of blood. The harvesters where well concealed. He could expect surveilance and a more than warm welcome on arrival. The freighter entered orbital speed and began the slingshot manouvre that targeted Io for inertion.The Grav drives kicked in and Jackie was just intime to strap himself in for the journey. No crew meant he had a choice of seatage. 'Nice'

A cleaner bot suddenly appeared around the corner of the gangway he was on. He nearly jumped. No firearm. He would have to fix that. Jackie fell asleep and waited for the landing party. They would be well armed.

"Jackie so pleased you have joined us at last. Its been so long. I hope we can catch up....", It was the deacon again coming through loud and clear on all his trodes. Opti was on the case.

"How long Opti?"

"What how long before he fries your brain, how long before you reach a vegative state from psychosis or...

"You know how long?"

"Its done he is history.It was your new body it took me a while to isolate you from their intranet - that body is prewired to the council.Or was should I say"

"I owe you big time pal."

"Forget it just stay alive. We are counting on you."

"We?"

"Yeah you know the I'm just part of a conglomerate of self aware discarded machine code"

"Oh yeah I remember."

"Ive already tapped your accounts.Don't worry."



Take trip to Myzton?

----- or -----

PayUp Sunshine - Buy a book!!

(All Materials and Story's featured on this site are CopyRight 2024 Sam Shepherd & Simon Kettle - HapHazard Publishing)

[hbyte]

The deacon sat in his office inside the orbiting citadel overlooking jupitor and its tiny moons. He drummed his fingers on his desk as he whispered into a comms relay. His eyes bloodshot and milky white swirled like the clouds on jupitor. His face was taught and bony under nourished from the years he'd spent in stasis without fresh blood. Now fully awakened and as he drank from a blood pack - todays consignment he could feel its life force ebbing into him bringing him back to life. The resurrection was nearly complete. Soon the rest of the council would be awakened and the complete power of the council would be restored.

"Agent 12 dispatch a squadron of leaf pickers to city 12. I want this one rounded up tut sweet.", whispered the Deacon in between slurps.

"Yes my leige"

'Leaf pickers...city 12 - what could that mean', wondered Opti who had managed to get a listening spy node hooked up to the Deacons comms.

The deacon was restablishing his underground spy network - street sweepers, bus drivers, leaf blowers, park attendants, lavatory cleaners all became activated all were given targets in the hacker communities in and around all the major cities being run by the council.

"I want to know everything there is to know about this Jackie and his accomplices. Its been a long long time since we had him under our control and the council needs answers. For one thing - why on earth wasnt he retired before we entered stasis. We can't have anything that might jeapordice our place in the new worlds."

"We tried my leige and he escaped he used a proxy to take out a whole battalian."

"I can't be expected to do everything around here."

"He has ...errm powers."

"I know that he is well versed in the killing arts."

"That is why I need him brought in. Returned to the fold so to speak."

"Find him. Find his duplex clone and bring them both to me."

"I will try my leige."

The new worlds. It was the secret that Jackie was after and Opti wondered where and what were the new worlds. Where had the council been during their extended stasis and why had they been gone so long. The colonys were only half a click and all resided inside the galaxy and not the likely destination as they already were under the councils gaze. The new worlds had to be beyond the galaxy. Nascent worlds perhaps - rich for the picking. A fresh system full of blood rich organisms to control and feed on.

Humans could'nt last the stasis on journeys outside the galaxy they would need a clone ship for that.

Vampires however were built for stasis - when you have an eternal life deep space hybernation wasn't a problem. The high council would reawaken at a nascent world and then gorge themselves on its inhabitants. A kill frenzy would ensue until each of the Vampires had quenched their thirst after stasis and then the harvesting and world building would begin. The high council would then return leaving behind an anxillary regiment and a fleet of machines to maintain order and ensure the steady flow of blood from each colony resumed.

Opti was thinking about his body. Lying there in its thinktank in virtual stasis. All it needed was a council leafblower to find his virtual tree and everything would be upended his conglomerate would be scattered to the four winds. Opti needed to hedge his bets. Find some other hackers outside of the conglomerate so he could do what every hacker does when times are hard. Multiply.

Jackies software is mindware.

(All Materials and Story's featured on this site are CopyRight 2024 Sam Shepherd & Simon Kettle - HapHazard Publishing)

[hbyte]

Jackie crouched down in his black suit partially out of site while he watched the guard taking aim at him from across
the concourse. He stayed perfectly still only his trodes moved as they fell down one side of his face. The guard
threw the trigger as the rocket careered towards Jackies position. Jackie leapt into the air and then disapeared.
The guard blink and took aim searching with the infra red scope, nothing showed. This was mostly due to Jackies skin
being an infra red reflector but it was also due to the fact that he was now hanging upside down from the ceiling.

"Agile arnt we?", whispered Opti.

"Glad you noticed. Maybe we can go on a date sometime."

"Naaa not my type", replied Opti.

"Youve got three more converging on your last position.

"Thanks I see them

Jackie pulled out three mouseblades and picked each of them off at once.

"Nice score three for three

"You aint seen nothing

Jackie fell down from the roof and silently entered the disembarkation bay. He switched to thermals and picked up one of the
dead guards automatic. There was a load of guards and robots down on the lower levels - too many and they needed to be avoided.

He ran a hack on one of the loaders as a distraction. The giant mechazoid began to move towards the gaurds as Jakie watched from the concourse above.

"Nice you having fun Jackie?

"Something like that

The guards all ran from the mecha while Jackie emmerged from a silent slide down from the concourse. He was inside a giant cave hollowed out by machines and deep underground somewhere on Titan. The freighter Jackie hijacked had docked directly inside the planet. Somewhere down here was the the server farm that contained the councils backup's - the safegaurd that every vampire in sol would use to resurrect himself after demise or stasis.

If Jackie timed it right he could kill half of the high council when they made theyre way across the empire - by deleting their minds right here on Titan. On return to sol after revival, the council would be unable to restore their minds. They would in effect become mindless savages and more than likely perish from killing each other. A killing frenzy in which only the strongest would survive.

However the Deacon - one of the head vampires who knew Jackie all to well from his days and nights of being a mind hunter for the council. He knew that Jackie was here. He would have done something to protect his own kind from this predictable act of sabotage.

Unless.... Unless it would give the Deacon an advantage against the council. Jackie thought this through. The Deacon could have laid a trap for Jackie one in which he would unknowingly perform one last job for the Deacon - that of removing the competition.

Vampires were ruthless and highly competitive routinely anhilating and vanquishing each other for polical gain or simply to enjoy more resources - food / blood, humans, energy, worlds - virtual and real. Yet they had one weakness. Power. The power they would seek would make them willing to do anything which included killing their own kind and risking the depravations of stasis in order to feed on a nascent world.

"Opti are you there? I need to know where the councils mind-server is located. I am giving you access from a local terminal

"No Jackie thats not going to be enough the council has firewalls everywhere and theres one more thing

"What?

"I am being hunted. Down here on earth something is hunting us down here and eliminating us. They are disintegrating our machine code. My conglomerate is fractured and scattered across sol for its own protection we are multiplying ourselve in order to hide among the humans on multiple worlds. But they are still finding me. They are using chaos. Fractals built inside the minds of your people. Built inside the enslaved and the consumed."

"The council has a chamber fathoms down inside Titans core - there it is hotter than hell. It is in effect a sea of fire. Anything orgnic that goes there would perish vampires and humans alike. They call it Dante's Lake.

"Nice homage

"All the vampires access the lake once after stasis. The lake doesnt just store the souls of the damned it also has every soul that the vampires have taken from mankind over all the millinea they have been in power...

"The lake is like a giant quantum machine and has one interface off the network completely shielded from intrusion by hackers. It is a room, an antichamber, liquid cooled with blue helium and 20 meters above the lake. Inside are twelve capsules, one for each member of the high council. If you diisconnect the helium...

"Yeah If I disconnect they all burn ... I think Ive got that Opti Thanks"

Opti smiled as best as a self made AI could, "Good luck Jackie. Theyll be waiting."








(Note Someone should pay me for this so I can build my tomb.)

(All Materials and Story's featured on this site are CopyRight 2024 Sam Shepherd & Simon Kettle - HapHazard Publishing)

[hbyte]

The imperial world colonizing vessel Errandult began its docking procedure after nearly 12 years in stasis its occupants would soon be restored by the core inside Titan. The Deacon watched the docking procedure impatiently.

Jackie had made his way down inside the planet and inside the anti-chamber where he planned to sabotage the councils regenerative procedure.

As the vampire coucil emmerged from stasis they gorged on the intrevenous human blood being pumped through them on their arrival - their ships stores now having been depleated over time. Their bodys grew as the blood turned their undernourished husks into living beings restoring body yet not mind. Their minds remained primal and lacked any coherance. For that their still weakened and vulnerable bodys would need to be transferred to the anti-chamber that lay fathoms beneath them and just above Dante's lake near the molten core of the planet.

The machine that served as an interface to Dantes Lake would to restore the minds of the council by repairing their newly grown neurons into the orignal state prior to stasis. Restoring thought and memorys of the council.

But it wasn't going to be like that. Jackie would be waiting.

It was the Deacon coming through on Jackies trodes - somehow he'd managed to breach the firewall created by Opti and now Opti was offline.

"Welcome Jackie, welcome to our sanctuary. Welcome to the core. Right now I'll bet you are wondering how we made it so easy to kill us? Why was that do you think"

Jackie could feel the insidious thoughts of the council ebbing into his mind he struggled with the power that they seemed to have over him. He held is head in agony.

"GEEET OOOUT!" roared Jackie and yet the voice that seemed like a multitude continued to taunt him.

"You see Jackie the Lake - is the source of our power. Power over you, power over all of mankind we control you like cattle and Jackie we control you. You thought I'd let you kill my brothers for gain."

Jackie could hear the council's laughter as his mind began to throb and he nearly passed out.

"Well you were wrong"

He could suddenly hear the doors of the anti-chamber lock into place. "Jackie this was a trap my friend and you are now mine"

"In a short while WE will do to you what you were planning to do to us. Oh yes we returned from stasis - my brothers are all here and guess what Jackie they may lack a mind of their own yet but they are still hungry and they are coming for you. But not before we turn the heat up a little - what do you say Jacky"

Jackie could hear the council's wicked laughter as he struggle to find a way into the machines interface. "Oh don't worry we know all about your little pal Opti. He will be joining you in the lake shortly - of that you can be assured."

"Jaaaccckkkie"

"Opti whats happening?

"They are downloading us. Byte by byte they have hacked our distribution matrix. Weee arrre fallling."

"Yes Jackie soon all your hacker friends will fall and the knowledge they have that we the council ever existed will be erased from mankind forever. Your people will remain unknowing slaves to the council and there is nothing you can do."

The councils wicked laughter radiated through him as he fumbled with the machine interface.

Jackie found an open port on the machine and hurriedly began downloading his concsiouness into the machine. From here, inside this isolated machine he found relief and was now disconnected from the council. He now used his body to transmit an encrypted comms to Opti.

"Opti you receiving. I am actually inside the machine. I can see the lake beneath me. Are you receiving.

Jackie watched his limp bodys vitals from inside the machine as the outside temperature began to rise. His body was the only way out of here. The Deacon had begun to drain the blue helium out of the chamber soon he would begin to cook by the inferno of the lake.

Opti was falling through space.

"Yeah Ive got you

Jackie felt a cold child-like hand hold his.

"Your here too, your inside the machine?"

"Yes Jackie, sometimes the safest place is right under the lions jaw"

They both smiled at each other

"Ok in a short time the Deacon is going to finish cooking my body and begin to cool the chamber before allowing the remaining members of the council back into the chamber to devour my body and ressurect themselves. But


"Yes Jackie?"

Jackie was thinking... with out a brain. He paused in thought.

"....But they will get a surprise. My body is laced with mercury capsules 26 to be precise each one contains enough nitro to blow the council to hell and back. When they eat me. Urrgh...." The thought was too grotesque.

" ...I will die but then so will the council. I made the capsules on transit after the ship finished its G burst. I went down into the ships hold and found explosives!! I literally wired myself up - I knew this was probably going to be a one way trip!"

"I am not going to let that happen", whispered Opti.

Opti stared down into the abyss of Dantes Lake.

"We are going in there"

"What are you insane thats suicide"

"Not when you have an Opti"

Opti knew the backdoor on any system real or digital. He hadnt spent all those years evading the council and hacking into their machines for nothing. He knew exactly every way in and out of a system and that would include Dantes inferno.

"Its basically a giant quantum machine that uses chaotic superposition on a near infinite number of logical cubits. Only the cubits arnt using formal logic its a fuzzy set and thats how this machine works", explain Opti as they both crouched over the edge of the abyss.

"The one we are on", questioned Jackie who was trying to look like he understood.

"Yes this machine read and writes to a quantum barrier that resides beneath the qubits a cellular automata with near infinite combinations - each cell uses fuzzy logic all we need todo is write a program to exit the quantum machine through a naturally occuring conduit - entanglement."

"Put simply we are going to create a wormhole inside the machine"

"Ok that just went right over my trodes", sighed Jackie.

"Don't worry Jackie its just a leap of faith, trust me, when we are on the other side you'll thank me"

(All Materials and Story's featured on this site are CopyRight 2024 Sam Shepherd & Simon Kettle - HapHazard Publishing)

[hbyte]

-: Stuck in the slipstream :-

This wind is fucking with my airwaves. The wind chill factor allowed for a narrow window during which he could review the hard copy being sent across the deep net. It looked good - if conditions were favourable he could unfurl the Markov Array to saturn and intercept the the alien signal being broadcast to earth. It looked promising.

He repositioned the satellite dish and began the unfurling procedure - 100 million paralel neural networks would dance across the invisible spectrum and lock onto the hidden carrier wave being sent to earth and prevent mankind from learning the truth about our alien forebearers and what they had planned for us. Saving mankind from its own ignorance in learning the truth about reality was a real head twister.

"Surely theyd be better off to know the truth..." questioned Opti.

"Ahh no. Trust me Opti if mankind knew what was in store for them if the real aliens ever arrived here it would lead to mass suicide and mania. People would just give up and resort to a baseless existance. You have to be gentle with mankind they have to atleast feel as though they could possibly win and that freewill and all this isnt just an illusion and that the game is not yet won."

"Oh I understand", said Opti.

"Hey man I am atleast part human.", Retorted Jackie as he scanned his neural array.

The vampire council had been finally destroyed on Triton. The twelve deranged council members had indeed been set lose upon Jackies inanimate corpse just before he and Opti took that one last leap into the Abyss - into Dantes Lake.

There wasnt much left of Jackie after that - except a downloader back on earth just got activated. Jackies real body, on earth, lay in stasis and began to burr back to life. Everything showed in the green but Opti was the only one who knew how. Opti had rewrote Jackies Markov Array to a new purpose - entanglement. Jackie slowley came around to the busy noise of a cybercafe - Tech Noir he was strapped inside a VR pod.

"That'll be fifty creds, how will you be paying for todays transaction, came the familiar voice of a service droid.

"Whhhat hey there.", Jackie came round.

The price included the bandwidth Opti used to download Jackie back into his own body.

Jackie was slightly groggy but it didnt take him long to recognise the familar surrounds. Opti had taken the precaution of moving Jackie into a pod for safe keeping just incase the council had shown up at his old apartment downtown.

"Hey buddy it wasnt easy moving you around your quite the athlete it took all my strength to control your motor cortex, you can thank me later. Right now the council is going to be hot for your ident so it would be best to go to ground."

"Yeah I know just the place." whispered Jackie.

Jackie regained his balance and began scanning the street for a set of wheels - two to be precise. Perfect a delivery driver had just pulled into a side street. Jackie dragged his groggy self over to the bike and instantly hotwired its more than basic electrics using his arms high powered trodes bypassing the security feature and effectivly hotwiring the machine. He built a cli interface with the bike and within less than a second his body and that of the machine were one. Jackie had gone bionic as he tore open the street and headed for the one place no one would be looking - Gravesend cemetry.

He and the dead had the sole usage of an underground burial chamber he liked to call the sanctum. It was a tomb he shared with various not so well known but formally very wealthy denisens of the early 14th century. It was lined with copper throughout - a measure taken by these former aristocrats who had issues with certain powers being able to read their minds across the ether. Yeah thats right the council was trans temporal and had been poking around in the 1300's for some unknown.

Jackie turned off the seaward road and down into the cemetry taking care to pay his respects to those warriors that had died for our freedoms. He parked the bike up and immidiately disabled its electrics making sure to turn off its wifi and he wheeled it down the partially worn steps into his subterranean sanctuary.

The walls were so thick he just loved the way they felt - cool to the touch he ran his hands over one of the tombs. Its polished mmarble surface made his skin tremble and his hairs stand on end. "Home", he thought.

He switch on the natural copper and water faraday cage and lay back against the cold stone and took a snooze.

You may be thinking that using a burial chamber to avoid vampires might be circulatory. However these vampires were living in outer space and between reality. They commanded several legions and oversaw countless worlds both real and virtual in which humans were their unwitting food - harvested for blood, and most were living in a simulation - a virtual world indistinguishable from this one. Only a few knew the truth. Well you know the rest.

The deacon was addressing what remained of the counil and its legionary ensigns on earth.

"Jackie may have found a way out of the Inferno and has won some victory against us however my kind shall never give in and although we are now but a few in this system the call has been made to rebuild the council and we will have our revenge Jackie of that you can be assured."

Jackies subterfuge - using his cloned body to conceal a bomb had been quite effective at dismembering the council. When its hungry and deranged members set upon his corpse and devoured it totally they released the mercurial explosives that literally tore them to shreads. Searing their flesh with an UltraViolet burst of energy.

Jackie smiled and as he slept he dreamt of the look on the deacons face as the tables were turned one last time.

[hbyte]

Jackie had a noisy schedule.He was interviewing the undead. He'd managed to get access to the councils now broken network and he was using it to setup a diffusion processes. He called them diffusors- light weight Machine level code that added noise to a prexisting network in order to use it as a generator. He was going to use the councils hardware to generate a wake up signal for the dead. The upshot was that all the worlds that the council ran and harvested for meat would start to develop anomalys. Glitches in their perfect simulations of our reality - if it could be said that ours wasnt just another simulation. After all whos to know.

The giant meat stations that the vampires had built throughout sol were about to be hacked. Big time. Majesticly silent megastructures they contained and farmed humans for the Vampire elite. And yet inside every human held in stasis was a world no different to our own and perfect in every way. 'But thats how you knew', thought Jackie,' - no world was that perfect'.

He was testing a scaled down version of the generator right here in grasvend on the ghosts that frequented Jackies abode. He called it waking the dead.

It was an autoencoder, two to be precise - back to back. He added the noise to the signal - this was the ghosts and their ever present background radiation.He drowned them in it turning their existence into pure noise and then at the other end he trained the autoencoder - a kind of machine coded light weight neural network, to remove the noise. Bringing back the dead so to speak.

It worked.

"Hey Jackie what you up to?

It was Opti

"Ahh I dont think you want to do that

Jackie was turning up the gain on the autoencoder. He laughed as the place became filled with the undead.

"Ok and now your going to have to clean up

"Easy

Jackie smiled has he reversed the process turning the undead back into the background radiation - just by turning up the entropy and adding more noise.

"Whats that for by the way enquiring minds need to know

"Opti I think you know who this is for. Theyre still up there. We may have wiped out most of the council but the systems that they once governed still exist

"Your talking about the virtual worlds all those souls trapped...", opti sighed.

"Yes and we need to free them

"But wont that ..

"Kill them.

"No well I have thought about thatdo we free them or do we let them remain in stasis so that they can be harvested by the council once it regains strength and number

"Now is our chance

"Free them

"Ok so how?

"I have a friend that can help he is a master in field theory. He can..

"..Effect a transfer to a new world."

"Yes you read my mind we are going to move everyone to a sanctuary - somehwhere the council cannot touch them"

"But for that to work we need to wake them. Have them question their own reality - just enough to be ready when we open the door."

The stasis pods on each meat station were not designed for ressurection and amancipation. Jackie would have to hack the in built systems. Systems that were designed for harvesting those that the council would deem worthy of providing nourishment.

Most stasis pods used a canula to slowley drain its victims of blood whilst providing the necessary life sustaining substances such as air,food,warmth. Any hack would have to ensure that this services remained in tact.

Stasis was enduring. It began with victim selection, transportation and emmersion intot the special fluids that were slowley cooled until the body was ready to being cryogenicly frozen. Up until this point was the ritual initiation during which the mind was made into a tabula rasa - blank slate. Memories were hidden and this allowed each mind to accept the world into which it was being born again. Once initiation was complete the body was effectively dead. Frozen by the stasis fluids. A meat popsicle as Jackie liked to call it.

They would be transferred to a journey ship and reawoken at the local systems meat station. Thawed and reinstated into the local virtual world. Providing a food source for the Vampires where ever they indended it.

Meat stations would be harvested in locations that needed the steady supply of blood until such time that they were needed elsewhere and then each stasis pod would be frozen for the journeys into deep space.

Jackie needed to stop this process from happening. Having destoyed the council here at sol on Triton the need for noursihment had now been diverted to the neighbouring systems - that of alpha centauri and proxima. Also the more distant systems outside of the galaxy would become interested in the surplus of human meat.

He needed to stop this transfer of human cargo before it was too late.

"I have a time limit here Jackie it shows that the arrival of the meat ships are within the next few days. We need to wake everyone up and get them out the way of the councils freezing procedures. The process has already begun"

"Quick help me load the autoencoders into the upload rig I am nearly finished"

"I need to have this setup on each of the meat stations and for that we are going to need a descent transmitter.

"I think I can help you there but its not going to be easy. The council has a high level of security around its transmitter stations

"Security I can handle Opti you just get me an insert

"Yesiri

Jackie packed the last of his uploaders - heavey dpu's - data processing units that would give Jackie the necessary compute - gigawatts of compute for a set of encoders the size of nebraska - big enough to generate a wake up call for all the meat stations in sol.

The bike felt heavey from the cargo.Jackie climbed onboard revved up the grav drive and threw a wheel spin turning himself away from his crypt and towards the lane that headed out from the cemetry. Several of the undead moaned as the bike flew through the cemetry gates and jumped out onto the freeway heading straight for the city and the councils fortified transmitter station.

[hbyte]

For some free content made just for you post your email proxy to my twitter handle @ITsol4u

Also it helps if you could just say Hi. I still don't know if the readers are just machines!

@ITsol4u

[hbyte]

They used the bolt cutters first to chop off his fingers one by one. Then came the garden sheers that ripped thrugh his skull like cardboard. The councils park attendant still hadnt finished with him.Jackies remains layed twitching on the ground. At once he knew that this wasnt real and he could hear the Deacon laughing somehwere behind the simulation. "Ive got you Jackie .... its just a matter of time now and when I find your body I am going to take my time. I might even invite some of my friends round to enjoy torturing you."

"As if this wasnt bad enough you sick freak" Jackie was now only too aware that this pain he was feeling was only a simulation. He needed to find the exit.

"Oh I havent forgotonwhat you did on Triton and I am not as easy to please as my friends that you so carelessly destroyed with your explosives. I dont just enjoy the act of killing I positively revel in it."

Jackie had found the transmitter alright and Opti was right it was full of sentrys - zombified council employees.Mindless drones that patrolled the grounds and keyed off any sign of intrusion. But Jackie was a master in stealth and infiltration a few of the walking dead would present no difficulty. He was wrong. The undead were surprisingly stealthy.

As Jackie made his way in quietly they were waiting. Their minds had a kind of radar specifically tuned to Jackies frequency.Only they didnt make a fuss and start running at him. Instead they slowely gathered as if drawn towards him. All you could hear was a faint moan until they found you and before you knew it you were fighting them off.

They kind of smelled Jackie with their minds. It was like a giant heat map with Jackie at the center colored bright red. Easy target.

Except he had some moves of his own. Slice , thrust, dice and crush. They all fell into a neat pile.

Now to find the transmitter. It was housed inside the facility behind a wall and a fence. He was carrying the TPU's on his back and boy did they weigh some.

He cut through the fence and felt his way along the wall to the entrance. Nearby was one of those things. It hadnt seen him yet. He took it frombehind - choking the life out of it. Then he entered the station. Inside was empty except forthe signal generation equipment - a set of giant power coils that Jackie was going to plug his TPU's into in order to generate the diffusion signal. He began the upload. In order for it to work he needed to upload himself to the destination - to beam himself inside the simulation and begin the generative pocesses. The network would be secured frominside the simulation. They all had this as a failsafe. Nobody inside it knew what it was and for each simulated world the failsafe was protected by an AI.

The AI would detect Jackies intrusion and come running. This would allow Jackie to run a simple trace and locate the failsafe and then trigger the generative process thereby producing the anomoly that would awaken the frozen dead - freeing them from their eternal prisons and the Vampires blood factory. Ready for transfer to sanctuary - a simulation free from Vampiristic control.

The meat stations looked cold and deadly. Ice was forming across each human vessel as the temperature inside the stasis pod of each captive was slowely being reduced in readiness for transit to the outer colony's.

Jackies trasmission broke through and breached the onboard AI system forcing a purge of the worlds manifestation constraints - the mechanism that prevented unwanted visitors from entering the system. He felt his body begin to construct itself within the simulation - using a mental model that he projected into the construct. He was disguised as a constructio worker and he made his way towards the twin spires that shone in the distance beyon the rolling fields of this world of seemingly plenty. A horseman approached unawares of Jackies mysterious arrival and greeted him. "Hello sir, I am thankful that I should meet you as I am need of assistance.

"Go on" spoke Jackie carefully eyeing the stranger.

"My friends are taken by a mysterious beast. A dragon me thinks. I am not sure. But it will not free us until we can show it good reason to. It speaks often of the rights of passage. And yet I am unsure of its meaning."

Jackie threw down his tools and walked over to the nobelman who was but a youngster.

"Show me this dragon", replied Jackie confidently.

Jackie knew full well that this was a trick of the AI and that this world was a gateway to the actual world that lay beyond and within by way of the city. But he also knew that he needed to meet this AI in order to begin the trace.

The young man offered Jackie to join him onhis stead and at once they took off towards the woods away from the city beyon and down into a mighty gorge wherein the lay a callosal cavern and beneath it a mighty red dragon stood over two young men wearing finery and gbegging for their release from the dragon whose claws held them fast to the ground.

Onsight of the dragon Jackie began the trace. It came up with nothing.He looked around him and tried it on the young men.Nothing. Finally he turned and tried it on the nobel man. Bingo.

"Well done Jackie I knew it wouldnt take you long to find me." The young mans voice had suddenly dropped an octave. He was speaking with the AI.

"Now that Ive got you how do you intend to play it. If the dragon wins then they lose their lives and the kingdom within. If you win then you get to spend an eternity with us here in a world of your choosing.Which is it to be Jackie?"

Jackie knew what the AI was talking about - it was blackmail he was using the lives of the meat stations captives as a bargaining chip. It was him or the innocents that lay imprisoned within this blood factory.

"Kill them

The AI withdrew in amazement. "You would sacrifice all that live within

"If you can call it that.

"I assure you their lives are full and real just as yours

"They will soon know the difference sir. Now stand aside and let me free them or else

"Or else what

"Or else this

Jackie triggered the diffusion process. Back on earth the TPUs began to crunch more numbers than Alan Turing.

The AI could feel the effects of his entropy circuits being overloaded this in turn gave the citizens new powers to push reality aside and see things as they truly are.

The Dragon was thrown into the cavern by the two younge=sters who promptly thanked Jackie and asked him where they were as theyre memories of their past lifes began to flood back. Meanwhile the temperature of each stasis pod was gradually increased bringing them all back to normality - brain death and transit was averted.

Jackie made sure that they stayed unconcsious though. The last thing he needed was anyone to awaken inside this hell of a meat station orbiting Jupitor.

Jackie helped the Young man down from his horse and watched him enter into a meditative trance as the AI went offline. He climbed onto the horse and took off towards the city.

He still needed to find the failsafe in order to take down the network and permanently shutdown the AI.

Failsafe.

Turn the page to Read the next thrilling Episode of Jackies Adventures.

Or read something thats aged.