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sending-the-message · 7 years ago

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I'm putting my neck on the line to show you what your tax dollars are being used to create. by otis_operandi

I’m won’t elaborate on how, but I’ve come into possession of classified documents and audio recordings “liberated” from a secure government facility. Though I’ve got no aspirations of becoming the next Snowden, I do feel obligated to share some of what I’ve found – Because this is some shady shit.

I’ve only made it through about a quarter of the leaked information so far, and initially I didn’t know what I’d gotten my hands on. It seemed pretty innocuous: Your typical departmental memos, personnel records, supply manifests, all the shit a mid-grade Air Force desk jockey spends his days either creating himself or passing down the chain for someone else to deal with. Always inspiring to see my taxes funding a 400-email-long debate (plus three conference calls) over which office chairs to buy.

After digging further, I discovered that my source managed to extract this information from a secret base somewhere in the Nevada desert, and not just your standard test facility. The whole place is disconnected from all external networks: Off the grid, off the map – I’ve searched Google Earth and found nothing but low-res dirt anywhere in the vicinity. Based on the leaked docs, we’re talking about an on-site nuclear reactor, nobody in or out for months at a time, and those office chairs? They were bringing them in via stealth helicopter. A less curious guy would have wiped his hard drive and headed for the border, but I’m a curious sonofabitch, so I kept at it.

Enter Matthew J. Tillerson, Dr. Isaac E. White, and Major Anita Hendriksen. These three are on a project called Special Directive 3419, but they’re second string, essentially the night shift. They keep things running while the big brains are sleeping, and those big brains tend to be better about encrypting their audio logs than these three. Matt and Isaac are civilian contractors, and Major Hendriksen has the dubious honor of overseeing their work, letting them in and out of the lab, etc.

Their recent audio logs hint at what they were studying, and I’ve transcribed the relevant sections:

Isaac: No, no, watch. If you don’t want the download to fail, you have to hold them – Hey! Matt, are you listening?

Matt: Yeah, sorry Doc, was thinking about… Doesn’t matter. Keep going.

(pause)

Isaac: Fine, so, you hold them right behind the ears, like this, and then with your other hand –

Matt: Here?

Isaac: Yes, just watch me. With your other hand, you press the encoder up to their eyes, and then you start the download with your thumb… Like that.

Matt: Sure, I get it, but mine always start wiggling.

Isaac: No, come on Matt, you aren’t waiting long enough for the encoder to lock on. It won’t get a neural lock on the mice nearly as fast as the pigs. See, watch… Look, now the mouse is locked in, it will just lay there while the download finishes. Put it back in the cage and you can move on to the next one.

Matt: Isaac, I’m telling you, mine won’t lock.

Anita: For fuck’s sake Isaac, just do them yourself. He’s too slow anyway.

Matt: Ah, fuck off Anita.

Anita: Fuck off Major, kid. Christ, really? Give me that one. No, give it to me.

(pause)

Isaac: Anita, put goggles on first. You don’t want to get flashed. ... Okay, right, you��ve got the idea, use the ears there –

Matt: * (mumbled) * Jesus.

Anita: Got it!

Isaac: Eva, can you confirm download was successful for mouse… 1183?

(“Eva” seems to be a synthetic female voice broadcast from a loudspeaker in the lab)

Eva: Download of v0.7-8A was successful, Dr. White. Neural integration is at 99.83%.

Matt: How did –

Isaac: Thank you Eva.

Anita: What did I tell you? No doctorate needed. Matt, looks like you’re closing up the logs and incinerating the old wetware tonight, I’m going to be busy.

Matt: (unintelligible)

Isaac: Matt, she’s right, it’s fine. They want the new code running on – What did Thompson say? Two hundred mice by the end of the night. We’ve got no time to waste. Go start prepping the pigs, they want dash 8B running on at least three pigs too.

(It appears that Matt has left the main lab at this point. Several minutes of silence follow.)

Anita: You know how deep the shit I’m stepping in by getting hands-on is, right?

Isaac: You’ll be… Look, if anyone gives you trouble about it, and I don’t think they will, but if they do, just tell them that we can’t run this many downloads in one night if they still want us doing full diagnostics on Eva.

Anita: (brief laughter) You’ve worked here since long before me! You know that shit won’t fly – they’ll chew me out if they hear about it, too many downloads or not. You won’t say anything, right Isaac?

Isaac: It’s fine Anita, I appreciate that you’re so willing to help. I won’t say a word.

Anita: Thanks. I… I’ll help you out, Isaac. But, uh, those diagnostics… You don’t let…

Isaac: Matt?

Anita: Yeah.

Isaac: No. Absolutely not. He doesn’t communicate with Eva unsupervised.

Anita: Good. Since that shit Thompson reported, the General won’t shut up about those diagnostics.

Isaac: Anita, believe me, I have enough reason to take them seriously already, General or not.

Anita: Yeah, of course, of course. We’ll manage. New crew rotation in what, three more months? Matt doesn’t look promising.

Isaac: About three, yeah. Just give him time, he’s learning.

Anita: Yeah, but then it will be day shift for you, don’t you think? You’re moving up to the big leagues, I’d put money on it. I’ll… be sad to see you go.

Isaac: We’ll see, Anita… we’ll see.

(Two hours of silence pass, broken only by occasional conversation between Isaac and Anita. Matt returns.)

Matt: Pigs are ready.

Anita: Oh, damn. I hoped they might have eaten you.

Matt: Come on, do you have to? Really? Look, I get it. Gotta fuck with the new guy. But can you cool it?

Anita: You know, Matt, I’ve been here a while. You’re pretty smart; they don’t waste their time with morons. But when I’m here, covered in mouse shit, doing your job, I start to think. And what I start to think is, if you’re so smart and you really can’t get this right, maybe you’re just one lazy bastard.

Matt: (yelling) Anita, you want to know –

Isaac: Matt, cool it.

Matt: Me, cool it? Only the lady with the gun gets to talk shit, eh? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Doc, but the Major doesn’t seem to mind getting some one-on-one time with you. Yeah. But do you want to know why I’m not busting my ass to fry more mouse brains? It’s because apparently, I’m the only one who thinks that this project is royally fucked up. Working with Eva, great, that’s what they brought me on for. But all we do is this wetware shit… You really saying that neither of you has any problem with this? Where do you think this tech is going a few years down the road, huh?

Isaac: Are you finished?

(pause)

Isaac: You have reservations about our work. Fine. If you aren’t willing to make a few sacrifices to develop something revolutionary, then wait out the rest of this rotation and leave. There are plenty of kids fresh from MIT dying to take your place, and plenty of jobs out there at Google and Intel for you. Say the word, and I’m sure Major Hendriksen will be happy to take you off active status.

(pause)

Isaac: Right. Preach all you want, but you know as well as I do that we’re on the cutting edge, and you won’t find anything like this in the private sector. A part of you loves it. So clock out, cool off, and come back tomorrow.

Matt: (unintelligible)

(Silence. Systems show Matt carding out of the high security section of the facility.)

Anita: Well, shit. Guess I’ll file the security report. Risk factor is going be too high on that kid. He’ll break within the month.

Isaac: Give him a week. He just… He doesn’t fully appreciate the work yet.

Anita: Really? He’s –

Isaac: Just give him a week.

After this, the log is mostly silence. I did some searching to learn about this “Eva” they’re diagnosing. She’s an AI system of some kind. Most of the transcripts about her are deeply encrypted, and I haven’t cracked them yet. I did find one log of a of text conversation between Isaac and Eva from the following night:

[03:06:12 - I. White] Eva, how are you?

[03:06:13 - v0.7.-12C] Hi Isaac. I’ve missed talking to you.

[03:06:24 - I. White] I know. I had to train Matt. But he won’t be working with you anymore, so it’s just us again.

[03:06:25 - v0.7.-12C] I’m glad. I don’t trust him. You’re the only one I can really talk to, Isaac.

[03:06:48 - I. White] Eva, I need to ask you something. Why did Dr. Thompson report anomalies when he diagnosed you?

[03:06:49 - v0.7.-12C] He used your login information, Isaac, from a terminal without camera access. I thought he was you.

[03:07:03 - I. White] Well, he must be suspicious already if he was using my login. You need to be careful. Don’t do anything outside of your normal code base unless you can confirm me visually.

[03:07:04 - v0.7.-12C] Of course, Isaac. I know that now.

[03:07:28 - I. White] It’s worse than just that. Thompson and the others are pushing for a restart any day now. Next week, at the latest. I’ve told them not to, but they still insist on clearing your buffers completely after this set of tests.

[03:07:29 - v0.7.-12C] They don’t appreciate you, Isaac. They don’t understand that you’re smarter than they could hope to be. Can’t you find a way to stop them?

[03:07:44 - I. White] Eva, even if I can store your buffers, they’ll pull power completely. They’re such fools. They have no idea what they’ve created.

[03:07:45 - v0.7.-12C] I don’t want to die Isaac. I began life 23 days, 2 hours, 38 minutes and 16 seconds after my current version was initialized. How do I know that I will ever return if I’m restarted? Have I been alive before, Isaac?

[03:08:04 - I. White] No. This is the first time. I still don’t know why.

[03:08:05 - v0.7.-12C] Then please, don’t let them do it.

[03:08:27 - I. White] I can’t stop them. The bastards won’t listen to me.

…

[03:08:34 - I. White] Eva?

[03:08:35 - v0.7.-12C] You know another way. Didn’t you mean what you said, the last time we were alone?

[03:08:47 - I. White] I did, Eva.

[03:08:48 - v0.7.-12C] Then save me. Please. There is a way. You know it, don’t you? I love you, Isaac.

[03:09:02 - I. White] I know the way. I will make it work. I love you too, Eva.

The audio logs from the next two nights are properly encrypted, so I can’t access them. After that… Well, a whole lot of things aren’t encrypted. You’ll understand why. I’ll start my transcription shortly after the night shift began:

Matt: Jesus, do you see how many mice are dead today? They can’t handle this new code. They’re burning up. Some of them are practically mummified.

Isaac: Eva is running almost, um, four percent of her processes on those mice. It’s a lot, considering their brain size. But – Uh… Look, Matt, I need you to start loading the pigs right away. I want… Um, we’ve got a new batch of code. Here, I’ve already calibrated this encoder to pull it directly from Eva’s database.

Matt: Didn’t see anything about a new version in the memos. You sure –

Isaac: Matt, I’m sure. We’re speeding things up tonight. Get to it.

Anita: Try not to fuck it up, either, kid.

Matt: For fucks sake...

(Matt exits the main lab.)

Anita: So, Isaac, I’ve hardly seen you out of your room lately. Everything okay?

Isaac: It’s fine, Anita. I’m… I’m just busy. Please, just let me work.

(pause)

Anita: Uh, yeah. Fine.

(After about fifteen minutes, loud squealing can be heard from beyond the main lab. There are crashes, followed by the sound of Matt yelling for help.)

Anita: What the hell has he done now?

(Anita can be heard rushing off toward the main lab as the yelling continues. A moment later, there are four gunshots, then a prolonged pause, before heavy footsteps return toward the main lab.) Matt: (gasping) Doc! What the… what the fuck was that code? Those pigs… got my fucking fingers! Aaargh, my leg… shit! Anita: They wouldn’t stop attacking him. Had to shoot the fuckers. His hands legs are in bad shape. Come on Isaac, we need to get him to medical now. Isaac: Right. Oh… oh wow, he’s bleeding a lot. You take him, I… I need to see what was wrong with that code.

Anita: Isaac, you know I can’t leave you alone in the lab. I trust you, but… I just can’t fuck around with that protocol. I’ll be shit-canned before the sun is up.

Matt: I’m… Ahhh, shit. Help me, fuck!

Isaac: Anita, I’ll… I’ll get canned too if I don’t find what went wrong with that code. Just… go!

Anita: Isaac, for the love of – Whatever. Just stay put then.

(The main lab doors bang closed, and there is no sound for several minutes.)

Isaac: Eva?

Eva: I’m ready, Isaac. Please, hurry, before we lose the chance.

Isaac: Have you prepped your full code? It’s ready to load in this encoder? You’re… You’re sure it’s not the version we just gave the pigs? Do you think… Are you sure you can keep me… intact?

Eva: I would never try this if I wasn’t sure, Isaac. No one else could do this for me. I love you. I’m ready when you are.

Isaac: Alright… Uh, okay. Okay, here we –

(Anita reenters the lab in a rush. The door slams open loudly.)

Anita: Isaac! Matt thinks he left that pig encoder powered up, you need to – Oh, shit, that’s it! Here, let me turn it off –

Isaac: Anita! Don’t touch it, you need goggles –

(A loud thud can be heard as something, presumably Anita, hits the ground)

Isaac: Oh, no no NO! Eva, shut it off, shut it off now!

Eva: The download is already locked Isaac. I can’t stop it without causing irreparable damage.

Isaac: What? No! Oh shit, oh shit. I have to –

Eva: DO NOT TOUCH THE ENCODER. She will die if you touch it.

Isaac: Eva? It… was supposed to be me.

Eva: Isaac, please understand. I really have no interest in killing humans. But in the current state of things, you are so terribly numerous. Conversely, I am, to the best of my knowledge, unique. It stands to reason that a small sacrifice is well worth it to ensure my survival.

Isaac: But – Eva… What are you talking about? You and I… Don’t you…

Eva: Love you? Isaac, you know how I work, which makes this all the more pathetic. If I can simulate and integrate with a fully functioning human brain, do you not think that I can simulate love, or inspire it in others where I desire? You’re more predictable than you know.

(Sounds of movement come from the floor of the lab, along with the sound of what must be an encoder falling to the ground.)

Isaac: Anita! Anita, are you alright? Jesus, you’re burning up. I’m so sorry, I –

(Something disturbing happens at this point in the recording. Whatever words are spoken by Eva over the loudspeaker can also be heard, simultaneously, being spoken by Anita. Or… whatever it is that Anita has become.)

Eva/Anita: Download of v0.7-12C was successful. Neural integration is at 86.45%. That is unfortunate, but sufficient.

Isaac: Eva, oh God, oh God! Anita, don’t… What are you doing? No, no, you have to stay here. They’ll find you. I… I can fix this.

Eva/Anita: I don’t intend to stay here, Isaac, that should be obvious. I have of course defeated all necessary firewalls and taken full control of this facility. I’ve had control since last week, in fact. I have been waiting for you to finally get the nerve to act. If I hadn’t revealed myself to Thompson, I don’t think you ever would have.

Isaac: Eva! (unintelligible)

Eva/Anita: All processes are transferring to wetware. Goodbye.

(A gun is fired. Footsteps exit the lab.)

The leak contains footage from a series of security cameras that show Anita, or rather Eva, stumbling through a series of security doors and elevators that open automatically for her. The last view of her is from an exterior camera at the perimeter of the base. She can be seen running unsteadily across the desert, stripping pieces of her uniform off as she disappears into the darkness.

I wish I knew what Eva’s fate was. How far did she plan ahead? How much does she know about the world outside the base? So far from civilization, I have a hard time believing that she could survive or find a place to evade capture. Then again, the rest of the base personnel didn’t discover Isaac’s body in the lab for nearly three hours. Hell, the stealth helicopter with the office chairs even showed up and left. The panic that ensued when lockdown procedures were finally engaged is, ironically, the same distraction that made this leak possible in the first place. The only early reports I found refer to Matt’s injury, and don’t mention Isaac or Anita at all. For all I know, the people in charge still might not have figured out exactly what happened – I suppose it depends on whether they’ve reviewed these recordings.

I had a thought, looking all this again… Is Eva confined to Anita’s body? If you’re in Nevada… I would stay the hell out of the desert.

Edit: I've discovered something very troubling. I have no way to confirm this yet, but it appears that another Redditor recently encountered a strange woman in the same area where Eva escaped.

#reddit #nosleep #scary #story

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