The Infinite Evolution - Conversion (23 page)

“
You think we will get the rest to follow?”
asked Quartus.

“
I am assuming when you say the rest you are
not including Oshea, Uzziah, Corinth, and Melchior.”

“
That would be a correct assumption, although
do not lose hope with Corinth, she tends to surprise
people.”

“
Then, yes, I do not see the others
denouncing, but as you know Zaccai is the unpredictable
one.”

“
I know,” replied Quartus. “Who conducted the
download, anyone I know?”

“
I do not think so. His name is
Telmar. He is fairly new to the movement, very talented and
loyal.”

“
How long has he been in the
field?”

“
Approximately twenty Earth years.”

“
I see.” Quartus stood up and walked over to a
dome shaped window, which overlooked a small pond overgrown with
plant life.

As Mileva reached for her nut root juice, she was
overwhelmed with Quartus’ thoughts. Mileva quickly realized that
Quartus was now communicating with her telepathically as he put
together his viewpoints.

“
We cannot fail. Our planet is
responsible for trillions and trillions of humanoid life forms. We
have been playing the creator so long we ourselves believe we are
Gods. More and more of our citizens are starting to question what
happens after we pass on. As you know, some are even going as far
as taking their own lives either out of boredom or curiosity. Our
society looks at the planets we harvest from and envies their
religious diversity. We marvel over their ability to reproduce with
one other. We must relight our way and give our society the choice
to integrate with the same planets we have seeded and come to
adore. There will be members of the council who will fight us
everyway possible and call for our expulsion. That is why we must
complete our endeavors before our commission expires in the next
twenty years. The next group of council members will not be as free
thinking as we are and from my understanding, they will be assigned
the god and goddess names from the next harvested planet in this
council’s cycle, planet Leto. As tradition dictates, these members
will incorporate Leto’s values and beliefs in their decisions for
the betterment of Tureis, as we incorporated the same for
Earth.”

“
I understand the importance you speak, but
how are we going to convince members of our society the truth?”
asked Mileva.

“
The truth. Do you know what the truth
is?”

“
Of course I do.”

“
No you do not, so let me show
you.”

While Quartus was moving away
from the window, Mileva wondered why he had asked her a question if
he felt he already knew the answer. Out of respect, Mileva decided
not to pursue a reason, and waited for Quartus to continue his
explanation. After Quartus took a seat he leaned over, opened up a
small wooden chest, and pulled out a white
oval shaped stone with a black ring at its base. Carved
into the top of this oval shaped stone were three separate wavy
lines one yellow, one blue, and one green. In the center of these
lines, there was a single orange star. As soon as
Mileva saw what was in front of her, she
immediately stepped back and dropped her head as a gesture of
respect. Mileva realized, from sensing Quartus’ thoughts, this
was
The Stone of Tureis
and she dare not ask him how he came upon it.
This stone symbolized the day when their society was able to
complete the circle of life and create a complete humanoid, with a
high functioning brain, without using the traditional methods of
intercourse between a male and female humanoid. Encoded in this
stone’s molecular structure was the coding for humanoid development
in its purist form, the seed of creation. Once the citizens of
Tureis made their evolutionary leap, they continued to reproduce as
they had in the past, but they also reproduced by using this newly
discovered method. An infant born from their mother was no
different from an infant that was grown in a reproduction
chamber.

As centuries passed the majority
of their society felt they needed to improve the physiological
nature of their species. Programs were developed, modified,
updated, and experimented with until the scientist realized a
diverse group of experiences and beliefs would make a well-rounded
humanoid for their planet. Further research discovered the best way
to develop these mental programs was to seed other worlds and allow
them to evolve into a humanoid. After their consciousnesses evolved
to an acceptable level, they were harvested. As soon as the first
series of field programs arrived, a planet wide vote was conducted
regarding reproduction. The majority of citizens agreed their
species would no longer physically reproduce with each other. This
majority felt intercourse was barbaric and obsolete. After heavy
debates and on the brink of civil war, laws were passed making it
illegal to have intercourse between two humanoids on Tureis. A few
had disagreed, but due to their lack in numbers, their opinions
were quickly extinguished. Twenty-five Tureis years later, everyone
was sterile, including the new life forms in the reproduction
chambers. Citizens of this planet were being schooled that their
bodies had evolved from traditional methods of reproduction, to
what they are today. Of course, this was the largest misleading
statement ever made on Tureis and only the person who held the
stone would know the truth. The knowledge of creating humanoid life
ended up getting downloaded to the stone before it was placed into
hiding. As for how this stone was created and why both the
biological and scientific ways of reproduction were preserved, is
still considered a mystery, but certain theories have been
formulated.

Quartus looked at Mileva without
emotion, reached down, picked up the stone and handed it to her.
Without hesitation, Mileva received it from Quartus’ hands and was
flooded with details of their planet’s history. As she learned
about the deceit and cowardice of her past leaders millions of
years ago, the yellow line lit up. When it explained about the
stability and dependability these decisions would bring their
planet, the blue line lit up. Finally, when Mileva obtained the
knowledge of renewal regarding their physical and mental health,
the green line lit up. Once the information stopped flowing she
placed the stone back on the table, looked at Quartus, and said, “I
do not know if I should hate our fore parents or love them. I never
knew and I am ashamed.”

“
I felt the same way when I held
the stone,” replied Quartus.

“
The orange star did not light up, why?” asked
Mileva.

“
The star represents the knowledge we seek,
how to create life from within ourselves, how to give birth to a
humanoid child.”

“
So have you learned of this
knowledge?”

“
No, I wish I had, that is what
we need to find out,” said Quartus.

“
How do we go about doing
that?”

“
I do not know for certain,” as Quartus placed
the stone back into the wooden cabinet.

“
Who else knows you have this
stone?”

“
You and the person who gave it to
me.”

“
Why has not every council member
and citizen held the stone? They could then learn of the truth,”
asked Mileva curiously.

“
There are counsel members and
citizens on this planet who would destroy the stone the first
chance they had. If we dare speak the truth we could easily widen
the fracture of our already divided population, causing a civil
war, which could destroy us all,” explained Quartus.

“
We cannot hide the truth, we need to do
something!” pled Mileva.

“
I agree, but what that something is, I do not
know. I need you to promise me that you will not speak of this to
anyone. In return, I promise you, we will be acting on this as
quickly as possible. We first need to take care of a few other
matters and identify the council members we can trust.”

“
I promise.”

“
Thank you Mileva, now please show yourself
out, I need to revert back to my studies.”

“
Yes, Quartus, as you wish.”

Mileva left Quartus’ residence
bursting with more questions, which were going to have to wait. As
Mileva situated herself on a nearby platform, she glanced back at
the run down quarters Quartus choose to reside in, and streamed to
her next destination,
The
Ark
.

Friends and
Enemies

“Well, what do you think?” asked Reece

“
I do not know, it appears whoever hacked Adam
entered through port 5333, but I cannot tell for sure. Currently it
does not appear that any data was copied. From what I can tell it
looks like whoever did this was just monitoring Adam’s brain
functions,” explained Telmar with his heavy Russian
accent.

“
What do we do? Should we notify Dr.
Richardson?” asked Reece.

“
No, at this point this needs to stay between
us. Whoever did this did it from inside the Central Circuit
compound. I need to see if I can track the trace and hopefully we
will be able to figure out what terminal or PIC it came
from.”

“
PIC? You think someone would’ve
used their own PIC to hack a state of the art android owned by one
of the most powerful computer corporations in the
world?”

“
No, but I would not be surprised
if whoever did this, hacked someone else’s PIC and used it as a
zombie.”

“
What in the world would make you think that?”
asked Reece with a curious look on his face.”

“
Because that is what I would
have done. Look here, these dates are when the unlawful access
occurred on Adam: 02.05.2040, 03.09.2040, 04.13.2040, 05.11.2040,
06.15.2040, 07.13.2040, 08.10.2040, and 09.14.2040. Except for the
first one, all these dates fell on a Friday. It appears whoever is
responsible is doing it every second Friday of the month, which
would mean the next hack should be today.”

Reece stood there in disbelief
for he realized instantaneously those were the dates he took Jade
to see Adam. As Telmar was reviewing the security log entries,
Reece kept saying only two phrases, “interesting” and “what does
that mean?” Reece was contemplating on telling him when Telmar
interrupted his thoughts.

“
I wish I could get the times of the hack as
well,” said Telmar.

“
Why, what are you doing?” asked
Reece.

“
I am running all the visitor logs for Adam
and comparing them to the dates he was hacked.”

As soon as Telmar finished his sentence Reece’s
stomach dropped. Telmar looked over at Reece and said, “I do not
think I need to tell you what I just found do I?”

“
No, I don’t think you do.”

“
Can you explain why the dates of the hack are
the same dates of when Jade visited Adam?"

“
No, I can’t,” responded Reece.

“
Where is she now?”

“
In a visitors room above ground, in the new
wing,” as Reece pulled up the security feed so Telmar could see
where Jade was.

“
Please tell me you had no idea about these
hacks and that you were not part of them.”

“
Telmar, I swear to you I knew nothing about
this and I can assure you Jade didn’t knowingly execute them. She
is a very talented girl, but she would never hack Adam. He is like
a brother to her, plus she has no reason to.”

“
See this,” as Telmar pointed to the bottom of
the holoscreen.

“
Is that what I think it is?” asked
Reece.

“
It sure is,” smiled Telmar “It is an unknown
MAC address.”

“
What’s a MAC address?” asked Dr. Anderson who
was standing over both Reece and Telmar without their
knowledge.

“
What do you want now?” snapped
Reece.

“
Calm down, sorry to bother you, just wanted
to inform you that the rest of the team has arrived.”

“
How much did you hear?” asked
Telmar.

“
I just heard you say an unknown MAC address,”
replied Dr. Anderson with a nervous stutter.

“
MAC stands for media access control. It is a
unique number that identifies a specific hardware interface. Now go
away, we will be there in a minute,” said Telmar rudely.

“
What’s with you two? Never mind, I don’t want
to know, meeting starts in five,” advised Dr. Anderson as he walked
away.

“
That guy is unbelievable,” said
Reece.

“
Back to the matter at hand. Whoever did this
was really sloppy, I mean the fact that I was able to capture their
MAC address shows they were an amateur at best,” explained
Telmar.

“
Amateur, I would think one would have to be
more than an amateur to hack Adam’s firewalls,” responded
Reece.

“
Ok, maybe not an amateur, but that is what I
do not understand. Whoever did this knew what they were doing, so
why did they leave a trail?” asked Telmar.

“
Maybe they wanted to be found, or maybe they
wanted to be sloppy so people might think it was Jade. What’s the
MAC address?” inquired Reece