- John! John! Can you hear me? John!
The voice seemed to be coming from somewhere far away, like an echo, or a sound you could pick up from underwater. There was only the sound he could hear, completely no vision. This felt as if it was taking forever before Marlow managed to move his mouth and say:
- Please, don't shout, it hurts...
The voices around him were relieved, yet still concerned. While major managed to reply, he could not move a muscle, or rather - he did not feel his body, and he had no sight, which was disturbing and John was honestly on the verge of panicking.
Then, after a short moment, he noticed something unusual - in this whole panic, Marlow was pretty sure he could not, but small oddity in the darkness made him realize it was not the case of his eyes failing, rather than that - his implant was still connected to the drone which lost its vision.
- For a moment, I thought I got blind - he told others after turning off the connection - Still, I cannot move my body.
- That's unusual for an aftereffect of the forced link disconnection - Martin was leaning above him, checking his cybers - Hm, but it seems something happened to your limb replacements. I wonder if this is related to the current state of your body.
- Give me a moment, I will see if I can run diagnostics with my PEC - John initiated interface reliant on eye movement and started the checkup process - It looks like cybers' system is offline for some reason...
- I will check them physically, if you don't mind, I mean.
- Yeah, do what you can. It's not like I have any better ideas at the moment.
After saying that, Marlow started remembering what exactly happened, leading to the current situation. When reviewing, and taking into account state of his cybers, a sudden thought came to his mind.
- This shrieking sound - he was talking to himself in his mind - it caused me to lose consciousness, and I woke up immobilized afterwards. What if it was some kind of hacking signal?
This was one of the most problematic disadvantages coming from having cybers connected to one's body - human body relies on electric signals for sending information through, and controlling the actions of the organism, and for the cybers to work, these need to be connected to this whole system. In case of the current body parts' replacements, the necessary actions required connecting them to nervous system and additional sub-brain processor, which could be either a separate unit attached to a standard PEC or high-end PEC capable of managing additional calculations. Either way, it meant that nervous system was used for sending additional electric signals to artificial body parts, ultimately making the whole body vulnerable to hacking attacks. Of course, John was cautious about such cases and was equipped with necessary security protocols, but none was designed to defend against alien technology as it was unknown to the humanity - moreover, by connecting to the drone, such a device could be used as a signal enhancement and a backdoor to his body's PEC. At this moment, Marlow felt humiliated and stupid for making this kind of oversight.
Still, whatever already happened was in the past, and what was important now was to find a way of getting him back on feet. If it was an effect of hacking, any kind of virus, it meant that it was possible to regain the controls by using PEC's system. In case of physical damage, Martin was on the case now, so John could focus solely on the programming side of things.
Whenever he was working on the code for apps he made in the past, John preferred the classic approach, writing either on physical or hologram keyboard, involving the use of hands rather than thought-processing which was more advanced, yet required much more focus from the user. However, this time - due to circumstances - he was forced to use the method which was not his first pick.
Using this approach was putting more strain on the programmer, including more processing for the brain, but - at the same time - improving the compilation speed. Having said that, compiling was not the main concern for Marlow as what he needed was nothing else than disassembling the sound he heard to translate it into the code to verify if it could affect the artificial parts within his body.
PEC itself was intact and operational, though it felt less responsive than usual, slowing down the access to various layers of sub-programs, and the corresponding code. What John did first was opening the systems connected to his cybers' functionality. Obviously, he knew the artificial limbs were currently offline for some reason, but booting up the apps was needed to access the logs registered until the moment of shutdown - this is what he hoped for at least.
Marlow started with his left arm's software, and he indeed managed to extract the log - unfortunately though, there were no useful entries present there, the last one providing feedback from the last movement of the cyber. Then, there was a time to do the same for his right leg, and here he encountered a real surprise - the last lines from the log included recording of something that appeared to him as disruption within the code, exactly what he was looking for.
Major extracted the unusual entries from the log, and started the analysis - the basic approach, applying decoding with the use of all methods known to him, did not result in anything logical to be found, only random symbols he could not make the sense of. He was close to giving up once he noticed random free spaces in-between the symbols, which seemed to be completely out of place, and a few signs similar in looks to writing used in alien language pieces they found so far. Without a second thought, John loaded the data into the translation app he got from Keira - surprisingly, he started getting a print of hexadecimal values.
- Finally, something I can work with - he thought to himself, exporting the print to yet another app - Now, let us see what is it going to give us...
The moment he started the analysis, his PEC started acting up - a number of apps started opening and closing. Marlow attempted to get the situation under control, but he could not stop what was happening as there were simply too many actions at the same time for him to comprehend - it appeared that it was now his PEC that was getting hacked and major had completely no chance to fight back, so all he could do was only watch what was going to happen. Then, unexpectedly, everything calmed down, and interface started responding to his commands yet again, but when he tried to go back to results of the analysis, he was prompted with a huge message on top of all of the opened apps: "Change the route, follow the safe panels".
- But what are these safe panels?
He asked himself, and - as if in a reply to his question - all opened apps suddenly closed and a completely new icon appeared within the interfaces, an alien symbol blinking in green. Of course, John did not know the alien symbols, so he yet again relied on Keira's app that translate this sign as "a friend".
After seeing so many unusual things since leaving Earth, something like that did not even feel surprising to Marlow, who - while unsure, yet having no better idea - opened whatever was hidden behind that new icon. What appeared in front of his eyes looked as some kind of object recognition system - John guessed it was supposed to let him know which are these "safe panels" he asked about.
Still, even if he had such an app, he could not be sure whether he should trust some unknown software just like that - opening it was already against his security rules. Besides, he continued being unable to move, so even with this kind of tool, Marlow was useless either way.
The moment he started thinking of that, John started feeling warmth spreading through his body and, within a minute or so, he could move his limbs again.
- Did you fix it? - he immediately asked Martin.
But his firend immediately shook his head.
- I barely started working on it, and your cybers went online out of nowhere.
Marlow lifted his body from the ground, up to the sitting position.
- Are you okay now, John? - Alina leaned on the wall in front of him - You look a bit pale.
- I can feel my body again, but it still feels numb and heavy - major explained his condition, and noticed something with his implant that seemed to have this new app active - Can you move a bit?
- What do you mean? Is something wrong?
- No, just move a bit, I want to scan these panels.
Confused by his behavior, Boskovitch walked away from the wall.
- Is it fine now?
Marlow replied with a nod, and used built-in PEC scanner alongside the new app - it turned out that, while the panel was showing a warning, the app was highlighting the spot in green.
After a moment of thought and scratching his head, John stood up and approached the wall.
At first glance, it did not differ in any way from the other panels creating a wall, yet with the use of the new tool, Marlow could notice something that was hard to find with a naked eye, if a person did not know the precise spot - while the outer layer of the panel appeared smooth, there were places with rough surface. Such patches on the wall were of four average hands placed next to each other within a square shape.
- What is it, John? - Martin joined him, standing to his right and also looking at the wall, though slightly confused - Did you find something?
Marlow was already through a similar situation before, when he was unsure how to act about the unusual circumstances he was in - last time, it was about dreams he had, and he ended up talking with Keira about these, but this time there were more people around, so even with the trust he had for Johnson, being completely honest about what was happening could have been risky, and cause potential problems.
- When I was sitting there, I had to focus on something as I recovered so I was looking at the wall - John started making up a story, explaining how he got to finding the panel to be different - and I caught a glance of light reflection on the surface of the wall. Here, this place, and this one - he was pointing at the spots where he found the rough surface - You see? These squares have different structure than the rest of the outer layer.
Martin squinted his eyes, but it seemed he had trouble to find a difference, so he ultimately turned on his PEC's vision assist.
- You must have a really good eyesight to find something like that with your own eyes - he commented on his friend noticing the square-shaped patches of panel's outer surface - Are you sure you didn't have your implant on this whole time?
Major shrugged.
- I cannot be sure, I was quite shaken due to the situation I was in, so maybe I had it on - Marlow did not want anyone in the group questioning his finding anymore - Either way, it makes this panel different. Maybe it's worth checking?
- Isn't this one in the opposite direction from where we are supposed to head? - Alina, who was listening from the sight, pointed that out - I trust you, John, but we already went in the opposite direction quite a bit, and it feels that we are getting farther from our target. Do we have any reason for trying to check this spot?
Truth be told, Marlow did not have any reasonable answer to that question, and telling them he is relying on some unknown code that installed on his implant could make them consider him insane.
- I don't have anything to ensure you this is a good idea, it's just my gut feeling. On the other hand, we already walked quite a bit around, so I don't think it's going to matter much if we spend a few more minutes in this spot.
Boskovitch sighed, yet she did not complain.
- Ok, if you say so.
With that, John started thinking about how these abnormalities in the wall's surface could be used. The most obvious way would be just putting a hand within the square area, but he did not know what he should expect to happen. Of course, there was not much to think about here, as long as he believed the strange app is really guiding him. While previously he felt he could go crazy because of it, Marlow actually thought that he would appreciate to hear voices to guide him now, yet nothing like this happened.
Having no other ideas on spot, John placed his left, cyber hand on the square, in case there would be any unwanted behavior from this panel. In order to do that, he had to stretch his arm as the patch was quite a bit above his head.
Still, there was no reaction, so he moved the hand back. Then, he took a deep breath, and did the same action with his right hand, with the same reaction.
Lack of response made him think about leaving the spot, but this very moment, a string of hexadecimals flooded the interface view, and both rough patches changed the position, or rather - the rough areas above disappeared, and new ones appeared much lower, around the height of the human waist.
- Don't look at me, John, I have no idea - Martin said, feeling that his friend looked at him.
- I need you to help me try something - John told him.
- What is it?
- I have an idea the positions of these square areas on the panel gave me, though I won't be able to check it on my own. And here comes you.
Johnson seemed uneasy about it, but nodded after moment of thought.
Afterwards, John instructed him to stand in front of the patch on the right, while taking the left one instead. Then, each of them placed right hand on the rough spot, yet nothing happened.
Marlow, who was pretty sure about being right on the topic, seemed confused, and already planning what to do next, when Martin spoke to him:
- John, have you seen that?
John looked and saw his friend moving the hand left and right, making the rough square patch move alongside his hand, changing the position.
- Interesting, but why is it that yours behaves like that and there was no reaction from mine?
Martin shrugged.
- I have no idea.
- Can you show me what you exactly did so far?
Johnson nodded and attempted to move the square back to the original spot, yet it did not work, making him look confused.
- What in the...?
He started moving his hand around, and the patch moved at some point.
Martin continued for a moment with John standing next to him, and observing. After a while, Marlow clasped his hands.
- I think I got this - he said, showing Johnson to step back and putting his own right hand on the patch. Then, he managed to move the square around the panel - Ok, it seems to be the case.
He moved his hand back and went to the second patch, but this one was not reacting to the same movement he did just a moment before.
- Martin, can you come here? - he asked his friend, who walked there - Put your left hand here in this position and try to move it.
Johnson nodded, and managed to move the square around, much to his own surprise.
- Wait, why is it working with me?
- Give me more time - John told him, while walking to the patch on the right side - Ok, now try to move it towards me, and I will move your way, so we meet in the middle.
Both did what they agreed to and managed to connect two squares in the middle of the panel.
- Ok, John, so what's this about? - Martin looked really curious - Did you figure it out?
- I cannot say for sure that I did, though I think I get why I couldn't move it. If I'm right, this is another type of interface here, which requires an organic operator, hence my left arm is not working here.
- Ok, but you used the right hand too.
- Can you try yours then? And see if it works?
Johnson did, but there was no reaction, so he looked at this friend, surprised, while Marlow smiled and said:
- For some reason, it seems to tell apart left hand from the right hand, and the placement of fingers matters. Of course, it may be just a coincidence, and ultimately it only relies on five touchpoints for controls, but we know for sure you need organic tissue to touch the interface to operate it.
- Makes sense. So, what do we do now? It doesn't look anything happened so far.
John nodded.
- It is interface, I'm confident about it. We just need to figure out how to use it properly. I think it may be a kind of a puzzle, where you need to set the squares in correct spots.
As they were discussing the topic, Alina approached the wall and looked at how the squares were positioned now.
- What about just trying to push the squares with two hands at the same time? - she asked.
- Wouldn't it be to easy then? - it was Martin who said that as he looked at John, before moving his eyes to Alina.
Boskovitch shrugged, put both hands on the squares and pushed. Seconds after, a creaking sound echoed.