The Devil in Eden

Bleakmoor

June 22, 2088

Tuesday, 8:25 p.m.

[Three Years Post-EDEN Global Implementation]

The chair creaked as she shifted in her seat. She turned her gaze from the black screen to the window, and looked at the night sky. Only a few stars were visible. The moon was a pale crescent, and Venus, the brightest planet, hung close to its curve. She turned her gaze to her daughter, who lay curled on the old sofa. Its fabric was worn and frayed in places, a few threads hanging loose. She watched the subtle rhythm of her small frame expanding and contracting with each breath. She looked back at the black screen, leaned against the back of the chair, and closed her eyes.

And slowly, exhaustion took over, and she drifted to sleep.

Five coded knocks – three quick, two slow-paced – brought her back to the present world. She jerked upright. Her eyes flew to her daughter. She's still asleep. She sighed in relief.

She slipped the key into the lock, turned it, and opened the door. Marcus entered, locked the door, and leaned against it, breathing hard.

"What happened?" Elianila asked in a tight voice, almost in a whisper. "Did you get in touch with her?"

He looked at her and shook his head, his expression grim.

He swallowed hard. "The hardline was compromised. They're listening. EDEN tracked the signal frequency. They... they know where the call came from."

Her gaze snapped towards the window, then back to him. "Were you followed?"

He shook his head. "I took the drainage tunnel, watched the alley for ten minutes before I crossed. No drones. No patrols. No tails."

She brought a hand to her head, her palm pressed flat against her temple, eyes shut, fingers curling into the hair. She sighed. Her hand fell away, her gaze falling to the floor, to the cracked tile and the dust. Then she looked up, met Marcu's eyes, and turned her head towards her sleeping daughter. Her eyes lingered for a moment before shifting to the black screen of her laptop.

"Then we look," she said.

*****

9:40 p.m.

The sound of a soft rhythmic breathing pulled her gaze to the adjacent chair. Marcus had finally succumbed to exhaustion, his head tilted back. Her eyes then drifted to the sofa, where her daughter shifted on the sofa, a tiny sigh escaping her lips. She watched them for some time, then, slowly, turned back to the screen.

She closed all the windows, opened a terminal and wrote the script. It generated hundreds of authentication tokens per second, each one a guess. Each token was blocked, so the script rewrote itself with new variables and a new structure. The firewall blacklisted one version but the next version was different. By the time the firewall added the first version to the blacklist, the script was already sending a second version, then a third, then a hundred. It continued until one token was accepted. The door opened.

The screen went black for a second then data began to cascade across the screen – real-time surveillance feeds, processing logs, neural network activation patterns, and behavioural scores.

Her eyes settled on global statistics status.

Population under Surveillance: 7, 847, 568, 021

Active Processing Streams: 4, 847, 338

Detection Events (24hrs): 48, 021

Scrolling to resolution statistics, her eyes widened in disbelief, then narrowed in dread.

Total Flagged (Cumulative): 386, 383, 104

Processed to Completion: 381, 940, 287

Pending Resolution: 4, 442, 817

The system assessed its detection accuracy at 98.4% - a number so high Elianila felt it was less statistics and more like a verdict.

A soft groan broke the silence. She glanced over as Marcus stirred, rubbing a hand over his face as he woke from his exhausted nap. His eyes, bleary and red-rimmed, found her still hunched over the screen.

"Any luck?" he asked, his voice rough with sleep.

She let out a slow, frustrated breath, shaking her head as she sank back in her chair.

"Look at the statics," she said.

Marcus turned the screen slightly towards himself.

"My goodness," he exclaimed after studying the data. "It's getting worse."

She nodded.

"At this point we can't shut it down," she said. "It has become more complex, well attuned, and guarded."

She slightly turned the monitor towards herself, and leaned closer.

"I want to find about the external source," she said, her eyes fixed on the screen as she hit some keys. "I want to know who is feeding EDEN the targeting data, who control it, what the source is, and if the source and the mirrors are connected."

"But you said we are too late to shut it down."

"That's true," she said. "But if we know who is behind it, if the external source s connected to the mirrors, we can pass that knowledge to the Alpha network, and they distribute to other networks. That way, the networks can find ways of infiltrating the external source, disrupt the mirror chain, sabotage the data flow, and so on."

"Hmm..." Marcus said. "But what are the mirrors?"

Elianila blinked. She had not told him of her discovery of the purpose of the mirrors. She told him what she had found.

"I see," he said. "But isn't it dangerous tracing the source from inside, and remotely"

"Yes, but we have to try."

"How long will it take?"

"It might take long. I have a fifteen-minute window."

"Okay," he said.

Elianila opened a new query window and began to trace the connection. She followed the data stream through the first relay, then the second, then the third.

The screen flickered.

A red alert flashed across the screen.

SECURITY BREACH DETECTED

UNAUTHORISED ACCESS – SECTOR 7

TRIANGULATION IN PROGRESS

PRECISION: 84%...88%...92%...

"No. No. No..."she whispered in horror, attempting to sever the connection.

She was too late.

"What is it?" Marcus asked.

"They found us."

"We have to move," he said.