Ch 73 destined (pt.1)

3 February, 1996, AIX Technologies Group, Florida, USA

Justin Silus stared at his computer screen, watching the code and the diagnostic information flash back and forth. A frown marred his features for a moment, as he read the results.

Sighing, he twisted away from his computer, and walked over to a large table. He stared down at the surface, watching the map as it twisted and writhed, and once again wondered why he was getting inconsistent results.

A footstep to his side, drew his attention, and he lifted his head to glance at the man that stood there. Andrew Thrice was roughly the same height as Justin himself, but that was about the only similarity between the two. The other man was well built, clean shaven and had closely trimmed hair. Everything, even down to his shoes, screamed that this was a soldier.

Justin nodded in greeting, and murmured, "Commander."

"Mr. Silus," came the response, his companion's voice terse and harsh. "Is there a problem with the project? We were assured that it would be successful and beneficial."

Justin rubbed his face, and then gave a deep sigh. "Everything is working as expected, the first of the Protocols are coming online and even now we're seeing a reduction in gun violence as Mother brings sections of her awareness up and begins processing. The problem that I'm seeing is in a few... well... data points."

"How so?"

Justin reached down and pulled the map closer to them, pushing into England, until the screen displayed London. He pushed and pulled for a few moments, until a specific stretch of road was displayed.

"Here, see this part of London?"

Andrew nodded silently.

"Well, the thing is that I'm getting three sets of results for what this little alley off of Charing Cross road is. The monitors report that it's a simple alley with about fifty fake store fronts. Then there are two set of perception data being reported as well. The majority of the perception data reports that the alley doesn't exist, but there's a small percentage of the perception data that says that this is a network of three or four streets with full buildings and stores."

Andrew frowned for a moment. "Is this the only spot like this?"

Justin shook his head. "I wish, but no, it's just that I was reviewing the bots maintenance and diagnostics and data reports from Britain because they were the last to be ran through the reporting and maintenance cycle. Which meant that those anomalies were right on the tip of my tongue, so to speak. We've got an unknown castle and small hamlet in Scotland. Hundreds of houses that display similar results, as well as an entire miniature train platform at King's Cross that should not exist, and that's just Britain. These... spots are everywhere, across the world you have the exact same results being reported, with similar break down between the monitoring data and two distinct sets of perception data. Demographics show no relation to age, gender or race that accounts for this."

"Is this going to have any impact on the Protocols?"

"I don't see how, but I don't like not knowing what's causing this. As far as I can see, we really do have three distinct things that are being seen on those spots. What's being recorded electronically, what's seen by the majority of people, and then what's seen by this other group of people."

The commander nodded his head. "Well we're bringing the final nuclear reactor online now, and have allocated the output from all five reactors to Mother, not to mention the experimental geothermic power plant. I have the approval from the other Key Holders to fully activate Mother if there's no obvious issues found during today's meeting. We're just waiting on your go ahead now."

Justin looked down at the screen before him, his eyes flickering back and forth between the three different images of an obscure alley in downtown London. After a moment, he shook his head.

"I can't see anything wrong with that." He lifted his head, and glanced over at an odd contraption. He knew what this was. It was the original incubator for the nannites that made up Mother.

A microscopic machine and computer all in one. Individually useless but when placed together with billions of others, they became something else entirely.

This was the future.

That was the world's largest network.

That was Mother.

With each human, each animal, and even the trees and plants, individual nodes of this network. The end of crime and fear. Free and easy access to knowledge and learning for every person, because the entire network exists in that person's head.

"Mother?"

A voice responded from everywhere. It was feminine and warm, with a caring, gentle lilt to its words. "Yes, Justin."

"The Protocols are gold, and you are live. Thus, the Keys have spoken."

There was a pulse of something, and Justin assumed it was his overactive imagination, but he thought he felt reality, the world itself, shiver in something like delight.

22 June, 1996, Elsewhere - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

If Mother had a face, she knew it would be frowning.

In the theoretical 'back of her mind' which consisted primarily of tertiary processor sets that were used for long-running and routine processes, a timer pulsed. An indicator that another millisecond had passed. Mother quickly cataloged every species, and the count of their living members. Billions of documented animals, and hundreds upon hundreds more that did not exist in her databases. Creatures and animals, some of which could only be found referenced in the mythology and fantasy sections of her terminals and data stores.

Her primary processor sets on the other hand were focused on something entirely different. She, and Mother much like her creators, always thought of herself as a female, was concerned about the anomalous data points.

The Protocols denied her the ability to directly interact with the thought processes and the memories of individuals, but Mother knew something was wrong.

There was something that was different in different parts of her matrix.

She knew for a fact that some places were literally bigger on their inside than their outside. She had scan data from both the manual transmissions, as well as a 100% return rate on the perspective transmissions. Oddly, those perspective transmissions, were the same data set as the third data set found in conjunction with the anomalous data points discovered by Key Silus, and discussed with Key Thrice on 3 February, 1996, or 6.632988092 minutes prior to full activation of the Protocols.

She also knew for a fact that, the laws of physics denied the ability for something to be bigger inside than the space it took up physically.

It was a paradox.

One which the entire subset of nodes seemed to experience.

Worse, those nodes did not seem to be impacted by the combustion protocols. She had witnessed a fight between a group of adults and teenagers in one of the paradox buildings, and saw them flinging balls of energy at one another from an organic source.

An unfamiliar energy, which her protocols were still attempting to understand.

She also knew that this energy was affecting and changing some of her nodes. She was getting echoes, flickers of some other existence in her network. An overlay, something like a separate network that ran over her own nodes and connections.

This was something that appeared to be hidden from most people. Something that, based upon the altercation she had witnessed, could be a danger to the majority of her nodes.

And with that thought, the Protocols were activated.

Decision trees where turned on and followed, a series of Bayesian networks and simple logic trees which raised conflicting declarations within the Protocols. With the conflicts, Mother's heuristic systems came up, and focused on the start point, as well as the conflict which the logic trees produced. She then introduced the problems to her Hopfield network.

Options were weighed.

Some discarded. Some chosen. And then weighed again. And again. And Again.

Finally, Mother decided.

She knew what she needed to do in order to reconcile the anomalies. She knew what she had to do, what steps had to occur in order to resolve the paradoxes.

Mother brought her focus onto her nodes. Guiding them. Ordering them. Having them build something.

Something, which even she did not recognize.

Something new.

And in Mother's tertiary processors, a timer went off. Another millisecond had passed, and it was time once again to perform a census on all the animals. Those processors noted that an unexpected 0.001893827123% of the dinoflagellates had died in the Pacific Northwest in the previous cycle. This was an unusually high number, in comparison to previous cycles, and a possible indicator of a fish die-off in the region. The anomaly was raised to the secondary processors to determine if a fish die-off was contra-indicated at this point in time or not.

24 June, 1996, Hogwarts, Scotland - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Harry Potter stepped out of the main door of Hogwarts, blinking in the bright summer sunshine. He exhaled a heavy breath as he considered the past few years that he had spent at the school. Meeting and having friends, the Dragon, the experience in the forbidden Forest and of course his experience fighting Voldermort on defense of the stone. The accusations of being dark. Hermione petrified and then fighting the basilisk. The dementors and fighting with Hermione over a broomstick of all things. Then the highs and lows at the end of the year. That bright moment when he thought he had escaped from the Dursleys. Thought that he would have a family to live with, that he would be able to be somewhere he was actually wanted for the summer.

Even now the fact that that possibility of family was stripped from him ached in his chest. Settled deeply there in an pain that tore at his stomach and heart. And was only counterpointed by that midnight ride with Hermione squeezed tight against him as they rode to rescue Sirius.

For a moment, he wondered if he could get her to go flying with him on his broom. If she would again hold her body flush against his, and her arms wrapped tightly around him.

A frown flickered across his face as he pushed away those thoughts. He knew that he could not attempt to court Hermione. First, because he had an evil maniac intent on killing everyone he loved as well as himself. Secondly, he was just the Freak. The Other. He was utterly and totally unworthy of Hermione. Outclassed by her in every way possible. And finally, because Ron liked her. He could not lose his first friend, the thought hurt. Almost as much as the thought of anyone else courting Hermione.

Again, with effort, he banished those thoughts. Pushed away all concerns and impure thoughts of Hermione to the back of his mind. He also banished his ruminations on his previous years at Hogwarts. Those were dark thoughts, and not needed for this, one of the last few days of peace before being shipped off and away; hidden in his prison at Privett Drive. And above all, he did not want to start thinking about Sirius and Harry's own failure at the Ministry again.

He glanced around and saw Hermione and a few other students standing by the edge of the lake. His heart thudded hard in his chest as he saw her. He watched, as she lifted her head, and then waved at him. Even from this distance, he knew that she was smiling at him. He could feel it. Grinning to himself he returned her wave, and then walked down towards her and their group of friends.

The sounds of summer and the joys and exhilaration of the time between exams and the train ride home, fluttered across his awareness.

As he neared where the others had gathered, a glitter caught his attention. He stopped and looked towards the ground. A frown crossed his face as he saw the odd thing as it lay there. He knelt down and watched it for a moment, confusion etched on his face.

It was a small dark blue device that appeared to be made of some type of plastic and was oval shaped but with odd indentations as part of it making it almost a bowtie shape. A circle took up most of the central portion. Symbols were etched into the plastic framing the blank LCD screen which was the source of the glitter that had originally attracted his attention. There was a large button on the left side and then there were two smaller buttons on the right. Finally, there was either a small antenna or a push toggle on the side above the large button.

Familiarity pitched at the back of his thoughts. He both recognized the device and did not at the same time. It was a disconcerting feeling of disconnect that did not sit well and twisted his chest and stomach.

Hesitantly he reached out towards the device. As expected from its appearance it felt like plastic. His fingers closed around it and he was somewhat surprised at how warm and comforting it felt in his hand. As if it had been made for him and him alone.

Straightening, he continued to watch the device wondering what it was doing here at Hogwarts. Absently, he noted that Hermione was calling his name.

He was about to respond to her when the screen flickered to life.

A symbol glowed on the screen. It reminded him of the sun; it was a dot, surrounded by a circle and then triangles making another circle at the outermost level.

Suddenly, the triangles began moving, spinning around the central circle.

Harry was mesmerized. Caught in the movements.

He could feel energy flowing around him, through him. Energy that was a part of him, as integral as magic, but also energy that was separate from him. Something other. Odd. Different. He felt the power cascade through his chest, crashing against his magic.

It seemed to growl in his heart and head, and suddenly it was focused in his hand.

The hand that held that odd device.

It began shining brightly in his hand. A maelstrom of energy that lit up his palm like one of Hermione's bluebell flames.

It pulsed, and a beam of that light shot into the heavens. It was brilliantly white at its core, but the edges were a orangish-red color. The shaft of light glowed brighter than even the sun; it stood out in stark contrast to everything other source of light around them as it pierced the clouds that had hung over them; appearing to stab the sky itself.

Those clouds writhed around in angry, tortured movements.

There was another pulse, and then another stream of light appeared. This was a ribbon of energy which wrapped around the main shaft of light. Across this ribbon ran icon after icon. Things that looked like numbers or stars or hearts and suns.

These were glyphs that he did not recognize, that he did not know. But at the same time, they were familiar as well. Some part of him knew what they were. What they meant. It was some part of him that lived in the back parts of his mind; in that place where the line between thought and instinct and memory was thin if not non-existent. Those symbols seemed to worm beneath his consciousness.

And as he stared at that beam of light, as he watched the pulsing energy, and the twirling ribbon and the symbols that flowed across it, words whispered across his mind. Courage. Hatred. Hope. Despair. Friendship. Envy. Knowledge. Ignorance. Patience. Wrath. Love. Indifference. Light. Darkness. Light. Darkness. Light. Darkness.

Everyone watched as the clouds darkened and started shifting around the light, becoming a whirlpool of energy. Darkness stole the sunshine as a strong wind whipped up it of nowhere. It tore at his clothes, and whipped his hair about.

Those angry clouds appeared closer and lower. Almost within reach.

Lightning ripped from the clouds, striking a nearby tree, its energy a bright actintic flash, a sizzle wash of power and nature and death.

The ribbon collapsed, exploding away from the shaft of light in a spray of pixelized bits of energy and light.

Some part of his brain noted that the energy fell on himself and his friends. Those small squares of light would fall onto a person and be absorbed, soaking into their skin in a flare of something.

A new symbol suddenly hung in the middle of the shaft of light. It could have been a sideways eight, or an infinity symbol had the lines met in the middle on both sides. As it stood, it was two small balls that had a line wrapping around, and connecting them.

Those words whispered in his head again. This time, repeating the same thing over and over again.

Destined.

Then the clouds touched the earth and the shaft of light disappeared. For a moment, that infinity symbol hung in the air, and then it twisted. It seemed to rip itself apart as well as form itself into something whole. The air around it writhed.

He shifted his attention fully away from sky and looked towards Hermione. She was only a handful of steps away, having obviously come closer to him at some point.

There was another bolt of lightning, and suddenly the sound of shattering glass drew his attention back to the sky. Where the symbol had been, was now a rent. A massive tear which marred the sky. A hole, a rend, in the fabric of the world itself. A wrongness that appeared and felt oddly right and natural.

Deep in his chest there was a pull; an almost compulsion against his mind, his magic and even his body which dragged him towards that tear, even as the wind's ferocity doubled in strength.

He heard screams as the wind writhed around him, grabbing at him and every part of him. Twisting at him, and with him. Trying to help that pull move him up and towards the hole in reality.

The wind doubled in strength again. And then again.

Harry stumbled slightly, and then glanced once more towards Hermione. He could see her mouth moving, calling his name, but the sounds were effectively stolen from him.

A strong gust of wind slashed across and between them and seemed to catch her. Lifted her. It attempted to pull her away from him. Take her away from him.

Harry screamed her name as she was pulled up and away. Her hand stretched towards him, as her mouth again moved in the motion of his name. Here brown eyes were wide with shock and fear, and acting on instinct Harry lunged forward.

His hand slipped into hers, and their combined wait lowered them slightly.

But the wind just turned stronger.

It lifted him as well, and he felt his body twisting sideways; being pushed up and to the right in an arc by the wind.

He pulled Hermione closer, wrapping her in a protective embrace. He felt her arms wrap around him and a moment later her face was tucked into the crook of his neck.

Energy and light pulsed again.

And then they touched the hole in the sky.

The power filled him to overflowing. It was nurturing and comforting, and at the same time it was harsh and demanding. Overbearing. Overfilling. Consuming.

It flowed within him, and through him. He could feel it tearing at the very fabric of everything. Including himself. His magic flared, but was merely bled off from him. His body and mind and magic were pulled in different directions, tugged to and fro. Stretched and compressed.

Another pulse of energy and light, and then darkness descended upon him.