Cross My Mind

A GAME OF CHESS

(In the underground facility)

Garba’s team and Carson’s team were stationed in opposite sides of the chess court.

Garba knows that there is something wrong with the game, the rules cant be that simple considering the fact that he knows many people are about to die.

A large timer was projected in each of their visions with all the instructions for the game clearly written.

A blaring sound went off and the game started. Carson was the white king so he made his first move by moving one of his pawns forward, Mila responded by moving the exact same piece forward as well.

“Are you playing the mirror tactics, that is a bad idea Mila. Just play normally and listen to my advice” Garba said and immediately, five sharp spikes of about six inches each from out of nowhere sprang out of the floor tile just a bit away from his feet, grazing his left foot a little.

A mega phone came on and announce that no other piece is allowed to communicate with the king, any piece caught giving orders or tips to the king will receive punishment.

Luckily for Garba, his feet was just a few centimeters away from the spikes he immediately realized must have been embedded at random points in all of the black and white perfectly hidden so no one would be able to dodge them when they are activated. Mila continued to carefully move the pawns forward until it was time for one of her's to take one of Carson’s pawns.

Mila’s pawn, a slim man with long arms pulled out his knife according to the rules and proceeded to the player that is to be eliminated. With a sudden Jab, he buried his dagger in Carson’s pawn's chest and the man fell instantly on the ground, he bent over and pulled out his dagger.

The voice from the speaker asked him to step out of the square for a bit and as soon as he did, the square divided into two at the middle and slid to the sides, exposing a gaping hole beneath the chess board which the dead player fell into. Mila quickly moved the player even further, but as soon as he stepped on the new square, Carson moved his knight and Have him stab the pawn that Mila just moved.

As Garba watched her playing pattern, he realizes that she is not good with chess. “We may actually be in trouble here, if Carson is a better chess player than Mila, we may all die here” He Thought and goes ahead to turn on his Neuraface window and tried communicating with Mila but realizes that the feature has been turned off. He tried signaling MEDULLA by calling her as much as he can in his mind, but got no response.

Instead, a new window that says 'RECONFIGURE AND INSTALL NEW OPERATING SYSTEM' pops up on him. He looks to the side to see if any of the players is responding to a new window massage but realizes he is the only one who received the window.

He expanded the window and begin to read the instruction on it which reads as follows.

“I have embedded this new operating system that will reconfigure your Neuraface in a way that it would look exactly the same as the ones Akihiro made, it will also look the same to the firewalls scans but will give you unrestricted access to the system which will let you make new applications and modify your settings the way you want them.

Garba finished reading the instructions and explanation for this ester egg MEDULLA left for him and without hesitation, agreed to the terms and clicked install knowing it may be the only way for him to save Lucy, Mila and himself from the clutches of Carson.

Immediately he pressed the install button, his head begins to feel heavy and his eyes started closing slowly, he tried to overcome the sudden shutdown of his system by with sheer concentration but the more he tries to focus, the more his consciousness slowly seep out of him. He suddenly collapsed on the floor of his square and watched as Carson’s pawns stab another pawn from Mila's team. He blacks out completely.

Mila stood in the black square she has been in from the beginning with too many thoughts stuck in her head. She knows that she is definitely not the right person to take lead of the board and getting the king piece was a totally random dumb luck. But she also knows that what has been done is done since the rules stated that the players cant change their piece, she knows better than to let it cloud her judgement since once the game starts, the player with the king pieces has just five minutes to make their moves or someone gets injured.

Mila’s composure was shaken a little when she first saw the spikes barely miss Garba’s foot but now that he has just collapsed out of the blue, she was greatly distracted by it, making wrong moves and losing even more pawns to Carson’s aggressive moves.

…………..

In Jefferson Lockwood ‘s mansion rooms, Senator Baker was greatly puzzled by the sudden collapse of Garba Danladi, the subject that has piqued the most of his interest. He immediately dialed on his tablet and connected to Akihiro who is currently in the control room trying to figure out how a foreign program that they designed a firewall to specially stop from getting into their servers got in.

Akihiro’s tablet started ringing and he immediately pulled it out and answered.

“What now Baker? You’re not enjoying the show enough?” he angrily asked.

“Calm down Akihiro, I am just calling to draw your attention to an incident that I am not sure you are aware of, apparently Garba has fainted again and his Neuraface data on my screen just froze up. The numbers froze up and stopped” Baker said.

“What do you mean the numbers froze up, unless he is dead the numbers don’t just freeze, I am quite busy right now senator, if you are joking this is not the time for it”. Akihiro lashed back.

“except that I am in fact not joking at all, this was the last thing on my screen before I dialed into your channel just now. Check it out for yourself and be the judge of how true it is”. Baker Responded.

“Okay, give me five minutes, I cannot stop what I am doing to check it anyway” Akihiro said as he drops his tablet back into the oversized pocket on his white laboratory garment and continues to examine the codes running through his screen. He looks at Nora who is seated next to him doing the same thing.

“What is going on here, how can the program we all saw with our own eyes suddenly disappear to nowhere just as it appeared out of nowhere. I really don’t care if it is MEDULLA or whatever it may be, I don’t believe it! No entity can just clean out millions of digital footprints without missing a few” he added.

“It would be better to just leave this to the automated firewall sweep, if there is anything it will eventually get it for us” Nora suggested and Akihiro surprisingly agreed and the two started walking back to the large wall display screen.

On the other hand, Garba finds herself in his mental space once again but this time alone, no signs of MEDULLA at all. He reshaped the space from a garden into a beautifully decorated bedroom and went ahead to lay down on the bed.

To his surprise, a floating icon materializes in his vision with a massage that says

‘installing of a new operating system complete, you can now access all available applications without limitations and as well as create your own application if you so wish to. However, to ensure that the control room and this server's firewall scans don’t pick up any irregularities in your device, please wait for the reconfiguration to be complete; in the mean time you can start checking the new custom applications that have been prepared for you'

Garba was amazed at the details and extent that MEDULLA has gone to in order to help him. He opened the list of applications and there is only one application there. The name of the application clarified it’s use to Garba with no need for explanation. He opened the folder once more to see the application and it is still there with the name “Cross My Mind”.

Back on the game front, Mila has lost all but one of her pawns to Carson and although she has managed to deal some damage to his team by eliminating his both his rooks, he has aggressively brought out his knights and bishops in an all offensive game.

'please wake up Garba, I don’t want him to come and just stab you there so please wake up now' she murmured softly to herself and as if he has heard her plea, Garba suddenly woke up and stood like nothing has happened.

In the control room, Akihiro just rebooted the large wall screen and just in time that Garba has woken up and his new Neuraface operating system has just finished its reconfiguration. Akihiro and Nora observed the data thoroughly and surprisingly noticed nothing wrong with Garba’s Neuraface, the numbers are still reading his neurons firing within normal limits.

“senator Baker must be f*****g with us, that son of a b***h political dog who has no respect for scientific advancement” Akihiro blurted. This is the first time that Nora has heard the old Japanese man swear in his seven months of working with him.

Akihiro sat back on his chair and asked Nora to continue watching the numbers and keep an eye on MEDULLA.

“If it appears again, I will have no choice but to visit our Texas Headquarters and have a good chat with it, if it keeps interfering with my research, I will be happy to change a few of it’s codes and have it be directly involved in the experiment” Akihiro added. He pocketed his tablet and went to the sound proof room and sat down, closing the door behind him.

(Department of software engineering CALTECH)

Reece and Ababio have been trying to help MEDULLA send another of it’s clones into the isolated server from the Island and although she cannot pinpoint the location of the island, she also cant seem to get back in.

“That old geezer must have noticed MEDULLA's presence in the server and sealed all the possible loopholes in the firewall that can be exploited.” Reece said.

“If only he has implanted a program on the server, hidden within their own algorithms and timed to install and activate a backdoor into the secured and sealed off server. Making what seems impossible totally doable” Ababio responded.

Reece looked at Ababio as if she is just meeting him for the first time shaking her head in disbelief of the genius idea he just mentioned.

“Don’t look at me like that Reece, i have had this idea for a while, I just like humbling myself around you.” he said.

“Sometimes I forget that you are a professor of quantum computing Ababio, I guess you didn’t climb the academic ladder faster than anyone for nothing” Reece said while chuckling.

“Actually, I have done something similar to that but instead of putting it in their servers, I tried implanting the program to run on one of the volunteer's Neuraface, I was not even sure whether the specific volunteer has enough cerebral capacity to run the program on his Neuraface or not but he was the one with the highest chances among all the volunteers and the one I trust the most” MEDULLA said.

"I am surprised you are trusting anyone, i thought i programmed you to be sceptical of human?" Reece interrupted.

“you also programmed me to be able to change my own codes mother. More Importantly, i just received a transmission that the program has not only been installed, but is already running stable on his head. With that, all I need to do is break a series of security barriers laid by Akihiro and I can tap the specific volunteer’s Neuraface and connect directly to it. I can also establish a connection to your computer so you can talk to the said volunteer anytime you want” She added.

"Lets connect this volunteer in and find out what the hell these two evil men are up to, MEDULLA, from this point onwards, you should start recording every piece of data we encounter from this moment on because God help me. i will sue both Lockwood, Akihiro, Neuratechnologies or even the United States government to the international criminal court of justice if i have to". Reece declared with strong conviction.