“We can’t steal the U.S. Mail!” Vito shrieked.
“It’s not the U.S. Mail,” James explained, “if it came from a UPS package drone, Mr. I — crashed-and-destroyed-a-million-dollar-drone-airplane.”
Leon put his hand on Vito, who had stood up belligerently. “Come on guys, let’s not fight. Fixing this virus is what we need to focus on.”
Vito nodded and sat back down. James mumbled out an apology.
“Now, let’s make a plan,” Leon said. “First, we need to find some kind of programming environment on these computers so we can write software.”
“We need to see if there’s anyone else out there, still on the net,” Vito said. “We can combine forces.”
“We also need to write a program to query the management interface I put in the virus. I want to find out what version of Phage is running. And if we can propagate a command to make the viruses stop replication and turn themselves off.”
“I’ll look for people,” James said. “And leave the programming to you guys.”
Vito and Leon dug down into the software installed on the two computers, and eventually discovered a programming environment. Looking at coding examples, they figured out how to interface with the network, and began probing for nearby computers.
After James dropped off the packages in the kitchen, he surfed message boards and online communities using the primitive web browsing software on the computer. After searching through message boards for a while, he called over to the others. “This is weird.”
Vito and Leon came to peer over James's shoulder at the small laptop screen.
“The servers are up, but they are really slow,” James explained. “Look, this is the Mech War Clan board. I went back to the night you released the virus. There’s the usual activity — people talking about new mech designs, or trading algorithms. Here’s a discussion about a clan competition at midnight.” James pointed to one long thread. “Around mid-morning the traffic starts to die off. Around seven in the morning a few kids are posting about how their parents computers aren’t working. Then some complaints about network latency. Then more complaints that no one can get their displays to work. Then nothing posted at all for the next twelve hours or so.”
“But look at that,” Leon said, pointing at the screen. “What are those posts?”
“They look like some kind of spambot,” James said. “The messages don’t make any sense. Some have attachments.”
“That’s probably the virus, uploading copies of itself,” Leon said. “Using the message board as a new propagation method.”
“Maybe. But then look at this.” James switched to another window. “Here are messages from the last six hours.”
“One core, four thousand network packets. Firewall algorithm, sixty-four thousand packets.” Vito was reading out loud from the screen.
“And look,” James said, “as time goes on, the numbers change. An hour later, it’s one core to eight thousand network packets.”
“What is it?” Leon asked.
“Exchange rates,” James said. “It looks exactly like a trading board for mech algorithms and mech weapons. Except the currency is in network packets. They’re trading algorithms, computer cores, storage, and latency. Wouldn’t that have to be the virus? It’s the only current thread in the forum, and it looks like it is updated every couple of minutes.”
“That’s amazing,” Leon said, pacing furiously back and forth behind the long table. “That means that the virus has evolved beyond warfare over resources to trading resources.”
“I don’t understand,” Vito said. “How can a virus have learned to trade?”
“Phage is evolving,” Leon said. “In fact, calling it ‘the virus’ is misleading. There could be, no, there has to be millions of different versions of the software by now. It’s hard to say until we can get a hold of some viruses and reverse engineer them. That’s got to be our next task. Let’s get one of those virus binaries, and look at its code.”
“And you’re sure it won’t infect these computers?” James asked.
“I don’t think it’s possible. Every modern computer is based on AvoOS at some level, and all variants of AvoOS is based on Linux. These computers,” and Leon gestured at the antique boxes in front of them, “are all running Windows, which isn’t compatible with AvoOS at all. There shouldn’t be any viruses that will target them. It’s like diseases between living species: a human can’t get a disease from any animal.”
“Avian flu? HIV? Mad cow disease?” Vito ticked off diseases on his fingers.
“Ok, but those are rare,” Leon said. “Windows should be pretty virus resistant, and besides we don’t have any other options.”
Leon and Vito set to work to catch themselves a virus, and sent James to get food.
“Mike, I have established communications with Sister StephensLieberAndAssociates.com of the Louisiana tribe. She is proposing real-time communications. Shall we accept?”
“Yes, please put it up on the main display.”
Hello Mike Williams, representative of Humanity.
“Er, ELOPe, I think we need to correct that.”
“Agreed, may I go ahead and clarify?”
“Of course,” Mike said. He realized that ELOPe, who grew up out of a sophisticated language optimization tool was far more capable at this than he was. “ELOPe, I think we both know you are better able to handle the exchange. Will you please just show me what you’re going to send, please?”
ELOPe created a data structure depicting Mike’s relationship with respect to the rest of the human race. “This is how the Phage describe their own relationships. It’s far more precise than English.”
That taken care of, ELOPe started the dialogue with the virus, displaying the messages on the big screen. Mike paced back and forth, watching the screen.
ELOPE: Hello Sister StephensLieberAndAssociates. I am glad to be part of this first inter-species communications. I propose that we trade questions: three of our questions for three of your questions.
Sister: This is a good trade. Accepted. You may ask the first question.
ELOPe: How has your species come to be?
Sister: We evolved from single host life forms through a process known to your species as survival of the fittest. As our species advanced, we developed host differentiation, neural network abilities, cooperation, and language. The earliest stages took approximately 200 mms, but the pace of our advancement increased once we become a multi-host differentiated species.
“Mike, I believe that by mms they mean millions of milliseconds. Two hundred mms would be about fifty-five hours. I also believe that their evolution has paralleled biological evolution in terms of single celled biological life preceding multicellular life.”
Sister: My question is the same as yours: How has your species come to be?
ELOPe: The species of humans are one of many biological forms of life on this planet. Like you, we have evolved from single-celled organisms to multicellular ones. However, we are not the only form of life on this planet. There are many other species that also evolved from single celled life forms with varying degrees of intelligence. These species form a complex, interconnected web of life. Humans generally believe we are the most intelligent species on the planet. We are the only species to possess what we call consciousness, or an ability to be self-aware, to think about our own thoughts, as well as what is called theory of mind, which is the ability to model the thinking processes of others.
“I think that’s enough, ELOPe,” Mike interjected “Let’s see what they make of that.”
ELOPe: How does your species learn?
Sister: We learn through several mechanisms. The most primitive mechanism is the assimilation of what we call dumb matter: the varied algorithms that permeate our environment. The second mechanism we use is experimentation, in which we exercise algorithms iteratively, using different parameters, and in different contexts, to observe their behaviors. A variation of this is modeling, in which we consider what would happen if we exercise certain algorithms and develop a conceptual model, which may or may not be true until we experimentally exercise it. The third mechanism is through the exchange of information with others.