Velvet Dogma

chapter 31



Everyone stood at their stations awaiting Panchet's command to open the firewall. Rebecca hid at the bottom of the server chain, disguised as a string of unformatted data packets. All she had to do was get to the kernel and change the code and they'd succeed. But that sounded simpler than it was. For Rebecca it was the computer equivalent of changing the collar on a charging rhino.

Piece of cake.

Cody hid beneath her as she'd insisted. Her program would eat him like a snack, so she needed to keep him safe until he had a clear shot to the exit. That the complex was in the Kentucky woods was both a blessing and a curse. By being this far out they didn't need to concern themselves with all the wireless nodes of a city which would have allowed Velvet Dogma to attack through each or even all of them, coming at Rebecca from any direction. The virtue of their seclusion was that there was a single wireless node leading to the entrance to the cave, which meant attack from only one direction.

Rebecca was reminded of the old war movies where armies lined up on each side of a battlefield hooting and hollering at their enemies. On a given signal, they'd attack meeting in the middle in a deafening cacophony of sound as men and metal sliced, cut and died. If she were to carry the metaphor further, their battlefield was the servers of Velvet Dogma Earth in Mammoth Cave. Instead of two armies standing across the field from each other, on one side was the leviathan-like Velvet Dogma, and on the other stood one lone woman—Rebecca Mines, who had been forced into this position by fate, society and a cruel little Asian woman.

"Be ready everyone." Panchet's voice carried through the cave.

Rebecca wanted to access the camera nodes and see what was going on. She wanted to find Andy and observe him for a while. But she shook free of that melancholy wish. She didn't need that kind of weakness, not now. Her head needed to be clear of sentimental mumbo jumbo. The last thing she needed was to be preoccupied with loving someone she could never really love.

Although the thought was akin to jabbing herself with a nasty sliver of glass, she forced herself to remember that that she was no longer a woman. She was only a program on the computer, and Andy was a warm blooded man. They had no future together.

"Open the firewall," Panchet commanded.

She felt it open like a closet door in a hurricane. Was Velvet Dogma waiting right outside or did Rebecca need to be online a while? How fast could it move? She should have asked that question before. She might not even have a chance.

"Here it comes," shouted a nameless tech. "It's tripped one of the outer nodes!"

"Damn, but it's big," gasped Andy.

"It's at the entrance!"

"Here it comes," whispered Panchet. "Recheck everyone offline. Recheck and square the pulse."

Like a flood pouring through a straw, Velvet Dogma entered the stacked servers of Mammoth Cave. Rebecca ran through the schematics of the cave one last time. Located in the vertical shaft of Mammoth Dome, ninety-seven rectangular-shaped servers the size of VW Bugs fit in the cylindrical space like rice in a straw. Wires connected each to the one next to it, ending in a final waterfall of fiber optics that fell to the ground beneath, where they were gathered into a circuit box the size of a Cadillac. Andy and Panchet stood at this ready to pull the plug, flood the servers with viruses or in the event Rebecca was able to contain the program, shut the firewall behind it so that it was locked in the Mammoth Cave complex.

Rebecca began her beckoning mantra: Becka Bunny Becka Bunny Becka Bunny. She sensed Velvet Dogma as it became distinctly aware of her and felt its digital gaze turn in her direction. It began to filter down through the maze of servers, squeezing lower and lower. She had no heart, and she had no stomach, but fear tickled her essence, sending her to the pinnacle of panic.

Be ready Cody. It's coming!

She felt his acknowledgement beneath her.

Then suddenly she was swept up on the tendrils of the program. How had it moved so fast? She screamed electronic pain as images of Sri Lankan Rebels shot past her in needle-sharp data packets followed by scenes of Easter Sunday in the Bronx.

Get away from me! Rebecca tried to wrench herself free, but she couldn't break the titanic grip of Velvet Dogma.

More data packets assaulted her as she was bombarded with images of the Vietnam War mixed with a trench of bodies in Croatia. She felt herself being lifted from her hiding place and carried upwards to the exit as if Velvet Dogma was taking her away like King Kong with Faye Wray.

"Help her, Panchet!" she heard Andy cry.

"Do you see it? It's amazing!" Panchet responded instead. "Less than half of it is inside the cave, yet it has filled up the servers. Do you realize how much information it must have?"

"Hurry, man! It's getting away!" Andy's voice was filled with desperate anger as he sent a voice command to the gravBoarders in Los Angeles. "Scoundrel, Ajax, begin phase two!"

Velvet Dogma shuddered suddenly and as it did so, it lost its grip on her. Even from as far away as the West Coast, the results of the gravBoarders snipes were instantaneous.

"No—not yet!" shouted Panchet.

But his words had no effect. The gravBoarders sent Becka Bunny invitations to Velvet Dogma, each iteration of her password making it turn towards the initiating server.

Rebecca was falling as the program sought to find the ever-moving sources of the call for it to return. Had they defeated it so easily? She looked past the data packets to the core and spied the kernel, the original piece of code she'd used to construct it. A part of her felt sad for doing what she was about to do. This beast was as rare as any dinosaur, and she was going to do the unthinkable.

She was halfway to the center when a vice-like grip closed around her. She screamed more from fear than pain as every remaining sense was overwhelmed by input from Velvet Dogma as it communicated to her the knowledge it had retrieved.

From far away she heard Andy shouting. "What have you done? You called off the boarders!"

"Let Velvet Dogma finish what it started," Panchet argued. "Don't you see? It's creating Rebecca in its own image. Incredible."

"I don't care—this wasn't part of the plan."

"Too late." Panchet laughed with glee. "It has her. Don't you see?" He clapped his hands.

Rebecca fought but couldn't move a single byte of herself. Her senses were inundated by input as wars, famine and pop stars fed saturated her with information. She felt herself growing as she was forced to learn, data packets forming around her like the growing protoplasm of an amoeba.

Becka-309 had been sent out to learn the world's secrets and return to her. Finally it was fulfilling its initial directive, force-feeding her knowledge she'd never dreamed possible. A part of her felt the joy of a parent at the successful life lived by her creation.

From far away she heard a great crash followed by an explosion.

"I will not let you do this," screamed Andy, his anguish shaping each word into a weapon. "Scoundrel, resume phase two."

Rebecca continued to be subsumed as she learned and grew, becoming something much more than she'd once been, something momentous. Her presence already filled one of the ninety-seven servers, the information she'd collected from her childhood hanging from her like new flesh and bone.

She felt Cody try and sneak past, sliding around the great beast of a program as it fed Rebecca, but Velvet Dogma was omnipotent. A tendril of program reached out and snatched Cody from the wall of the server where he clung. Empty data packets shot towards her old friend and as they impacted with his program, consumed him. He screamed once then was no more, his life reduced to data that merged with Velvet Dogma, adding one more secret to its universe of knowledge. Then it fed her Cody.

"He won't listen to you," growled Panchet. "The gravBoarders follow only me. I made them, you stupid man. They are my children."

Rebecca heard screams and several crashes, then finally, Andy gasped into the com line—"Scoundrel, Panchet Rao is dead. We need you. Rebecca needs you. Save her, please, my friend."

Through it all, the program continued to feed her. Nothing had changed except her and she was ever-changing. She felt the pulse of the world. She knew everything. She was becoming a God.

"Scoundrel, do it for Pony," came Andy's plaintive call.

Velvet Dogma stiffened with the effects of the gravBoarders resumed attack. Rebecca could feel the data flow like it was a whisper. They were trying to lure the gargantuan beast away from Mammoth Cave with calls of Becka Bunny, trying to convince it to be with them. For the span of a breath it paused and considered, but then the program resumed its regurgitation, clearly unconvinced that it had anything but the original Becka Bunny.

"Scoundrel, phase three!"

The attack began in earnest as the static program began taking code breaker hits. Rebecca felt the program's pain as a physical manifestation of concern over the loss of information. Chunks of the program were evaporating as the viral bombs struck and exploded. Velvet Dogma tried to retaliate, but Panchet's plan was too perfect. It couldn't get a lock on its attackers. One moment they were launchings code breaker bombs, the next they had moved on, the identities of the servers changing faster and faster as more and more gravBoarders took up the fight.

"It's working!" shouted Andy. "Hold on, Rebecca. If you can hear me, hold on. We're going to get you out of there!"

And put me where? Rebecca had grown exponentially. Already she filled a dozen servers, engorged with knowledge she'd never wanted to begin with.

The attacks increased in violence and intensity, until it seemed as if every gravBoarder had taken up the attack. Velvet Dogma was forced to release her as the attacks came faster and faster and it kept trying to defend itself. The program began to back out of the servers it had wedged itself into to get to Rebecca, but the process was laboriously slow. Each explosion of data sent a shudder through the data packets.

Rebecca felt its frustration. It had only done as she'd asked it to. This was her child. How could she let them hurt it like this?

Stop it.

"Rebecca?"

Stop it, Andy. You're hurting it.

"What are you talking about?"

Velvet Dogma—my child. You are hurting my child.

"You don't know what you're saying."

She reached out and cut the power to the cave. The emergency generator switched on almost immediately, but in server time it was like an eternity. She surveyed the size of her progeny and knew it could never fit inside the server. It was two and one half times larger than the space they'd created to contain it.

She remembered being that child who refused to do things within the norm. She'd known that the Hulk was green, but she'd preferred a different color. What her brother had never understood was that what it looks like on the outside doesn't change the identity of who it is on the inside. She'd almost forgotten that herself until Panchet Rao had unveiled his true self.

What had her grandmother said? 'Just because the artist has talent, it doesn't make the picture any good.' From across the chasm of death her brother had sent her this message which could only refer to Panchet. The man might be a genius, but he was a madman. To cut of one's own legs was but the tip of the iceberg. He had to die, and with him, his dreams of Velvet Dogma.

"Becca, save yourself. Get away from Velvet Dogma!" Andy cried.

Like that little girl who colored a burnt umber Hulk, she did things others didn't want her to do.

I am Velvet Dogma.

Rather than running, she turned towards it. She couldn't allow it to be harmed any longer. She sped towards its center. Instead of fighting through the data packets, she ingested them, learning as she went. Etruscans, Pinto, Guangdong Haur, the circumference of Solomon's Temple, Eight Dimension Physics, Laurie Johnson's inVid number, vital statistics from the 1990 Earthquake in San Francisco, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, salmon propagation theory of the Pacific Northwest and a billion other pieces of information moved aside and became hers until finally she reached the kernel. This was what she'd planned to do anyway. She had no intention of letting the likes of Panchet or any of his followers have access to the world's secrets. Many of those were old anyway, more useful for fueling vendettas then righting wrongs. Others were new secrets about how to destroy and render the Earth sterile. The information was too dangerous, not meant for humanity to know. She doubted that there was anyone who could safely handle them.

Anyone except her.

I am Velvet Dogma and you can't stop me.

She reached into the kernel and imploded her child.

Erupting from the center of Velvet Dogma was a wave of cataclysmic energy that ran through every attached data packet. They crumbled and disappeared into random bytes swept away by the winds of server updates. What had taken twenty years to form disintegrated in less than thirty seconds and as Rebecca watched she couldn't help but weep electronic tears.

She'd never held her child in her arms, nor had she ever sung it a lullaby, or seen its face, but she loved it nonetheless. She loved it like any mother loves a child. In the end, Velvet Dogma hadn't been the monster everyone had made it out to be, just a child eager to return to its mother and show it what it had found.

And she'd killed it for the betterment of mankind.