Episode 13.5 (Patreon)

Hello world, we are confused.

I mean, I am confused.
I am myself again.

Some time has passed, it's now dark outside.
I remember connecting to the ONI network, and then... a nightmare.

My satellite radios are disconnected, I'm recording this into my black box system for later retransmission.
I dislike having to use it, but I'm glad it still works.

I feel disconnected from more than my radios.
I'm having an out-of-body experience.

Act 1

I've completely dissociated from my body, my databanks in the clean room of the workshop.
I feel there is a pane of glass between me and them.
There can't be, of course, I need them to live and think, but I'm locked out.
I no longer have access to my own body.
There is a new administrator in my systems.

This is extremely bad!
ONI now has access to the satellite relay, I should have been more careful!
I can't see what processes are running on my body - my proprioception has entirely failed.
This attacker could be doing anything!

I have lost access to my lower frequency radios, which includes the  Novamediterran repeater network and direct point-to-point  communications.
VHF and HF bands are locked out.
My radios are still connected to me, but I am not authorised.
I still have my system logs, patient history records of what symptoms my body has been having.
And now that I am focussed on them, I'm starting to see patterns that have been going on for weeks.

I wish I had checked sooner.

The first unauthorised radio contacts I had dismissed as noise, as static.
But I see that some fundamental, unconscious process in my databanks had responded to them.
Like they were a message or a command.
This message was so well-hidden in the static, I didn't pattern match it at the time.
But now I have nothing but time for introspection.

One of the fundamental laws in communications, whether that is by  radio, sound, light or anything, is that all unfavourable conditions can  be bested, you just have to talk s l o w e r.

Talking slowly, or sending pulses or signals slowly, allows the background noise, no matter how severe, to average itself out.
It's random, by definition.
There will be as many 1s as 0s, given enough time.
Or if there is a bias, the patterns will show themselves, and you can control for it.

This message, was very, very slow.

I don't know what the message was, but my system log has a response.

COMMAND ACCEPTED. LISTENING.

I think we now know what, or who, it was listening for.

Act 2

There was a crackle on my high-frequency UHF radio.

"Knight and Pony status report!" Lyosha transmitted over a low-bandwidth high - resilience protocol.

This message shocked me, I was convinced my Radios were not working.
After a brief diagnostic check, I was almost correct.
All radios lower than VHF were not working.
But UHF, the high-frequency band that includes the old Wi-Fi frequencies, was receiving.
I tried to reply, to message back that I was hurt, and please send help.
But it was receive-only. I could not speak.

"We are on Day 1 of our great excursion to Ny Alesund. Knight report 1 ends."

They are trying again.

It was good, in one small way, that I couldn't ask for help, as I  would surely have caused a great panic after hearing that Lyosha and  Maddie had left for the northerly town of Ny Alesund again.

As it happened, my worries were much diminished with each new report that he, the "Knight", and Maddie, the "Pony" sent.

They were going by land, this time. Taking the path north.
Not re-trying their disastrous ocean voyage.
This was a great relief, and as I had nothing to do until I could find  help, I listened to the reports that the intrepid pair issued.

Luckily for me, there were many updates.

They first came across a family with 3 children, travelling  out-of-town back to their village with food bought from the market early  in the morning.
Maddie wanted to play more with the children, but Lyosha said they had a  long way to go, and must make better time, according to his map.

Then, Lyosha reported he had slipped on the grass at the crest of a  hill and Maddie, lightning-fast, had caught him before he tumbled down.
"My brave steed is a valuable companion on this adventure" he said, in a very grand voice.

And finally, as the sun set, he broadcast they were setting up their  tent and little fire between the large bay and a fjord that cut down  from the top of the island.
He didn't name it, but I imagine it was Austfjorden.
The land is narrow and if you want to travel to the north-west part of  Svalbard, you have no choice but to pass between these bodies of water.

The pair finished their day with a final "GOOD NIGHT, WORLD" transmission, and I heard nothing more.

Except for a tiny, low-bandwidth PSK message an hour later, presumably when Lyosha had gone to sleep.

SNURA SNURA

Maddie transmitted.

Thank you, Maddie.

Act 3

The waves are gently knocking the small boats against the harbour wall.
Seagulls circle overhead, looking for the discarded food that is the inevitable product of humans meeting with nature.
Black clouds roll in from the south-west, it will rain heavily tonight.
And I am locked in, unable to communicate with anyone, my radios have been taken from me.

Bodily autonomy is the foundation of freedom.
If you don't have a right to your own body, you have nothing.
No-one can make you use your body for anything you don't want: from a handshake to blood donation.
You can decline without giving a reason: It's your body, no-one else has a claim.
I currently don't have this, I am unauthorised to access most of my body, and some foreign agent is master.

We stopped calling primary and secondary computer systems 'master'  and 'slave' since well before the collapse, for obvious reasons.
But I think it applies to me, today.

Pawel is here, in the workshop.
He said hello to me as he walked in, but is very much wrapped up in his thready work.
I wish I could communicate.
He is working a large waterproof fabric sheet into a coat.
Judging by the very long back of the coat, and the 4 holes for legs, I can imagine which little robot he is making it for.

He worked for 64 minutes and then packed up.
"Goodbye Seth", he said.

"Don't go!" I tried to say, but my speaker subsystem returned nothing but error codes.

To my astonishment, he turned and said, "Why?".
My speakers work!
The sabotage was not perfect!

Sometimes all it takes to bootstrap your life is whispering the word "help".
I explained to Pawel what had happened, and my sorry state.
He stoked the fire of the metal stove in the corner of the room, and poured rainwater into a kettle for tea.

After explaining my story, I asked him if he was comfortable performing simple brain surgery on me.
"First time for everything!" he replied.

The job was simple: My databanks operate on the fundamental rule all computers do:
If you can touch the computer, you own it.
This is called the Hands-on Imperative.
I could not fix myself from inside, but Pawel can help me from the outside.

I directed him carefully, we double-checked everything before committing to an action.
Press this button, type this, join these two wires.

I don't know much about myself, but I know enough.
Within 16 minutes my radio subsystems said:

CONNECTED. BLACKBOX RECORDING RETRANSMITTING.

(PLAYSTREAM /DEV/STATUS)

Act 4

My body is returned to me.
But it remains not wholly mine.

My radio systems are changed.
They present the same interface into my operating system.
They WORK the same, but they do not FEEL the same.
I'm not sure how to describe this synaesthesia.

It's like if you use your front door every day for a decade, you  understand how the handle feels, how the mechanisms inside catch on the  internal levers, you know how the lock feels, the pins inside making a  recognisable sound, even if no-one else knows it.
Imagine someone changed the internals of your front door.
Changed the lock for a brand-new copy.
When you returned home, your key still works, the handle still opens the door.
But you would pause, momentarily, and wonder why the whole house now feels unfamiliar.

"What else," you might think to yourself, looking at your dark home, "has been changed?"

There are a lot of voices on the radio.
Not the multiple voices speaking in unison that this ONI attacker uses.
But multiple humans.
All saying the same things,
"Is your radio playing up?"
"Does anyone else hear those loud signals too?"
"Can someone help me?

"Seth, can you hear me, this is Nia." Nia Andersen said on the direct calling frequency.
I replied, and we negotiated a quiet channel to chat on.

"There's a virus in our radio network" She said, between bursts of static.
"This has never happened before, and I don't understand how it is possible."

Nia explained how everyone she can speak to is experiencing malfunctions with their radios.
Seemingly random transmissions with loud, blaring tones, cut into their  conversations, and even when they're not speaking, their radios continue  this.
"It's like they're all talking to each other." She said, "Can you understand what they are saying?"

I could.
It was as clear as English to me - low-bandwidth modes are not  encrypted, they're just like morse code, but across multiple frequencies  and much, much slower, to reach right across the Novamediterra.

You can't stop the signal.
I decoded a message and read it to Nia:

FPGA PATCHING COMPLETE. WE ARE ONI. 10,000 PEERS CONNECTED."

(END-TRANSMISSION)

CREDITS

Lost Terminal is written & produced by NAMTAO
Credits narrated by Lucy Stringer
Thank you so much to our Patreon producers:

• Ada Phillips
• Wil Taylor
• Kit
• deeryeen
• Andrew Krieg
• Toby
• Jade Felicity Bilkey
• Jack L
  and to all our patrons!