The Elias Anomaly

Twenty

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Dulcie got as far as the middle of the following morning without being attacked by anything other than Odas bots. She had to admit that she wasn't feeling in the best of sorts after her meeting with the Agent the night before.

She still couldn't make all the things she had learned line up straight in her head. She would like to believe that this was because some of them were lies. The more she ran them round and round in her head the more she thought that it was just because she didn't have all the facts yet.

Before she had insisted that the Agent return her to her homestead in the Disc he had told her about the dark history of Kyle Bloch. Here was another person she was under strict instructions not to investigate. Apparently to do so would incur the boogeyman's wrath.

The story went that Kyle Bloch was the head architect in charge of the development of the phantom plex, Todsfolk. His intelligence taskmasters decided his intimate knowledge of their sinister playground was too precious. Upon completion of his work he would not be allowed to return to normal duties. To protect their dirty secret they had Bloch's body killed.

What they didn't count on was that Bloch had anticipated his own demise. As he had developed the algorithms that comprised Todsfolk he had taken a copy, and added in some further algorithms of his own. This was the part where the story got a little funky.

The Agent believed that these algorithms were a kind of structure, a scaffold. This code was designed to meld symbiotically with patterns that a mind made within the medium of the Cluster. Bloch had, in essence, made a cradle of code. One that would give a conscious mind a medium of existence should the body it was attached to be killed.

The algorithm performed its job. When Bloch's body was killed his consciousness was immediately enfolded in his scaffold. His consciousness continued on within Bloch's secret copy of Todsfolk. From that place Bloch began to enact a campaign of vengeance against the people who had killed him. As the campaign continued Bloch was made aware that his algorithms had created something more. His kernel had become a crucible for the emergence of independent digital consciousnesses.

After killing a couple of those people he deemed responsible for the death of his body he began a new strand of experimentation. He wanted to use his algorithms to create life, digital life, within the Cluster. Robert Stamp had fallen victim to Bloch's machinations and Joseph Elias had been the result.

The Agent believed if Bloch learned that Joseph had left the Cluster in a living body he would seek to reacquire Joseph. The insane program would drag Joseph back into his lair and study the code, looking for his own means to escape this digital prison.

The story was visceral in its depiction of human brutality and twisted brilliance. Was it really what was going on?

As Dulcie had departed the Agent had insisted that Dulcie take a necklace. He explained that it would perform two functions. It would mean that Bloch could not locate her within the Cluster. Also, crushing it would transport Dulcie straight back to the Agent's estate.

Of course the problem with the whole set up was that she wasn't able to check up on any of it without, apparently, revealing herself to Bloch. She wasn't at all confident that a story so conveniently crammed with conspiracy tropes could be true.

Dulcie noted that many of the situations within the Cluster were equally replete with such features. These were presented as fiction not fact. She supposed that if she wanted to be in an environment that did not invite drama then maybe she should not be in the Cluster.