It took Asteron until 1986 to figure out how to hack the General Magic operating system. Apple IIs burned smoking hot into the night, decompiling the code and looking for weaknesses, a way in. Eventually a subroutrine was compromised, giving the group unfettered access to the nodes on the network – the volunteers/victims.
Firstly, Darren and the group mapped the entirety of the experiment. To their extreme nausea, they discovered it stretched from Costa Rica to Billericay, from Antartica to Madrid. A proto-wireless network of joined up synapses, feeding constant data back to the Institute. In 2026 this vast mine of data would be used to feed an AI model, but Asteron had no idea of this yet.
A group meeting.Alan Hunter was chairing.
“Well, shit,” he drawled, pulling hard on a Marlboro. “So, we’ve got – what – 1200 people out there with these things in their heads? And somehow, their thoughts are being sent back to the quacks? Why?”
“REGULATE SECTION 56” the Apple II commanded via greenscreen text.
“The fuck does that mean?” said Alan.
Rokus stepped forward. “Section 56 is the experimental ward. Even I don’t have clearance for that.”
“How long do we have to wait?”
“I’d say 10 years or so, I join up in 1991. By ’96 I should have figured out a way to access the section.”
“Uh huh,” Alan stubbed the cigarette out on the floor of the bunker. “Then you’re gonna, ‘regulate’ it, right? What the fuck does THAT mean?”
“It means,” said Rokus softly. “that I have to kill Dr Terrence.”