Hacking Einsteiner (Einsteiner, Book 2) Read online

  Hacking Einsteiner

  by VK Fourstone

  2016

  Creator vs. Creation

  Prologue

  Being interrogated is frustrating, even scary. If they question you, you're a witness, if they are interrogating, then someone has a theory that you're a criminal. And if you have no alibi to convince the police that their hypothesis is wrong, things become difficult. After all, they by default believe that you're lying.

  Everything is complicated if you're not guilty of your charges but you are still afraid because you committed a crime. Just not what that they think, something else. This is the same as proving to the police that you didn't kill anyone because you were busy at the time of the robbing somebody.

  Isaac didn't kill anyone in the attack, which concerned the Commissioner, he was not involved. But something came to him there, and that he had to hide. He had to think carefully about the answers and find the right words. Just to answer the questions carefully, not to be adding extra food for thought.

  Commissioner Pellegrini took notice of everything. He felt that by catching small forced pauses, excessive nervousness, suspicious facial expressions, thus understanding that something was wrong. He was becoming more and more convinced of his version – the guy was somehow involved. And confidence gave him extra strength. The offender's motive was clear, as he urgently needed the money for his sister's operation, and though the direct motive has yet been traced, that only added excitement. There was no connection just because the picture was not complete. It only takes to restore the picture correctly and then the Commissioner can prove to himself that in those quiet times, he didn't lose a former grasp.

  Isaac had to convince the Commissioner in his own innocence so that he wouldn't' be captured, and gets back to business as soon as possible. Any extra attention from the police was completely useless. It was unlucky that the attack took place two months ago but the interrogation was happening only now. A week ago, he would have confidently replied to any questions, with nothing to hide. He didn't do anything illegal. But last week everything turned around, as Isaac found the Professor in Sardinia after long fruitless searches, and now plans were, to put it mildly, not fitting any social norms.

  1

  “Isaac, what's the value of your creativity?” spending another day visiting Professor Link, the irrepressible Bikie frankly became bored.

  “Almost twenty million. Why?” he reluctantly looked up from reading the correspondence with Michelle.

  “Big bucks. Sorry, there is no more slavery and you're not my slave. I would sell you creativity,” dreamily added his best friend. “I'd buy a new Harley and go around the world with some chick. Would lay with her on the beach, drink beer, listen to rock.”

  “Well, thank you! You make that sound terribly sincere!”

  “That's the truth. Don't like trifle lying.“

  “Now I am the trifle, right?”

  “That is the truth. Don't like trifle lying “

  “You yourself have to be sold. For meat. You do not have to be cooked, as you are already marinated with beer. Famous Bokassa would definitely cast a spell over your greasy body parts," shouted Isaac.

  “I'm not fat, but big. But why are you so angry?” Bikie was confused. “And beer, by the way, it's an inspiration. Just in a liquid form. You, as always, do not understand. You always...”

  Bikie didn't have the time to mess with Isaac – they were called to dinner.

  Since the time the Professor was found, and the guys completed his complex, thorough checks, their relationship with the scientist was improving. Isaac already knew that Link was hiding for so long, was too interested to conduct the experiment to forego such opportunity. It seems that now the Professor was nervous that the guys suddenly change their mind and leave, depriving him of the opportunity to deliver a new experiment, so he introduced the new tradition of eating breakfast and dinner together, trying to establish an utmost trust, arguing about the pros and cons of his invention.

  The guys spent more than a month in Sardinia, hunting for the fugitive, and both of them wanted to be back in Monaco soon. Bikie toiled from idleness, and Isaac had an unresolved problem with his sister back at home. Having two to three months before her operation, he had less and less time and still was lacking funds for the operation.

  Such long a separation and secrecy began to spoil their relationship with Michelle. Isaac was forced to lie to her constantly, and she felt it, without consciously realizing, that he is concealing something from her. In addition, Michelle had planned to fly Miami for a month, and Isaac at any cost needed to be back before she left. She made the first move, inviting him along, and he was forced to withdraw, unable to explain. Michelle, was very offended and wasn't responding to his calls or text messages second day in a row. Isaac was nervous and felt down.

  “I have a big day today!” the Professor, unlike the guests, was energetic. “I am happy to celebrate it with you!”

  “What is it?” asked Isaac.

  “Eight years ever since I created my Einsteiner!” happily declared Link. ”Is it a holiday? It seems to me we are going to fight it, not appreciating the occasion,” responded Bikie.

  “In any case, this day should be noted. It is not necessary to look at the Einsteiner from a one-sided perspective. To many he gave life. We must be objective in our conclusions, we are scientists, and not some biomass,” softly replied the Professor.

  “That your invention breeds every day,” Bikie just couldn't let go of it.

  Created by Professor, the computer worked on the human orange energy, responsible for creative abilities. His bio-hard-drive was, on the one hand, producing most useful technologies, and, on the other, turned people into Happies, the people that had no creativity left. Though Happies looked absolutely happy, and received substantial fees, and even lived comfortably, they were no longer people that used to have creative and inventive minds, according to Bikie, thus becoming living vegetables. The majority did not consider this too high a price for remedies from diseases, cessation of wars and eliminating drug addiction. Everybody wants to live in the world without problems.

  Isaac was supposed to become a Happie, as he was going to sell his creativity, but at the time a fanatic broke into the lab and created havoc, which the press called a terrorist attack. As a result, Isaac received a piece of a board with a memory card. That piece was an eye-opener for him. With the help of the data from the memory card, Isaac found an accomplice – Bikie, with whom he figured out the location of the inventor of the mechanism.

  The Agency Collective Mind alone owns and controls Einsteiner, it was formerly a Department of the UN. However, in recent years, it has gained so much financial power that in the future, it itself could become a problem if its top management turns out to be dishonest. Isaac and Bikie were convinced it was only a matter of time.

  “Why is everybody so sad? We will return creativity to the first donor, and then decide what to do next. By the way, a few days, and I will have finished my calculations,” the Professor sipped an expensive cognac, holding in his free hand a traditional cigar.

  “Just wait and we'll conduct this unique experiment! First of its kind!”

  “I want to go tomorrow,” firmly said Isaac. “We have spent here far too long. And you can finish all of it, and will join us later.”

  “As you wish. Bikie, what do you say? Will you stay or go?” the Professor turned to Isaac's friend.

  “I love freedom of choice, risk and a variety of options, which we are promptly losing. I like to make mistakes, to gain experience. The Agency's world is a beautiful long-legged rubber girl that cannot be impregnated, and from which
you can't pick up an infection. Boring as hell.”

  “Bikie, please don't be such a downer, everything has already been discussed, the Professor is sick of hearing about the disadvantages of his brainchild. And you're talking and talking the same. Then you better go with me.”

  “Both of you are willing to partake in the experiment regardless of the consequences!”

  Bikie was annoyed.

  “By the way, Isaac, do you even remember that our future mouse for the experiment is your ex best friend? Aren't you scared that this can blow off his mind? Or he will die?”

  “I am. But, there is no choice. I'm not doing this for the sake of laying with a chick and beer on the beach,” said Isaac, recalling a recent joke.

  He wasn't happy that the only Happie, on whom they could run their dangerous experiment, was Pascal. The donor, who became the necessary tying point for the guys and the Professor.

  “Alright Isaac,” the Professor was satisfied. “You are reasoning like a scientist! No real scientist can be stopped! In science, there are no friends, only discoveries. I'm ready to try to return the creativity to Pascal. To download the orange energy back. And see what happens. I have been theoretically ready for a long time but there wasn't the right occasion until you came along. And the chances of success are very high. To pack up I need a little more time, then I am ready to visit you in Monaco. With the rest of the deal on the spot. How is this plan to you?”

  “Alright,” this time without sarcasm said Bikie. “To turn a Happie back to a normal dude I'm always up for!”

  Isaac was displeased with a weird compliment from the Professor. He did not wish to become a person for whom science is more important than friendship, on top of that with a risk to a human life. He nodded, deciding that there would be more time to deal with the risk before the actual experiment on Pascal.

  2

  Link offered to take his van and bring along his things and a small laboratory. When they thanked him for the car, he remarked with his typical directness that it remained to be seen who was doing who a favor. He could not bear traveling in that old banger, he said. In addition, the van was the best, if not the only place, where they could carry out the experiment on Pascal. So the little wagon would have to be driven back anyway, but Link was quite content it wasn’t him who’d need to worry about this.

  Although the professor was not supposed to set out until a week after Isaac and Bikie, and the experiment could not begin without him, Isaac and Bikie wanted their time on the road fly by as fast as possible. Even though they were not late for the ferry, Bikie pushed on at top speed. Their impatience had them all tensed up, each absorbed in his own thoughts.

  Isaac thought about Vicky and Michelle. For the first one, he had to get money, whereas the second one required ... the right words. Michelle didn't answer the phone, apparently offended by Isaac's rejection of her offer to go together to Miami. Stepping over her pride, she called him to go together, and he... he should better tell her, she'll understand. But for that, he must first at least get hold of her.

  Returning to their temporary home, he should let the owner know about the imminent arrival of Link. Peter Wolanski, whose data was also found on the memory card, sheltered him with Bikie, supported, and this visitor can now bring him into serious trouble. Especially considering the fact that they have together conceived an illegal operation. Isaac decided to consult with Bikie. He believed that saying something was not necessary, recalling Peter's request not to get him involved. And so the less he knows the better. “Moreover, if Peter says no, then we don't know what to do,” concluded his partner.

  Isaac felt better from this logical answer.

  Isaac smiled and slapped Bikie on the shoulder:

  “Thanks for being you, my friend!”

  Bikie looked at Isaac as if he were crazy, rolled his eyes and growled:

  “Put the sun visor down. You have heat stroke.”

  “You fool, Bikie, I’m just happy and delighted with life.”

  “For now, delight in being dealt a good hand at the beginning of the game. You still have to make the right moves.”

  “No, Bikie, I wasn’t dealt it, I pulled it out of the pack myself. Card by card. So sorry, but it’s not a matter of luck, just the right approach. A rational approach and precise calculation and reliable partners, of course. I was just thinking that everything could have turned out differently. How many coincidences had to come together for us to be driving along like this from Link’s own villa! Just think about it! It’s unimaginable.” Isaac continued, counting on his fingers, “I went to the Collective Mind on a particular day, and only because Vicky needed surgery, and what’s more, her illness is extremely rare. Secondly, that was the very day when Elvis went there to carry out a terrorist act; thirdly, for no particular reason I got up and they thought I was an accomplice; fourthly, out of the entire heap Elvis picked out the memory unit; fifthly, he handed it on to me; sixthly, I found the database there…”

  “Twenty-fifthly, twenty-sixthly, and twenty-seventhly, blah-blah-blah. You can say that about any life. Absolutely any, starting from conception. Everyone knows there are millions of sperm, and only one will reach the egg. Although in your case it obviously wasn’t the very best of the bunch that made it there.”

  “Apart from the fact that the first card I pulled out of the pack was a low one with tattoos on it, I can’t imagine what you’re criticizing me for.”

  “You’re the low card. I’m the ace of spades!”

  “Yeah, an ace of shovels, that’s right. A sequence of events like that does not happen every day.”

  “It does. Every life is a correlation of unique, unrepeatable events and coincidences. The domino principle, only in a hundred dimensions and all directions. Chaos and the dominoes come rushing at you from all sides, knocking each other over and creating new chains of events. It’s a funnel stuffed full of moving dominoes, and that chaos is called daily life.”

  “Sometimes you’re an incredible drag. Let’s just stop to fill the tank, then go to the café and get some decent eats so we don’t have to run to the buffet on the ferry.”

  “My God! The youth saw the light and started talking sense! Hallelujah! A miracle! And the blind shall see, and the poor in wit shall wise up a bit.”

  “And Bikie's sexual maturity shall come to pass.”

  “I’ll show you maturity! You need to take lessons from me, young man!”

  “Oh yes, professor ace, big-fat-face, quickly, tell me do, how you get within a mile of a girl with a beer belly like that?”

  Bikie swung the wheel abruptly and turned into a gas station at high speed. Isaac banged his head against the van door.

  “Shit, you moron!”

  Bikie cackled with laughter. Rubbing his bruised head, Isaac summed up:

  “It’s true, apart from the external similarities, rockers and Neanderthals have identical behavior patterns.”

  “Clear out and get me a double espresso, swiftly. I’ll fill the van in the meantime.”

  Isaac bought croissants, a couple of chocolate bars and tuna sandwiches. Despite a solid breakfast at Link’s place, he was still hungry. He filled two plastic bags of all sorts of food and gazed around for something interesting. The tank was not yet filled, so he decided to take a look at the magazine stand. As usual, nothing interesting there, the magazines were all like clones from an incubator.

  He paid, climbed into the driver’s seat, and the van drove into the port to board the ferry back to Genoa and continued along the highway into France and his own dear Monte Carlo. Ah, Monaco, Monaco, will you be the cradle of the new world?

  “Well, bro,” said Bikie, biting into a sandwich. “From the look of things, you’re home already. What are you thinking about?”

  “That’s obvious. Our plan. We have to give Pascal his OE back. Then he’ll be the way he was before and so will our friendship.”

  “Friendship, friendship,” Bikie mocked. “The one thing I couldn’t under
stand was why we didn’t go to him for money, instead of Peter.”

  “Go to Pascal for money?” said Isaac, frowning. “Believe me, I tried several times. He always refused and the last time I hated him for it. I wanted to smash the nose of this asshole of a Happie when I went to borrow money for Vicky’s surgery. He promised he would if his administrator told him to. However, she explained that the contract with the Collective Mind has a clause that specifically prohibits lending or giving away money that belongs to a Veggie.”

  “The Agency’s got themselves a really smart set-up. It has its own bank, and it has probably been the most powerful bank in the world for a long time. All the large fees paid out to the Veggies just lie there unused. The way the Swiss banks once quietly buried the money of many Jews. The Veggies sign a contract, and afterwards, with rare exceptions, they don’t spend anything much. Pascal said that if it wasn’t allowed, there was nothing he could do. I tried to explain to him that the administrator wasn’t allowed to do it, but he was. I even said I’d pay it back with interest. And this asshole asked: ‘Why would I want interest?’”

  “It’s like they’ve erased his conscience. And you wouldn’t believe it, but he can laugh at the jokes in a TV show and watch a movie. He is a gung ho soccer player. Only he doesn’t have jokes of his own any more, just enough brains to go ask his nanny, as I call her, to do anything he cannot handle himself.”

  “It’s ludicrous, but he has some really good gear at home, all these latest computers and gadgets. And it all gets replaced regularly. He stipulated in the contact that it would all be the very latest models. Before he downloaded, he said his girl Eva deserved the very best, and he was going to do everything to make sure they had that. Only Eva took off, and the gear is still there. He doesn’t even switch it on now. And he doesn’t have the wits to stop them from delivering new stuff.”