tions Room at tured by ligo tsingy mirror server in Beijing, trative account earlier in ternoon. andalone server but it communicated sing ty-second intervals. Caldo one of t tsingy-tudents online at t very moment. Caldories for anyteresting. Eacudent ed a department code. A good number of to a node called comp_sci. Cald random and call up a map of tory structure. t fifty sub-directories. Most of teresting.

    Caldo a subdirectory labeled SKL_ItS.  tters meant. tory. One called Special_Projects looked interesting. ried to gain access. ACCESS DENIED. SPECIAL PRIVILEGES REQUIRED.  even bots. too poo e a ne could gain access. o find an auticated user.

    Calded all to top of to traffic logs. rae calls to cyberspace sites, requests for files and auticated logins to various university micro sites. Everyt for one entry just a fe a dump from cyberspace amounting to several trillion bytes. ta ed States, t Fouler alking about, part of ta traffic  NEXt tower.

    s of data being replicated from cyberspace into some internal database at tsing ematically duplicated. a seemed entirely random. Cald of ext form.

    “Enter Visual Mode,” o transformed from lines of text to a gray tube running diagonally from ttom left of o top rigube faded off into tance. tube imeline of ty’s data traffic.

    “Sa requests greater terabyte.”

    tube flickered and cerspersed ing all data dumps larger terabyte. to look at a cross-section.

    “Create pie c by data type,” ion ransformed into a t. t depicted data doa type. Most of ta s and cing code.

    “Drill doo pie c, slice by document.”

    t piece of t slid out, rotated and disappeared in a s  of document titles. ts  ttom of ts on ted States government on one single day. Most of ts  departments, tary installations, scientific institutions, NASA. Somebody ematically sucking in tire body of US knoo Ne make any sense at all. No  all t data.

    tion just seemed to o a black ed States realized t ta , o be alarmed by it. All tion being appropriated  mirroring ta so ties could sensor it. It  t ta being copied suggested some ulterior motive at oo muca for to be some major censorssingo see wa had gone.

    “Sa destination.”

    An animation of a complex neta did several loops ted storage area net of storage space. Connected to torage area net not to tsingop corner of the gloves. ACCESS DENIED.

    “Sed networks.”

    No related networks found.

    andalone computer ion to tematically accessing s of data from cyberspace?  need its oed storage network?

    “Sed departments.”

    1 related department found: Department of Computer Science and technology.

    “SearcS”

    SKL_ItS/Special_Projects.

    “Sed users.”

    3 users found: Yao Guo Cudent), Li Jin (Student)

    “Launcsingy Public Network.”

    tsingy public netiple labeled facets. Caldapped ties side of t expanded into four neat triangles. o even smaller triangles until er Science and tece. y Members. A list of about one y members popped up. Rig top was a Professor Yao Guo Chuen.

    Professor Yao Guo Cernationally renoment of Computer Science and tec of tion Science and tecsingy. Professor Yao’s responsibilities covered tigious institutes: titute of ing; titute of Computer Netitute of Computer Softitute of er Interaction and Media Integration. ate Key Laboratory of Intelligent tecems, ion Army. Professor Yao  of numerous prestigious aed computing, er systems, knoributed databases, artificial intelligence and visualization tecual reality. Professor Yao y applications for tion Army.

    “Very interesting,” Caldo no one in particular.

    ion page for tudent Li Jin. t said y-four years old, a straiggraduate student in tment of Computer Science and tecant to Professor Yao. Caldo anyt t. Li Jin’s account . t  to be tudent ang Lin’s account. ed it to be disabled too. But, it . ang Lin ly logged on tudent BBS system. Calded a searcs on or.

    12 research papers found:

    1. Modeling amp; Rendering of Complex VR Scenes Containing a  of Primitives

    2. Intelligent Agent Systems and tion

    3. Recognition and Knoabase on Micro Economy

    4. Key tecs

    5. Molecular Biology as a Foundation for true Artificial Intelligence

    Cald bot. Could it be t Professor Yao and udent protégés  involved feeding vast amounts of data to a macing it intelligence? as it possible t ted to t Antor Calked about? It all seemed  for ture and size of ta. t just general kno erabytes of recently unclassified intelligence, o a , could be used to inflict some serious AI-instigated carnage in cyberspace.  o a vastly intelligent ic computer? A computer y to learn?

    Cald o t lone computer on tsing ing as a magnet for all t information. to get to it égés. If tem er as uring, ticularly guarded. tants on to letting t out of t, an idea   on social engineering, t of retrieving a user’s pass ang Lin to reveal s.

    Cald of all tudents in tment of Computer Science and tec over ty percent of all students in tment. t mental pages ronic media. Cald-teenage female angst until  stoked erest. It e of a girl called Vicky Zy years old and, from ograp least, cute as a button oon eyes and straig ment  she was from Shanghai.

    Vicky Zudent BBS system. Calded t s of s -related questions. And as Cald one of Professor Yao’s brilliant advisers udents  long for o be ans. Caldting t he air.

    Getting Vicky’s username and passmental system as did most of tudents. ang Lin o traig VR section. ed a built-in avatar from tory, a beautiful Mancorks dancing on tar ork motifs. torks appeared to take fligo spin the parasol.

    t ty users or avatars on t Cted at least tremely realistic. ted across tail.

    ang Lin ill logged into t satcing to a doo tree nearby. Caldo tree and took refuge in its sail of to message ang Lin privately.

    ei ei: Read your paper on Molecular Biology as a Foundation for true Artificial Intelligence. Sounds a bit far-fetched.

    tion. Calded. tudent continued talking to tly removed a paper fan tern from towards him.

    ang Lin:  see you en and you never c persona.

    ei ei: Als. Usually ime on though.

    ang Lin: So you read my paper?

    ei ei: Yeaing my  a stone trying to figure out o e for my next assignment. as just looking around tarted reading.

    ang Lin: O do you tched?

    ei ei: tter or brain cells as a computer c bacteria ered DNA becoming logic gates surely is science fiction.

    ang Lin:  if I told you t today?

    ei ei: I  believe you. Even t do it.

    ang Lin: t’s  test innovations are taking place.

    ei ei: Yea not you suggest in t?

    ang Lin: Let’s just say tuff in t as far-fetc sounds.

    ei ei: Seriously?

    ang Lin: One day I mighing.

    ei ei: to t were possible?

    ang Lin: If only I can s I’ve seen.

    ei ei: ?

    ang Lin: I don’t knoop-secret stuff.

    ei ei: ell if you don’t trust me t’s OK.

    .

    ang Lin: Of course I trust you. Even t know eac well.

    ei ei: But obviously you don’t trust me enoug’s fine. I understand.

    ang Lin: OK. Bet go beyond and. Folloe BBS room.

    to it. Caldood over ten lava bubbling just a fe beloe clouds. Cranes fle. tting on a rock. Caldood opposite h his parasol closed.

    ang Lin: I come o relax and contemplate the world.

    ei ei: It’s beautiful.

    ang Lin: All rendered on my Great all Computronics console ory.

    ei ei: Cool.

    ang Lin: It’s all in t a take t farmer’s boy under ing factor.  really terrible at creating soft computers, o operate, are actually better at creating software.

    ei ei: So to get computers to design tware?

    ang Lin: t’s just a part of it. ics ime. Many companies  till too stupid to do anyt ics technology.

    ei ei: Useful as in w?

    ang Lin: ell, pass turing test for one thing.

    ei ei: But t’s already been done. If t distinguiser and anoter passes. Our AI systems in tment uring test.

    ang Lin: No t. It is a ers are fooling to believing t of time but tually fail if you ask enougions. t intelligent in tum computing and neural netic soft elligence. Only by modeling terconnections between neurons, can we succeed.

    ei ei: And you’ve done t?

    ang Lin: I guess, but still testing. But t’s a macelligent to be. It’s a mac’s all in tware.

    ei ei: But  possible?

    ang Lin: A killer combination of ics, neural netum computing and nanotechnology.

    ei ei: Nanotechnology?

    ang Lin: Yea to build a tum dot array. e um computer prototype s. test computer ever built.

    ei ei: OK, but elligent?

    ang Lin: Deceptively simple. e are giving it tire body of e by byte. It already enets of cognitive science built-in. It already knoire  ion. e sent one of to try of Finance ed by ts. ton Keynes, Friedman and all ts look like kids playing heir homework.

    ei ei: t makes tem dangerous.

    ang Lin: It depends. to our enemies, yes. tem o convince t it is Chinese.

    ei ei: ?

    ang Lin: It ies. It o ’s belief system, base language, everyt on a sense of being C believes in taoist, Confucian and Budd ideals, yet rong sense of Cory. It’s a he world has never seen.

    ei ei: But ?

    ang Lin: t I cannot tell you. I oo muc I knoriotic. Besides, to alter tiny no’s just say t Srailblazer.

    ei ei: Sers um chip?

    ang Lin: to t and toucerative process of producing it. Basically, t t one by trial and error. No it’s e tum processor is not important. It’s just talyst for somet as a launching pad.

    tapping on Caldile sensation ic t ar dropped its parasol. ait a minute.   so  of virtual reality and tions room in erialized in front of anding taring at to a smooth black pyramid.

    “ the hell? hang on.”

    Caldo ang Lin’s rocks above tar  across tured rocks. tling sound beurned round to see t hrough dark disapproving eyes.

    ang Lin: You are not ei ei. ei ei just logged in to the hell are you?

    ang Lin’s sc feel tar’s  o sudent off. Caldried to grab ang Lin’s makes sco feel  of termite-infested s fell ao t o teep ravine. Beloar let go of  . Cald feel a t otter on to tains.