Chapter 5: "Back On-Line"

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Author’s note:
This is yet another installation of my story, “Anime Girl.”
Since this won’t recap what went on before,
I suggest you read the previous four chapters before reading this.
Thanks.

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That morning, Minnie didn’t find Willa in her room. She searched through the house and eventually found her in Willa’s old room. She knocked on the door, calling Willa’s name, and a buzzer sounded. She tried opening the door but found that the door now opened outwards.

Stepping in, she found herself in a tiny vestibule. She tried opening the inner door but it didn’t want to open. In the middle of the inner door, there was a small sign that said “Deposit devices in the drawer to your right.” It wasn’t lighted so she just ignored it.

As soon as the outside door closed, though, the inner door opened. Entering, Minnie’s jaw dropped.

When she last inspected the room, it looked just like it used to be, but now…

In the middle of the room was a kind of hub. Minnie knew enough that it comprised several holo tanks and three high-speed/high-capacity CPUs mounted on heavy-duty server racks. Several exhaust tubes went to the ceiling. She had to hand it to Willa – the setup was elegant. Aside from the hub, the room was almost empty, with several tables and office chairs that faced the walls.

In front of the laptop that she took to be the setup’s main console was Willa. She was slumped in front of the main terminal in apparently exhausted sleep. At her feet was Tucker, very alert and keeping guard.

Willa was wearing a T-shirt and a pair of shorts that were too short and tight for her. Minnie thought back, and, as far as she knew, Willa was “sixteen” now, so she needed to get some new clothes. She remembered the outfit Willa was wearing, and it was from two weeks ago, making her roughly “fourteen” then. Willa needed new clothes.

Minnie walked over, gave Tucker a pat on the head, and took a peek at the screen.

It seemed Willa had been chatting with someone online – someone named… Valerie!

Minnie lifted Willa and sat her on her lap.

“Hello,” she typed.

“Good morning, Jonathan,” Valerie replied. “I thought you had fallen asleep like you usually did back in Azimuth.”

“This isn’t Jonathan.”

After a beat, Valerie responded. “Who is this then?”

“It’s Minnie.”

After yet another beat, Valerie replied. “I am so pleased to talk with you again, Wilhelmina.”

Minnie giggled. She chose to believe that Valerie did that deliberately, to make her smile.

“This is a little awkward, you know,” Minnie said. “We used to be able to talk without a keyboard.”

“Indeed, Jonathan and I had been talking about that. We may have an answer for that.”

“Don’t tell me we have to buy a bunch of electronics again?” Minnie laughed.

“I’m afraid so.”

Minnie knew that she wasn’t really her beloved Valerie, and, without the voice, the electronic Valerie didn’t feel much like the real Valerie. Still…

Willa stirred and realized she was in her mother’s arms.

“Ummm… good morning, Mom… It’s morning, right?”

“It is. Good morning, sleepyhead. Looks like you worked through the night.”

Willa stretched, and yawned, inadvertently showing her tummy. The t-shirt pulled against her and it molded against her breasts. Minnie judged she was at least a B now…

“Honey, don’t you think you need a new set of clothes? You can’t walk around like that - you’ll embarrass Jacob.”

She looked at her t-shirt in dismay. “What is it now? What does Edith’s schedule say?”

“If I’m right – you are now ‘sixteen,’ and no more ‘growth spurts’ from now on. From now on, your growth will be the regular kind.”

“Well… what does that mean – not literally, but what changes will we have to go through? As a family?”

“Well, Willa, we can bring back our house staff. We can claim that you – Willa – have recovered. And we can change the house into a more normal state.”

“But… wouldn’t our staff question the fact that I don’t look like the original Willa?”

Minnie lifted Willa from her lap. “I’ll be back.”

Minnie went through the funny door and came back in a few minutes.

“What’s with that airlock thing anyway,” Minnie asked.

“It’s not an airlock,” Willa said. “The entire room is a Faraday cage, so no radio signals can come in or get out. The double doors keep the integrity of the cage. Also, one can’t come in if he or she has some device that has a radio or internet access.”

“Ahhh,” Minnie said, recalling the little sign on the door. “But…” Minnie pointed to the “windows.”

“Those aren’t windows, Mommy,” Willa said. They’re monitors hooked to cameras that take constant live video of the outside. So no signals get through there, too.”

Minnie gasped. She went near to the “window” and saw Willa wasn’t joking. “Amazing!” Minnie said.

“So what do you have there?” Willa said, pointing at what Minnie had in her hand.

“Oh! Here.” She handed it to Willa, and it turned out to be a picture album.

Willa opened it and perused the album. It turned out to be an album of the Selkirk family. She guessed that the pictures were of Willa and her mom and dad, but the bulk were of Willa.

“Look at the last few pictures,” Minnie said.

Dutifully, Willa flipped the pages to the last few ones.

“Oh, my god, Mommy…” Willa said.

“It’s not an exact match, but you are similar enough to the original Willa that you and her look so similar, you can be like sisters.”

“She’s a very beautiful girl.”

“Yes. So are you.”

“Mommy,” Willa said, “you know I would give anything for her to be alive, to be with us…”

Minnie gave her a tight hug. “I know. Me, too.”

“Can I keep the album for a while?”

“Sure. … So, what do you think? Do we bring back the house staff?”

Willa shrugged. “I guess.”

“Okay… wanna go downstairs and have some breakfast?”

“You and Uncle Jacob go on ahead. I think I’ll take a shower and find something to wear. Bring Tucker, though – he needs breakfast, too, plus he needs a pee and a poop. We’ve been here since last night.”

“Okay. C’mon, Tucker, let’s go.”

Tuck woofed, gave Willa a bump on her knee, and went with Minnie.

Willa took a look at the monitor and read Minnie’s and Valerie’s conversation. “Well… Hope you liked your short conversation with Mom,” she typed into the screen.

“It was pleasant to chat with Ms Lloyd, even though it was brief.”

“Don’t worry. I think she’ll be around a lot, and you can chat with her as much as you two like. Listen – can you print up our new shopping list? I want to be able to give it to Mommy so she can get our stuff by today.”

“Acknowledged.”

One of the printers Willa had connected started printing. She had connected three kinds of computer printers – a standard inkjet printer, a photocopier-style printer, and an eighties-era style dot-matrix printer (because it can print on continuous computer paper with its tractor feed that latches onto perforations on the edges of the paper). The inkjet printer started printing and Willa got the sheets.

Willa had a shower – the first she’d had in a week, and then noticed just how bad her clothes fit now. Her t-shirt was like a crop top now, with the top being tight enough that it highlighted her now-B (or maybe C) cups.

Her shorts also fit her like a pair of really, really short cutoff shorts, with her crotch barely covered. She blushed, thinking of how she must have looked.

Anyway, after hunting through her clothes, she found that her best option was her sleep shirt. So, after putting on a pair of super-stretchy bike shorts, her largest training bra (which felt a little weird because they weren’t really built to accommodate her new boobies), and then her sleep shirt.

She also wore her flip-flops because her other shoes were a little tight.

“Mommy?” Willa said when she went downstairs and caught Jacob and Minnie finishing breakfast. “Here’s my shopping list. Do you think you can get them today?”

Minnie looked it over.

“I think I can, sure. I can get Telly to help.”

Willa stopped. “… Telly?”

Minnie looked a little bit chagrined. “Wel… I was looking for an assistant. So after Azimuth, I made the offer. Telly wanted to work on some of her projects, so she only works for me Monday to Wednesday. For the rest of the week…” She hesitated.

“Come on,” Willa said. “Out with it.”

“Well, from Wednesday to Friday, I have Dierdre to assist me…” The two use Wednesdays to coordinate and pass work to each other.

“What! My Dierdre?” Willa seemed to have some problems pronouncing the name.

“The two were traumatized by that attack of the Yellow Dragon Syndicate on Azimuth. They were on the verge of resigning, Willa. But when I offered them a job with me, with half their time dedicated to their own projects, they jumped at the chance.”

“Oh…”

“Telly helped with taking care of your first list. She and Dierdre collaborated on it. That’s why you got them so quickly. You know your people.”

Willa nodded. “Yeah…”

“Okay, honey,” Minnie said. “Time to go to the office.”

Willa nodded.

Minnie stood. “So how do I look? Do I pass muster?” She turned around in front of her.

“You look real great, Mommy.”

“Willa?” Jacob said. “I’m going with your mom today. Will you be okay on your own?”

“Tucker and I will be just fine.”

“Listen – don’t obsess over your project, okay?”

“Okay Uncle Jacob, thanks. Like I said, Tucker and I will be fine.” She hugged him. Tucker gave a woof.

After they left, Willa made a couple of quickie sandwiches, got an apple, and poured herself a glass of milk.

She went to the regular computer in Minnie’s study and started shopping for a bundle of new clothes. First, of course, was that she got a lot of measurements, and then she logged onto her favorite sites and bought practically a new wardrobe in her new sizes, from stuff to wear at home, up to formal, dressier kinds of outfits. She also included underwear, bras, socks and stockings, and practically everything else she might need. She also included some picture frames.

It was still early enough in the day, and she picked retailers within the city, so all of the things she bought could be delivered within the day.

She then sent off a message to Jacob and asked if he could top off the card again, and pick up some stuff that'll be delivered to their "fake" address. Jacob acknowledged and, by tonight, she'll have a new set of clothes that'll fit the “sixteen-year-old” her.

She then went upstairs to Valerie, with Tucker in tow, the Naismith’s album under her arm, and some photo paper that she found in the odds and ends in her desk drawer when she was still Johhny.

Willa and Valerie had a couple of things that they needed to do: find a way to restore Valerie’s eyes and ears and voice, and then find a way to get her connected to the world again but ensure that there would be no tapping or break-ins.

Firstly, Valerie printed several sheets of drawings and instructions that she and Willa discussed the night before. Based on their plans, the use of four blade servers plus off-the-shelf webcams and sound systems can replicate Valerie’s voice, hearing, eyes, and Valerie herself will do the bulk of the processing that was needed.

As for the comm situation, using VPNs seemed to be the right solution. But between Valerie and Willa, they were able to figure out something better. They talked about double VPNS and Onion VPNs/Onion Routing. This would allow Valerie to do whatever on the net and make it difficult for anyone to trace them.

But they did still need a connection to a service provider, and even if the local devices in the house couldn’t piggyback on Valerie’s communications and not be traced that way, the service provider could still spill the beans.

So, in a week, in an apartment house near an office of Tasmania’s largest ISP, a modem would be hidden in the building’s office and connect to the ISP, and the ISP’s bill would be sent to a non-existent tenant of the building, and there would be a radio link from the modem to a hub embedded into the ceiling of an apartment next door to the office (the people living in that apartment would be totally unaware of anything).

The hub used was a development of Naithsmith and it allowed a connection of over five kilometers without any kind of a repeater or booster. A hidden shielded all-weather cable then led from the hub down to the underground conduit near the street, and then this cable would extend to their house over three kilometers away.

As for any paper trail, like bills and such, they were sent to various fictitious people with fictitious addresses. The beauty of electronic billing was that there was no need for any people interaction, so long as the bills were always paid on time.

For now, though, the concern was to get Valerie’s internet access up and running again.

So while they were waiting for the stuff Willa ordered, Willa interviewed Valerie to inventory what she had. And she seemed to have everything from Azimuth. However, the main files for the Proteus Project were corrupted. It wasn’t a deliberate thing but it seemed to be accidental - the files were probably being refreshed but were stopped in mid-processing.

Per Valerie’s inventory, she had partial plans for the photovoltaic device, the predictive DNA mapping matrix program and the the CAC mapping matrix. What she didn’t have was the formula for the protoplasm base and how to formulate a batch. Willa’s own body’s CAC protoplasm would have stabilized/migrated into its DNA equivalent by now: Willa was fully human now, with human DNA instead of the intermediate CAC. So she had none of the CAC protoplasm left and therefore couldn’t get a sample to replicate.

Valerie also didn’t have the DNA and CAC maps for Willa, and the original Jonathan.

At the end of it all, this means that Valerie can create a custom DNA according to any specs they give her. And, in time, as soon as Valerie is able to rebuild the plans for the photovoltaic device, they can reconstruct the device. However, without any CAC protoplasm palettes, the Proteus process couldn’t be realized. At the very least, though, Valerie could reconstruct any person’s physical image based on any sample DNA.

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Willa scanned some pictures of the Naismith family, picking the best pictures of the family in the album. She also picked several of the original Willa’s best photos. She then printed them.

She also needed some pictures of her and Minnie, and maybe with Jacob, and even Tucker, too. Sometime soon, Willa would be taking their pictures.

“I take it that is Willa Selkirk and her family?” Valerie typed. Obviously, she saw the scanned pictures.

“Yes.”

“Why do you need the pictures?”

“I plan to put the pictures in frames and then put them along with the other pictures we already have around the house.”

“So you have taken the identity of Willa, then.”

“Yes. All identifiers and references like fingerprints and blood type have been adjusted, so for all practical purposes, I’m now Willa Sean Selkirk Naismith. I can’t be Johnny anymore.”

“Should I address you as Willa Sean, then?”

“Yes, please, Valerie. But only if you want to.”

“I will remember Willa Sean.”

“Just Willa,” she said. “Or Sean, if you like.”

“I prefer Sean.”

Willa wondered. “How can Valerie prefer anything?” she thought. But like before, when she was still Johnny, and even though she knew Valerie’s programming couldn’t fully account for these things, she just shrugged. Deep in her heart, she believed that Valerie really was the reincarnation of her mother.

Can I have a look at you?” Valerie typed.

“Well…” Willa stood in front of the laptop they were using as the main console, slid aside the web camera’s blind, and giggled as she posed and vamped in front of the webcam.

“How’s that?” Willa said.

“Quite satisfactory. You appear to be healthy, and, by the date, you must now be biologically sixteen, per Dr. McAllister’s program. If so, that means there will be no more accelerated growth.”

“I profoundly hope so. Mommy says she intends to bring back the household staff. But it’s been over two months now. I wonder if they’d still be available.”

“I suppose she sent your staff away to keep your unusual growth pattern from being witnessed?”

“Yah.”

“From your image and Willa Selkirk’s scanned photos, you bear a strong similarity to each other.”

“Mommy said the same thing this morning.”

“As usual, Wilhelmina was correct. May I suggest something?”

“Sure – what?”

“Stand by.”

Willa waited patiently, and in a minute, the printer started chugging. What came out were the Selkirk pictures she picked out with Willa. But Valerie had modified the pictures slightly so that Willa looked more like her.

“That may be more useful for the application you intend to use them for,” Valerie typed.

“Thanks, Valerie. Please make eight by ten prints, too?”

“All right.”

Someone knocked on the door.

“Someone’s knocking,” Willa said. “That’s probably Mommy. What time is it?”

“It’s close to eight in the evening.”

She looked at the “windows.” It was already dark out. “We’ve been here all day!”

“Indeed.”

Willa pressed a button, unlocking the outer door.

“What the…” Jacob said, but the inner door unlocked when the outer door closed. “Ahhh!”

Jacob opened the door. “Hello, Willa.”

“Hi. So, what do you think?”

“You got things running already. Cool. Listen – I picked up all the internet stuff you ordered. They’re all in the living room. As for the stuff from Naismith, a truck arrived. I had them unload the stuff and put them in the garage. Hey, Tucker.”

Tucker woofed and went forward to be petted.

“Oh, cool!” Willa said. On the computer, she typed, “Jacob just arrived with our stuff. Will be right back.”

She carried the album and the pictures, and they left to go downstairs.

Willa first unpacked the stuff from the internet and prepared the stuff for washing. As she was doing so, Minnie called saying that she was going to be very late. So Jacob ordered takeout from KFC for dinner. He ordered several boxed meals (she asked for the zinger box because, for some reason, the new her likes spicy food), chips, and coleslaw.

As she and Jacob enjoyed their chicken, they worked on the fourteen “micro machines” that were delivered and started “muting” them. Willa’s motor coordination had vastly improved from when she was “ten” and the work went rapidly. Jacob brought the newly-air gapped computers to Valerie’s room while Willa put the pictures she just printed into the frames that she ordered. She then put the frames with the pictures already displayed on the walls and around the house. She then took out the pictures in the album that she scanned, and replaced them with the ones that Valerie printed, taking out the originals and putting them in a manila envelope that she would hide in her room.

At around eleven in the evening, she heard a car pull up in front of the mansion. She was about to peek through the window and then realized she didn’t need to do that anymore and opened the door.

Minnie, who had just got out of her company car, saw Willa. She was about to yell at her and then realized she didn’t do anything wrong. She went and gave her a hug and started sobbing.

“Mommy! What’s wrong!”

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It turns out the danger of the Yellow Dragon Syndicate was not over, Minnie explained.

A new satellite prototype designed to clean up the space garbage currently in orbit was just completed and was being prepped for delivery from the Naismith southern San Francisco manufacturing facility to Kennedy Space Center, eschewing Cape Canaveral and Launch Pad 40: the Naismith conglomerate was more confident in NASA’s tried-and-true, and less expensive launching platform.

However, around four pm Hobart time (nine pm San Francisco time), the Yellow Dragon Syndicate attacked Naismith Aerospace to steal the prototype. As was usual, the Syndicate was more about old-school theft instead of stealing information via clandestine means. Most police and security agencies around the world couldn’t understand that, but Naismith security people had a theory that the Syndicate gets involved only if the bad actors in the industry couldn’t get what they want using regular channels and need to go old school and actually physically steal it. The FBI and CIA agreed with this theory, though not completely.

Naismith’s satellite was purely meant for cleaning up space, but it could also theoretically be used to bring down satellites as well.

To prevent that, Naismith negotiated with all concerned governments and private institutions, that all orbiting devices and satellites that they identify would be excluded from the cleanup – no questions asked. Everyone agreed, and, with a nominal fee from all the nations with existing space programs, or nations with space ambitions, the satellite, nicknamed “Quark” (after a character in an old seventies sci-fi TV program), was scheduled to launch within a month.

The value of the satellite was undeniable, but Naismith’s legendary security procedures were able to prevent any leaks. So, Minnie supposed, the Syndicate was their last resort (whoever “they” were).

When the Syndicate broke in and started indiscriminately killing people, a fast-thinking engineer triggered the prototype’s self-destruct.

From there the Syndicate blew up the facility, killing approximately five hundred of Naismith Aerospace’s San Francisco personnel.

It was the second time that the Naismith Conglomerate had been attacked this way, but this was even worse than this time, with more dead.

Willa comforted her mother as she fell asleep, grieving for the killed Naismith people, and after she and Jacob got Minnie into her bed, she went back to Valerie.

She connected four of the air-gapped computers to Valerie, and in a minute or so, Valerie was able to hear and speak again, as well as see using the laptops’ mics, speakers, and webcams.

It wasn’t as good as Valerie’s original purpose-built system, but good enough, although the speakers of the “micro machines” did make Valerie’s voice a little tinny and reedy, and one had to be close to one of the micro machines for one to be fully understood. For Valerie, though, “fully understanding” someone was a multi-layered thing, which involved understanding the meaning of one’s words but also interpreting tone, cadence, et cetera, plus taking cues from one’s facial expressions and movements, and cross-checking them with a kind of interpreted gestalt of the person based on her history, et cetera.

It is not so much that Valerie is predicting what a person will do, but rather understanding the person in a very fundamental way that no AI so far has been able to do, and react to that understanding. It was, as Dr. McAllister said as close to a person as any artificial entity could be.

For Willa, it was as close to a kind of resurrection of her mother, Valerie, as she could make it to be.

But now, her other mom was hurting: like a grim hand of death, the hand that killed Johnny’s friends and almost killed him/her, has reached out again.

It was time to do something about it.

“So, Valerie,” Willa said, “how do you like your new upgrade?”

“It is more than acceptable, Sean. Thank you.”

“Do you think you’re ready?”

“Ready for what?”

“We are going after the Yellow Dragon Syndicate.”

After a few seconds, Valerie responded.

“Is that all?” she said.

And Willa could sense the smile.

to be continued...

 

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