I crash through the front door of my apartment, my breath full of shivers and frantic gasps. It's dark, yet I'm standing in the ambient gloom cast by the advertising drones in Machine's communal square outside, watching the steam rise as I try to regulate my breathing.
What’s up with the temperature?
Controls for the thermostat are part of the main interface, so I stab at the panel and cycle through the tabs.
An error message is waiting on the main status page.
It appears my smart boiler and thermostat unit have been hit by a malware strike. Which, in this case, means someone crudely running along the corridor outside with a black hole device. Quite a widespread crime here, from what I can tell. And from the looks of it, the whole block has been targeted and hit with a ransom levy.
I storm into the main laundry room, seemingly our floor's main de facto communal space. Much to my relief, a few people I recognise are here, including Will from next door.
'That camp AI downstairs says these guys slip in undetected,' Will tells me, presumably referring to Goldie between long drags on an old-world cigarette. 'Often using black hole attack frequencies that its main firewall and security centre have never encountered.'
I nod in acknowledgement and greeting. 'You look unconvinced.'
'Well, why are we paying all these security fees?' the boy asks, and it's a reasonable question. 'Seriously, man, it's a crock.'
'What normally happens when there's a strike?' I ask, eventually, after a minute or so of consideration.
'Oh, don't worry,' the boy says casually, 'you're covered under the building insurance. So, they will repair it.'
'Ah, great,' I say, enjoying the sense of respite, however fleeting.
'Eventually.'
'What?'
'Yeah,' says the boy, taking a worryingly long drag for a boy with pre-pubescent lungs. 'You're looking at no heating for the next thirty hours or so.'
I curse under my breath and reach immediately for my tool belt and fly panels.
'Wow, check you out,' says Will. 'You're going to fix it yourself?'
'It's either that,' I say as the boy watches on with a slow smile that's not quite admiration. 'Freeze to death, or pay the one-off ransom fee. And I've got work to do.'
*
It takes me an hour to remove the smart boiler's interface from its housing and take it apart. From there, it's a case of locating the internal memory chip. In this case, a microHD card that's been dyed in lambent blue.
Control wouldn't live up to its name if it didn't run firmware updates on all its devices. So I place the chip in my card reader, which I carry in my flypanel, then load the card in failsafe mode. Then, drop down into its BIOS to update to the latest clean version.
Dropping the card back into the interface unit, I reboot the device.
To my immense relief, it works like a charm.
Immediately, the air loses its bite, and five minutes later, my box room exudes an almost tropical, balmy quality. Still triumphant, I take a hot shower, finish the rest of the noodles, and then start eagerly moving furniture around my box room to make room for the ocular. And when I've done that, it takes me another five minutes to find the right four-pin adapter for the ocular's power unit.
Suddenly, a reedy male voice fills the air behind me.
'What's this, sir?' asks Goldie as I watch his apparition step through the wall.
'YOU!'
'Yes, of course, me,' Goldie says, almost amused by the prospect that it could be anyone else. 'Goodness, sir, you look like you've seen a ghost.'
'Er, you've just walked in unannounced,' I say, to which Goldie nods demurely. No doubt, he's here because I've tampered with the controls. Still, with an illegal device lying conspicuously on the table behind me, I'm not so worried about the thermostat.
From my best guess, my body still blocks his view of the ocular. Still, with access to every room camera in the building, Goldie could easily see behind me if he wanted to.
From his smile, I presume he's not interested - at least, not yet. But then Goldie notices the old four-pin adapter I've just plugged into the wall. 'Ah, an old four-pin! So, you've been busy purchasing yourself an antique?'
'Er, no,' I reply, angry with the relentless intrusion. I point at the sex-toy packaging, pleased again that Jimmy thought to furnish me with such a tasteless design. 'It's for that,' I say, emphasising the last pronoun and full stop.
'Ah,' says Goldie as his brain, which has been preconfigured to map the personality of a prude, orders him to tighten up. And now he sounds grave. Appalled, even. 'I see.'
'Yeah,' I say, firmly and like I'm about to enjoy myself. 'And anyway, surely you guys have protocols about privacy to follow? I mean, what's with barging into my room like this? I could have been doing anything.'
'Um, quite,' Goldie replies, looking awkward now and irritated. 'I just wanted to speak to you about the--'
'About the thermostat? Yeah, trust me,' I say with a knowing smile, 'I'm a rig technician; that thing is as good as new.'
'Oh good,' Goldie says, trying to smile and hide his distaste. 'How resourceful of you.' And then he's gone, back through the wall quicker than he arrived.
Good riddance. And at least I've created some cover. After all, any contrived embarrassment on Goldie's part should buy me a large block of time to research.
*
Five hours later, and much more swearing and messing about, I flick the power switch that nestles beneath the ocular's black chrome hood.
There's this awful moment when the red guide lights stay dead, and I'm forced to conclude I can't get online. But then I remember. This hardware is nearly a hundred years old. From the early days of the settlement, back when everyone used their headface to interact with one another and get around. It will take time for the machine to stabilise and recognise new connections. And, predictably, from the looks of it, I'm the only one with the required ports available.
I release a long sigh of relief as the device finally comes online. But now is the next step: handshaking with a rogue, semi-sentient system that has long been banned and out of use.
Given that the ocular interacts directly with my optic nerve, the next step requires a deep breath and maybe even prayer. After all, if the ocular crashes during the boot phase, it could cause a seizure in me or wipe my short-term memory. And as far as my memory is concerned, we've had enough problems with that already.
For a sickening second, my mind's eye is seized by an image generated by the device.
It's the only image my brain can understand amidst the dense static burst. But it's there all the same. A skull with a glistening skin and eyeballs on stalks. Not a memory, so much.
More of an introduction.
One unbearable minute later, the hologram of the Enochian logo appears in front of me, floating in the half-light.
'Bingo,' I say, enjoying the relief that follows.
Interestingly, its logo isn't a design I recognise. It's the old graphic of the corporation, version two, not eleven.
I key in for setup, then hold my breath as I initialise the connection. And then there it is.
A holographic user interface that interacts with every movement as my hands sift through the galaxy of data motes that float in the air before me. A library of nested information which can be manipulated by my fingertips. Everything ever published on the main network. All laid out to follow logical lines of enquiry with three hundred and sixty-degree navigation through a highly intuitive and robust neural user interface.
In short, I can search for what I want without fear of the consequences and with a sentient AI that will help me mask my inquiries, at least for now. And so it's no wonder that so many of these oculars have been banned or driven out of use.
As for now, I've got a list of contacts to find.
Thanks for checking out Hard Lines. To track the whole story so far, please visit the Serials page on Beyond Colossus. New scenes drop each Thursday.