Cross My Mind

A PUZZLING OCCURRENCE

……

Back in Houston Texas in Neuratechnologies headquarters, Akihiro has finished modifying the copy of MEDULLA he has made, after a week of modifying codes and test runs, he has finally achieved a feat he would have thought impossible a few years back. While his new Artificial intelligence is not exactly a sentient being like MEDULLA, it is capable of calculations that can be translated into deciding factors for taking or not taking a particular action.

“Plug in and install the new firewalls so I can start my installation”. Akihiro said to the five junior staff in MEDULLA’S control room. The five people all moved to different stations and started pressing buttons and plugging cables in and out of the super Computer. In a few minutes of their activities around the Supercomputer, Akihiro was ready to start his installation.

He walked to a set of keyboard and monitor on one face of the large machine and slide in a memory disk into an opening next to the screen. Starting up the installation with a bar showing the progress which at the moment is only two percent complete.

****(NASA safe house in Texas)****

Four days later

“Engineer Shadrach Anthony, I am so sorry for what happened at your department yesterday, as you instructed we have retrieved all the components and equipments you have described for extraction. Please verify that nothing is missing so I can sign the staff out” said Miss. Zoe from the supplies department. Zoe is a woman of forty nine years old, heading the supplies department of NASA research on robotic technology. She is the person who all NASA researchers turn to when they want an equipment that cannot be found normally or when they need access to machines that are classified because of how dangerous they are.

Shadrach has been working with Zoe since his time as an astronaut, she is a supportive friend and a good mentor to him.

He stepped into the warehouse and went round the equipments laid open in wooden boxes all around the floor.

“It is such a shame that I have to leave my house, I lived in my San Diego home for thirteen years now, such a sh……….. what is that? Why did you couple that up? I repeated clearly that my equipments are not to be altered. I want everything transported the way it is to me” Shadrach broke his own speech and said to Zoe.

“What do you mean? I monitored the movement by myself and you should know better that my department does not touch stuff we have no permission to. The parts are exactly how we found them”. Zoe responded.

Reece walked into the warehouse to find Shadrach and Zoe standing where Shadrach goes on and on about how his experimental piece has been altered from the way he left it.

“What is going on here? Why are you all worked up?”. She asked

“Engineer Shadrach here thinks his weird robot here was messed with during the transport over from San Diego” Zoe said pointing at the robot inside the box. Reece needed but one look at the piece to know that it indeed wasn’t how they left it.

“he is right, when we were evacuated, the torso of this robot was definitely separate from the feet. How in God’s name did this happen?” Reece shouted out.

As if hit by a sudden thought, Reece began checking the smaller boxes one by one and neither Zoe, nor Shadrach knows what she was doing until she found a box at the edge of the Pile of boxes where she stood looking inside the box with a concerned facial expression.

“Holly s**t, what the hell is going on here? How can the processing unit be completed, I was only halfway done making it when we were attacked”.

“How could this be?” she added as she reached her hands into the box to pick up the completed super Central Processing unit.

“Oh my God, this is perfect, I am not sure it would have turned out to be this good if I had completed it” Reece said to Shadrach who at the moment turned to Zoe.

“I need the details of who was in and out of the house while we were gone, this is top secret research and Dr. Reece is the only person who knows how to make the processing unit. We need to know who we are up against and how they know my research so well as well as what their actions may mean” he said.

“No! I think I know who exactly did this, you are also wrong Shadrach. We are not the only persons that know about your research. My child knows too” Reece said.

It took Shadrach a few seconds to process and understand what Reece has just said to him.

“You don’t mean…..”.

“yes I do. MEDULLA, I’m going to need a computer connected to a secure network. You should check your robot, it seems like our work has been done for us, we just have to finish it up” Dr. Reece said.