Ghost in the machine

Holy cow!

She woke with a cry, jumping up and flailing her arms to avoid the butt of the rifle swinging towards her face.

- Jesus...

Her legs were tangled in her sheet. She kicked herself free and sat on the edge of her bed, breathing heavily. Even before she'd had time to collect her thoughts a hologram flickered on beside her bed. It was Hongdong. Full-size. Still wearing her uniform, as though she'd been waiting for this to happen. Her face a mask of worry, as usual. It was a miracle she hadn't had a heart attack decades ago.

- President?
- I'm fine, doctor. Another purge, like you said.
- If you wear the brainwave regulator I can wake you slowly. Before the purge gets too strong.

She was shaking and her heart was pounding. Other than that she didn't see anything to worry about. The purge was like very intense nightmare, but it wasn't going to kill her.

- Let's just let it run its course, doctor. Go and get some sleep.

Hongdong began to protest but she cut her off with a thought and the hologram vanished. The purges were inconvenient, but apparently not dangerous, and Hongdong had assured her that both frequency and intensity would fade with time. There as nothing to do. Her internal inventory showed nothing abnormal, and she new Hongdong was seeing the same information. If anything did do wrong, Hongdong would know almost as quickly as she would.

She stood requestion water from the dispenser. These latent memories were powerful. It had been so real, so vivid. Like she was there. In a way, she thought, she had been, and given the units amplified senses, it was hardly surprising the memories it created were richer and more detailed. She rubbed the side of her jaw, almost expecting to feel pain. For a moment she thought she did, but she knew it was her imagination. Even if the unit had broken something, it was months ago. Any damage was long since healed.

It was only two am. She'd been asleep for less than two hours And her inboxes were packed already. The Cloud never slept. Oceans of data flowed in from Xi Wang FC, the space station and the rest of the world day and night. So much it was impossible to keep abreast of everything. She checked her filters, widening and prioritizing the scans of Kazakhstan, China, Japan and Mexico.

The first case of H15N23 had been reported in Almaty, along with an urgent request for a vaccine. Barely thirty-six hours since release and the Kazakhstani authorities were already panicking. A riot had incinerated an entire block and anyone even suspected of being in contact with patient zero was in forced quarantine. If wouldn't do any good. All it took was a sneeze. Unless they'd got everyone they'd have an epidemic within forty eight hours. And she'd have uranium to trade with the Japanese.

She looked up the traitors. The wikiists had already begun writing back their timelines, social and work networks and C-log interconnections. In a year there wouldn't be a trace of Morgans and Van Peels. They'd never have happened. It was complicated work, and slow, and entailed the removal of every trace of a persons passage through the Cloud, and every link and interaction made with other people. She likened it to extracting a single thead from a world-sized tangle threads without any of the others noticing. It took a special kind of ersonto be a good wikiist. She shuddered at the idea of having to do it herself.

Removing physical traces was harder still, aided only by the fact that most people would forget, preferring to abdicate responsibility for memory to their implants and the Cloud. Biological memory was, after all, suspect. It was easily manipulated and subject to reconstruction each time it was accessed. Not to trusted. Digital memories were infallible. If it was out there, it was real. And those obstinate few that refused to forget could be moved, shunted around to places where the noise they made fell on indifferent ears. Or silenced, and written out themselves. Thankfully, in Xi Wang FC and SS, the need rarely arose. Once only in the last fifty years when the pretender Mendel had challenged her leadership. And she'd been kind to him. His adherents were gone from history, but of him she'd kept the good stuff and kept the memory of his brilliance alive. It was thanks to him the Exodus had taken the form it took. It was also thanks to him she had been saved and reincarnated.

She spent an hour doing the movements Hongdong had prescribed and another deep in thought, driving the Yuki units memories from her mind.

Then she fell asleep.