The Holographic Boy

Undercover

Last night was pretty uneventful. Dylan made a Chicken Salad and watched me eat and i made a kind of breakthrough with an automated pairing system for food flavours, that way the system knows what chicken and rosemary taste like on their own and can now sense and match the 2 together without me having to program a third flavour. With that its just a case of all the basic flavours and a load of tests.

I went to bed and left Dylan to his own devices.

i woke up in the morning and Dylan was nowhere to be seen. i grabbed a cup of coffee and went to the office, i might as well just put a bed in there, and at my desk was sat Dylan.

Dylan - what does undercover mean?

Tom - it means to pretend to be someone else to fit in.

Dylan - oh, so you need to go undercover at Intel.

Tom - What?!?!?

i ran over to the computer

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Undercover Mission - Solo

Intel

Hardware Designer

Alien Tech authorised for creation of defective next gen computer hardware for infiltration and investigation of Intel. New processors are ahead by 30 years, investigate the source and destroy any Alien Tech found.

No Witnesses

Lethal Force authorised

Full Report Required

Pay 10,000,000

Interview set for 13.00hrs today - don't fail it, find attached your history and documents and supplies will be delivered at 8am

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The door bell rang snapping my attention from the screen

Tom - stay here

i went to the door and looked through the eye hole, looked like a delivery woman, i opened the door and she handed me a box, after thanking her i shut the door and went back to the office. opening the box i found a lot of paperwork, Birth Certificate, Passport, Work History, a load of educational certificates all based around computing even a bank account and a wooden box at the bottom with a finger print scanner, i put my thumb on it and it opened revealing some Alien Tech. Dylan just sat there quietly watching me as i went into an almost trance state, working, designing and making a new CPU, 83 cores, make it look like i fit as many on as possible knowing it won't be able to handle the load, use a bit of Alien Solder so it can support a higher connection rate, next programme the software for it, it will keep the unit working at a highly increased level until burning out at which point the programme will fuse it to make sure it can't be replicated without me, it will track how much is going through it and once it reaches a certain threshold it will show signs to the user of an intermittent lag before fusing, this should make them believe the lag can be fixed and that will prevent the unit from fusing. I look at the clock, 10am, its a 2hr 30min drive to the Intel building.

Tom - I need to go to work, do me a favour, don't answer the door for anyone and if anyone does break in i need you to hide your watch somewhere and deactivate yourself.

Dylan - You're scaring me

Tom - I know and I'm sorry, but this mission isn't like the others, this isn't a fast couple of hour mission, this is a few days or weeks, i can't use my real address or details.

Dylan - please let me come with you

Tom - i can't, I'm going to have a caretaker who will keep watch over me, their undercover will have been in place for weeks or months or even years, they can't see you.

Dylan - just where my watch, you can use an earpiece to talk to me and i can just listen

Tom - fine

I take Dylan's watch off of his wrist and he pixilates into nothingness, i put it on and place a Bluetooth earpiece in my ear, i also grab a set of smart glasses that i made that look normal to everyone unless you're the wearer.

Tom - can you see and hear?

Dylan - yes, its like I'm look through your eyes.

Tom - you need to stay quiet unless i talk to you directly, you can't distract me whilst I'm doing this.

Dylan - understood, going silent

He stops talking and i grab things and head to the car, as I'm driving i use the smart glasses to rent a furnished apartment nearby the building and arrange a rental car to and have it delivered to the apartment. About 10mins from the apartment i get a text saying the car has been delivered and the keys posted through the letter box. I call up the Landlord and he tells me there is a door key in a fake stone next to the door. I pull up and get out of the Lexus, i run upto the apartment open the door, throw in a bag and gran the rental car keys. I get into the rental car and set off to Intel, its only a 5 minute drive from the apartment so i shouldn't be late.

i arrive at intel and now the act starts. i pull into a space and start walking for the car to the building doing full turns as i look around and looking like I'm awkwardly out of place as i walk up to the glass front of the building seeing as the receptionist watches me, i try to pull on the push door and the receptionist gestures me to push. i push and go in looking slightly down in embarrassment.

Tom - sorry about that

Receptionist- its no problem, it happens all the time, how can i help you today?

i rummage through my bag and pull out the interview confirmation letter and show it to her.

Tom - I have an interview at 1

Receptionist- ah, with the R&D department, if you would like to take a seat i will let them know you are here.

Tom - Thank you

i turn and go to a seat and sit down on the edge of it, i lean forward and star towards my feet and play with my fingers to show anxiety. i learned a few years ago that the receptionist will report back to the higher ups anything that seems strange so the act has to begin immediately. After about 10 minutes the lift opens and a guy in a lab coat gets off and walks over to the receptionist, they talk for a few seconds and then he comes over to me.

John - you must be Cole, I'm John, the head of R&D and i will be doing your interview today and if you are successful then your introduction too.

Tom - Yes sir

John - John is fine, come on, follow me

I follow him anxiously, we get in the lift and he presses floor 27, the lift doors opens into a lab and he walks off towards a side room, i stand there looking in awe at the lab until he calls to me and i follow. we go inside the small room, there is a computer on one side of the desk with a load of computer parts next to it.

John - just take a seat on the other side of the table Connor

i sit down

Tom - That Cole sir

John - oh yes, sorry, i interview a lad earlier today named Connor. So let's get straight into it. You have passed our security checks and you education is amazing but you don't have a social media presence, why is that?

i give him a slightly confused look, a lot of people don't know or realise that companies check your social media.

Tom - honestly speaking i don't like how much unnecessary information they gather. on top of that i don't see the point of joining a social network where people just complain about things that don't actually matter, neither does social media, it won't be there forever but technology will so that is the future, not a network where i would only add my mum and dad since i don't actually have any friends anyway.

John - wow, okay then.

Tom - sorry

John - its fine, a lot of us here have a tendency to trail off a bit. so your were asked to bring something in to show your skill.

I look through my bag and pull out the CPU, no box or anything to protect it and even blow some fluff off of it. i place it on the table.

Tom - its an 83 core processor i have been working on for a couple of months now

John - 83? making sure you can fit it all on there?

Tom - sorry, its a ridiculous idea, I'm sorry for wasting your time.

I get up acting as anxious as i can and take the CPU off the table and before i can even take a step to the door.

John - no, no, let me have a look, thats what we do up here, research and develop.

i hand him the CPU and sit back down, he plugs it into one of the computer pieces on the desk and starts tapping away.

John - so i can see that it is actually 83 cores, no i will just run a test program... yeah its running that with ease, like try running 10 consecutively... still no issues and it is doing it with ease, lets slam it up to a little above the processor's range and run 45 consecutive tests which would do a 90 core processor - his eyes widen - this is amazing, its over-clocking really well however it does unsurprisingly have a little lag, shit...

he types furiously on the computer.

John - sorry, I pushed it to far. its not working now

Tom - its fine, i can repair it and it does still have some bugs to work out anyway

John - well i hope you can fix it here, we would love to have you on our team.

Tom - oh my god, thank you sir so much

John - no, thank you, you are clearly a very good mind and we would be foolish to let it slip through our fingers. are you free now?

Tom - yes sir, i can start straight away

John - haha no i mean for your induction, but you can start tomorrow if you would like

Tom - yes sir, that would be great.

John - well follow me and i will show you around.

He took me around to all the stations and the supply room and talked me through how to ask for supply's not available and to always ask because if i can't come up with a solutionmaybe some one else can, blah blah blah. At the other side of the lab there was another set of doors.

Tom - whats through there John?

John - oh thats the secure lab, I'm afraid your authorisation won't let you in there and everything that is worked on in there is top secret.

Tom - okay, i understand, thank you John

John - well here is your ID, you work 5 days a week and must put in 50hour, the building is open 24hours so thats down to you when you do it and everything will be ready for you from 9am tomorrow, so you can go home and celebrate, also we have a Dinner in a few days, it would be a great time for you to meet some of the other people in the company

Tom - okay

John - and don't forget to bring your girlfriend.

Tom - Erm, i don't have a girlfriend

John - oh, well your boyfriend then, i don't want to hear any excuses and i will see you tomorrow.

He just waved at me as the lift door closed, i didn't know what to say, s**t. what do i do about that.

I headed back to the apartment and let Dylan retake his watch and i ordered a Pizza. Dylan spent most the night talking about how cool Intel was and asked me why i behaved so strangely. after that i went to bed, ready to be up and ready tomorrow.