I have.”
He pishes. “Oh please, Niall’s got nothin’ on me.”
“Who said anything about Niall? I’m talking about Elese.”
Beau opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. He snaps it closed.
Score one for Elese. I switch my focus back to work. “Can we test the connection to DES again? Jarren might have blocked us since you checked.” Before he could pout, I add, “Indulge my paranoia please.”
“All right. How do you want to do it?”
I mull over the problem. Worming is good at getting into places that are supposed to be protected. I wish I could trail a file as it travels to DES’s data clusters. I’d see right where it’s intercepted. But that’s not possible. Not while I’m alive. When I died, I flew through the Q-net and it would have been easy. It was probably just my own version of the afterlife, but…my interactions with the Q-net have been different since then.
My idea might be unconventional and impossible, but worth a try. “Can you send a report to DES’s security marked urgent?”
“What should I write?”
“Just nonsense. It’s not the contents that are important. It’s more the destination. I’m going to try to follow it.”
Beau turns and stares at me. “You can’t do that. No one can.”
I don’t say anything.
“Those routes are for text files. Which you’re not. You can worm into DES’s cluster for urgent information and see if my file shows up. That’s what I did.”
“Can I at least try?”
“But…” He glances away. Drumming his fingers on the desk, he remains quiet for a long while. Finally he says, “After you had the Q-net outline the HoLFs, Radcliff asked me to take the video footage of the pits from after you first saw them and have the Q-net mark the HoLFs.”
Huh. I cross my arms. Why didn’t he ask me? “And?”
“It wouldn’t work. I even took it to your cluster. Nothing.”
“You wormed into my cluster?”
“Took me hours, and the only reason I got in without setting off any alarms was because I was there when you layered in the security measures.”
In that case, my ego isn’t as bruised. However, more important than my ego are the results. “Nothing at all?”
“Nope.”
Am I surprised? I do call it my cluster for a reason. But still…
“That’s why I’m going to let you waste both our time to try to follow that file. I reserve the right to say, ‘I told you so’ when it fails.”
“Duly noted.”
Beau writes up a short report that says, ‘This is an exercise in futility.’ Then he marks it urgent. Ready? he asks through the Q-net.
I close my eyes for a more immersive experience and concentrate on the file. Towing it into my cluster, I imagine in detail what I wish to do. The file transforms into a snake of data strung together like beads. It wraps around me. It’s hard to describe because, in the Q-net, you don’t have a form, but you have a presence. And now there’s a weight to my presence. A strange unease flicks through me. What if I get trapped or lost? Would I forever be entangled in the Q-net? Or would I go insane?
It’s too late for doubts. Go, I say.
Beau hits send. And I fly. Pulled along on the invisible paths through the Q-net. Similar to the star roads, but not as…complex and beautiful. It’s linear, making sharp, nausea-inducing turns.
Until it smacks into a wall. A painful wave ricochets in my head—talk about solid security measures. Then the file is sucked into a huge sorting cluster. Lots of information from Yulin. So far so good. A plug and chug program sorts them and puts all the biology reports together, matches the administrative files, sends messages on to their final destination, etc...
My urgent file is tugged from the big cluster and put into a database with others marked urgent. Lots of others. All sitting there. I scan dates, the oldest is 2522:139. That’s too old. These shouldn’t be stored, but sent to the proper personnel in DES. The older ones might have gone on and then been stored here after they’ve been read, but the new one shouldn’t have stopped.
Beau worms through a tight gap. See, I told you it’s getting to DES.
Is this the same place you checked for your other test file? I ask.
Yes. What’s wrong?
Can’t you see all these files?
I see the urgent file and a few other reports.
There’s hundreds here.
You must have damaged your brain with this stunt, Beau says.
I’m fine. Can you go out and come