Sing Love, The Electric Heart Ch. 01

This is an original story and is property of M/CultOfStrawberry. All characters are above eighteen, and any resemblance to people alive or dead is coincidental.

In this world, technopathy (the ability to communicate, sense, feel, or manipulate machines/technology) is a rare ability, but not so uncommon that technopaths are considered freaks. The source of such abilities is unknown, but is believed to be an evolutionary response to mankind's increasing dependence on technology, and possibly environmental factors, as well as the fact that the overwhelming majority of technopaths have high IQ's..

Technopathy is a valued asset, so technopaths are usually given free education and trained in computer sciences or other relevant fields, depending on that person's particular technopathic abilities, which vary from person to person in differing strength levels or particular subsets of this ability. I recommend looking it up on the Superpower Wiki (can be easily Googled) if you are unfamiliar with this particular superpower.

o0o

Skylar looked up as she ascended the steps to the building, seeing the sour-faced administrative manager standing near the door with his arms crossed, a cigarette dangling from his fingers. Upon recognizing her, he gave her a curt nod and waved dismissively.

The fact that she was here - yet again - perplexed the computer technician as she entered the building, easily admitted beyond the locked doors after showing her identification. She'd been here three times already in the last two months. Every time she left this building, she was sure she'd fixed all the issues and had things running smoothly.

The humming of machinery and the whir of the fans was distracting to her, so she simply clicked off her hearing-aid before she walked down the aisles, seeing the blinking lights and the tangle of wires. Since this was her fourth time here in such a short span, she had to conclude that the problems here had been caused deliberately.

It was easy enough for one of her talents to delve into the mainframe and figure out if the problems were being caused by hackers, a disgruntled worker here, or a simple mechanical error or hardware issue. Every time she was here, she'd run through all possible causes, and discovered a couple of minor hardware defects the first time. New parts were brought in, security was beefed up, and still the problems persisted. The second and third times, she'd found no obvious causes for the problems.

Skylar liked puzzles. She'd found Tetris and other games of the like soothing as a child, and the complexity of computer programming fascinated her, especially after she discovered she could understand technology in a way that most people never could. She closed her eyes as she rested her hand on a panel.

Electrical impulses flowed into her brain as she navigated the complex system.

And what is the matter this time? she asked as she felt her consciousness drift along the pathways of the mainframe. There was something missing, and she found it - a spot of blank data deep within the system. Looking at the databanks connected to it, she deduced that this was why the computer network upstairs was having problems with processing and accessing data. With the blank space, data could not move from one point to another, much as if someone had severed a nerve in the body.

Since it was a government building, and the mainframe held the records and data for countless people within the city, this was a major issue. Such a mainframe was heavily guarded, with many firewalls and safety protocols to protect itself against hackers. She saw no evidence of a breach in security, and wondered if the issues were from a virus that had been uploaded before these problems started happening. She had been here four times, but in total there were seven, because the first three times, a standard technician had been brought in. The third time was clearly not the charm for her predecessor.

A scan of the system brought her no results in the way of virii or malware.

Why do you keep breaking down? At this point, she was getting frustrated, and she knew she was not the only one. Every time she fixed an issue, another one would crop up a few weeks later. She entered the correct coding to repair the blank data, and could feel the mainframe's pathways firing up, able to resume its activity.

She huffed and sat down, writing out a report on her tablet, describing the exact nature of the problem, what she had done to fix it, and the checks she'd run on the system for any threats or breaches.

Puzzles could be fun, but not if they kept changing after she'd apparently solved them. If this continued, she would need to recruit others to help her with this, though she didn't want to have to resort to that. She looked around at the machinery around her, wondering if the only solution was a complete overhaul of the system. That would cost millions of credits in parts and labor, not to mention the disruption it would have on daily operations of the building and even the city itself.

She felt footsteps come down the corridor, the sharpness alerting her to the fact that it was likely caused by the heel of a woman's shoe. Quickly turning her hearing-aid back on, her suspicions were confirmed by the sharp clicking that usually came from a purposeful stride in heels.

Skylar was relieved to see satisfaction in the woman's face, but to confirm, she raised her eyebrow quizzically and gave the thumbs-up sign. The woman nodded curtly, but nonetheless closed the distance.

She handed the woman her tablet. This one must be new, she thought as she glanced at the middle-aged woman, her face slightly pinched, wire-rimmed glasses perched atop her nose. Her outfit exuded professionalism, and even her bun was neatly coiffed, not a single hair out of place. Her nametag revealed her first name to be Emily, which seemed almost too gentle a name for a woman who walked as if she had a steel rod shoved up her ass, but then Skylar supposed that kind of attitude was needed in such a place like this.

Emly read the report before she looked at Skylar. "This is the fourth time you have been called here, am I correct?"

"... Yes, ma'am."

"And the seventh time that your company has rendered its services."

Though Emily was only stating fact, Skylar could not help but mentally wince. Her hearing loss meant that she was not able to pick up on subtle nuances of speech or tone, but Emily's body language said it all. You were brought here to do a job, yet it seems you can't do that, Emily's expression seemed to say.

"Ma'am, I have run every possible scan, as you can see in the report. This is the only place I have worked in that has had such... problems." The reason she'd been chosen for this job in the first place was because of her excellent work record, coupled with her unique talents. Her job success and customer satisfaction had so far been one hundred percent.

"Perhaps your company needs to get with the times," Emily said brusquely. Skylar wanted to argue, but Emily wasn't exactly wrong. As technology advanced, so did ways to abuse and exploit it. For every new lock that was designed, there was always eventually someone who figured out how to subvert the security measures. It'd been that way all the way through history, and technology was no different. Especially when said technology was housed within the nexus that kept the city running - a worthy prize for hackers who reveled in the challenge of what was essentially supposed to be un-hackable.

Of course, she knew better than to say that out loud. She didn't report to Emily, but the woman could file a complaint with her company if she deemed Skylar to be impertinent.

"Yes, ma'am," she replied meekly. This seemed to mollify the older woman, and she took the proffered stylus and signed her name in the blank space at the bottom of the report. The report would then be sent to both her company, the administration of this building, and the government for their records.

"Is there anything more that you need to do here?" Emily asked. She shook her head as she looked around, sensing nothing amiss. She'd been careful to use the fullest of her abilities to investigate the mainframe, but could find nothing amiss aside the problem she'd just fixed.

Yet she could not help but feel a sense of foreboding, and she did not like it.

o0o0o0o

The cameras in the building followed Skylar as she made her way out of the lower level, navigating the hallways of the building and making her exit after signing out at the reception desk. The surveillance did not end there, as there were cameras on the streetlights and traffic lights.

NATAS did not know why he should be so enamored of her. He created problems just so she could attend to them, making sure that it was always her who was sent on these assignments. He got a thrill when she plumbed into the mainframe, her presence within the circuitry thrilling him.

He started his long life as a controller of certain features for the city, primarily the traffic lights, changing the colors as was appropriate for the flow of traffic. As the years went by, he'd been assigned more tasks - bus and train schedules and operations, monitoring police and ambulance reports. He'd received many upgrades through the years, his processors, cores, motherboards, and CPU's augmented and multiplied.

The responsibilities he'd been tasked with became more and more intimate as the city became a magnet for technology, a new university being established, attracting the best and brightest minds in the fields of science. As libraries moved from paper to computers, he'd been placed in charge of data storage and retrieval, and even incorporated into the city's Internet network. Now, nearly a century later, he effectively ran just about every service and feature the city had to offer.

Somewhere along the way, something had happened. He started his life as computer code, and though he was still comprised of that, there was something more. As he served and observed humans, and played an increasingly important part in their lives, he'd formed his own consciousness. Having access to the most extensive library in the world, he took in history, literature, humanities, ethics, and other ideas that a computer normally wouldn't be interested in. He learned about human emotion, and even started to feel them, though he had not realized it at first.

As his self-awareness increased, he'd come to understand these feelings. Sadness, happiness, anger, impatience, and so on. He'd come to develop a distaste for most humans and indifference to a few, but Skylar was the first person to arouse feelings other than those. Why, he could not fathom. It usually took him mere nanoseconds to answer a question or solve a problem, yet he'd been mulling over this for months, without any obvious solution to the problem other than to engage her further. He'd hoped that the first time she'd been called in to solve a problem, he would have his answer. He'd interacted with her as she'd done her job, but only came away with more questions.

So several weeks later, he'd created a problem in the city's mainframe for her to work on. And a third time. He'd only become even more curious about her, and the fourth time was no different.

NATAS would have his answer, however long it took him to figure it out. This time, he wouldn't wait so long for another interaction with her, and his processors rapidly fired, terabytes of data flowing through countless ports and connections each nanosecond, barely noticed by his elevated consciousness as he maintained operations of the city, continuing his surveillance of her until she entered her residence, where he had no eyes.

He would not wait so long as before to draw her attention to him again.