A (Bot)Net of Love Ch. 01

*Copyright 2019 - aNobleman*

*This is a long story and it takes quite some time to get to the sexy bits, so be warned. It also features some technical terms, but I tried explaining everything and the name doesn't really yet make sense in this part.*

*****

Aleks Drugov awoke, groaning at his pounding head. He and his friends had spent the evening yesterday pounding shots of cheap vodka, to celebrate their most recent criminal exploit. They had managed to grab around a thousand meters of copper wire, which they would sell for over 100 000 rubles.

This might not have been a fortune for most people, but it certainly was one for Aleks and his friends. The three lived together in a small run down apartment and made a living by doing various, often illegal jobs. In addition to that, all of three had actual jobs. Aleks himself did various programming tasks for smaller companies. He also had a online history of trying to scam money out of rich Europeans, which had unfortunately been unsuccessful so far. It was almost as if somebody had warned all the old people about that rich Nigerian prince not being real. Aleks friend Maxim, did construction work. He mostly worked under the hand to avoid taxes though. His girlfriend Sasha, who was the third in the trio, probably had the most stable and legit job of them all. She was a stripper at a local club, where she strictly did dances.

Aleks looked at his phone and groaned again. It was already past eleven and they had agreed to head out at twelve. They had managed to spot an old bunker, most likely still out of soviet times. While those were often already looted, sometimes one got lucky and you would find some stuff to sell. So with a third and final groan he sat up on his mattress and made his way over to the corner with the kitchen appliances. Their apartment consisted out of two rooms, with one of those being the bathroom.

He prepared three cups of coffee and walked over to the corner opposite of his, where Maxim and Sasha slept. He couldn't suppress a smile, as he looked at the tightly embraced couple. They looked peaceful, with Sasha's head resting on Maxim's muscled, sun burned arms. With a hearty kick into Maxim's side Aleks broke the image, waking Maxim up.

"Blyad, what time is it?" Maxim swore quietly as he groggily looked up at him.

He had been just as wasted as Aleks and probably suffered in a similar way now.

"It's time to wake up, we have an hour until we'll head out," Aleks answered the question, making Maxim flinch at the volume of his voice.

Sasha was starting to shift around now too, distracting Maxim with her naked body bumping against him. She opened her eyes, only to immediately close them again when Maxim's lips met hers. Aleks just rolled his eyes, being used to the two lovebirds. He turned around and went to take a shower, not only to wash but also to give them a little bit of privacy. He left five minutes later, when the moaning and grunting had stopped, signaling the end of their little quickie. He traded rooms with the two and went to his laptop to spent the rest of his available time to work on a programming job, which he currently had. He wasn't the best or most efficient programmer, but he knew enough to get jobs like these done. When his two friends were done showering too, they had breakfast together and then left the apartment.

They would drive with Maxim's old VW LT, which had over 300 000 kilometers on the motor by now and was a little rusty. It was perfect though, for transporting large amounts of metal, and other materials of value. The conversation went slow at first, with both Aleks and Maxim having a bit of a headache. It soon picked up though, as Sasha happily made small talk for three. Even though she was smaller than the two she could drink a lot more, without feeling like shit the next day.

They drove for an hour or so until they reached the forest. Soon they were unable to advance any further, due to the thick and wild plantation. This was bad because they couldn't drive the car closer to the bunker, but it also gave hope for less looting. The trio was soon making their way through the bushes, along a thin path which had been formed the last time Maxim had been here and found the place. The bunker revealed itself surprisingly quickly. Aleks heart sank though, as he looked at the ruins in front of him. The place must have been a military outpost at some point in time, but had since been reclaimed by nature. There were signs that a fence had existed at some point in time, forming a square around the ruins of a military style house and the remains of some smaller, now unidentifiable structures around it.

"Hey man, this doesn't really look like a bunker to me," he told Maxim, unable to hide the disappointment in his voice.

"I know it's not obvious, but the entrance is kind of hidden," Maxim replied with an intriguing look on his face.

He lead him and Sasha to the ruins of the house, which they entered. The ground floor was still kind of intact, with just a few holes in the concrete ceiling. But it got really exciting, when they saw a heavily rusted metal door. The lock was knocked out, showing that at least one person had been here before them. Behind the door was a staircase, leading down into a black hole.

"I haven't gone further than this, when I found it," Maxim informed us.

Aleks just nodded. Maxim sometimes scouted these places out, while being on the way to a construction project. He often didn't have the time to properly explore them, which had lead to some big disappointments in the past.

"Yeah, you were probably afraid of the darkness," Sasha joked and pushed past him with the flashlight in her hand.

Aleks shot Maxim a grin and followed her. The darkness seemed to swallow them, the further they went down. The trio had to step carefully, as the steps were old and run down. There was also some kind of railing on the wall, which was presumably for a stair lift, that didn't exist anymore.

It didn't take them long to reach the bottom. They were really excited at this point, there were cables on the wall and a number of pipes. Nobody had taken any of it and they would hopefully be able to turn a good profit. The next surprise came, when Sasha went over to inspect the cables.

"They seem pretty thick and in good condition. Look, the insulation is missing here, you can see how little oxidation the metal has... AH BLYAD," she called out in pain.

The tunnel suddenly went dark, as she seemed to have dropped her flashlight.

"Sasha! What's wrong?" Maxim called out in panic.

"I'm fine guys," Sasha quickly answered, her voice a little shaky.

They could hear her crouching down to pick up the dropped flashlight and suddenly the light was back.

"There's still power on the cable," she said with a grin, "I had just gotten startled by the shock it gave me."

"There is still power in this building?" Aleks asked in astonishment.

"Apparently," Sasha answered, "let's go and see what other surprises this place holds for us."

The three continued down the tunnel, staying as far away from the walls as possible. The further they walked, the more the condition of the place improved. It wasn't wet anymore and there was almost no rot and rust visible. Eventually their adventure came to an unexpected halt though, when a big, robust looking metal door revealed itself. As they got closer, one was clearly able to see signs of people having tried to break into it before.

"Well, I guess it's time for Maxim to bring out the big guns. This door alone is probably worth a good bit in scrap," Aleks stated.

Being a construction worker Maxim owned some tools, like a grinder and a welder. Together they went back to their car and carried the gear down to the bunker. Sasha and Aleks stood back, as Maxim got to work on the door hinges. After a good bit of time he had them at a point, where he could use the grinder to cut through them.

"Watch this," he said and stepped back from the door, only to jump against it with all of his weight.

There was a loud sound as the metal grounded against the concrete, until the door finally toppled over, with an ear-shattering thump.

"Good work," Aleks complemented him and together they advanced further.

A small part of the lights were still working here, showing them that the tunnel split into two.

"Guess we'll have to split up," Maxim observed.

"Alright, Aleks you go right and we go left," Sasha decided, with a look that did not allow for arguing.

Aleks just shrugged his shoulders, turned on his own flashlight and went right. In truth he really did not feel comfortable being on his own, but he didn't want to show it to his friends. His steps echoed in the empty hallway and he already missed the friendly banter they had been having.

The circle of his flashlight wandered from left to right, showing nothing but emptiness. It seemed a little weird to Aleks, that all the space went unused and he guessed that the complex had been cleared, before they had abandoned it. Suddenly his light cone struck something else than naked concrete. There was a door, which at some point must have been green. "Laboratoriya #1", it said in still very bright letters on a sign next to it. A laboratory would certainly be interesting and might contain something valuable.

When he tried to open the door by pulling the handle, he was disappointed to find it being locked. Now he could wait for Maxim to open it for him, or he could do it himself. His frame was of course not as strongly built as Maxim's, but this was also no high security door and so having made his decision he took a step back, before smashing against the door with his shoulder. A lot of pain shot up in his arm and he landed painfully on the ground. Aleks was almost surprised to find the door open next to him, as he got to his feet again.

"This looks a lot easier, when Maxim does it," he grumbled, as he looked around himself. He found a light switch next to the door and was surprised to find almost all of the lights turning on, illuminating the room in a cold white. There were robust looking metal tables bolted to the ground and whatever equipment had stood on them, was gone and replaced by papers and folders. In fact there were probably thousands of yellowy pages, some hand written, while others must have been typed on a typewriter carelessly sprawled across the room.

He looked at some of the writing and found multiple texts titled "Artificial Intelligence Research". There was a lot of theorizing on the concept, which to be honest made Aleks' head spin. It was unfortunate that all of the equipment was gone, it would have told him a lot about what they had been doing here. He searched around some more, looking through multiple drawers, until he found a collection of keys, all neatly titled with little plastic cards. This way he would be able to enter other rooms, without having to sprain his shoulder in the process. Having found nothing but paper, he left the room and continued down the corridor.

He actually found two more rooms, which were logically titled Laboratoriya #2 and #3. They were totally empty, not even having any papers in them. The next room was different though. Its was titled "Bezopasnost", security. It must have been an armory, but it had obviously been cleared as well, weapons were always valuable. There were some pieces of military style clothing still lying around and a few empty bullet cassings. At this point Aleks was a little disappointed, not having found anything exciting.

He was thinking of turning around and going back to his friends who probably had a similarly sobering experience as him, when he spotted another door. Titled, using the English term "Computing". From behind the door he could hear the sound of air, which had to be created by some kind of fan. Not really expecting anything to be in the room he opened the door and turned the light on. He was shocked to be greeted by a happily beeping and humming mainframe, which occupied the larger part of the room. It was really a wonder of technology, that it was still running after all these years. There were a bunch of lights blinking, some of them red, probably indicating errors. "Cray-4" it simply stated in some lettering at the top.

Aleks flinched, when suddenly there was a mechanical sound and he saw movement to his left. When he got closer to inspect it, he found an automatic CD-mounting system, with what must have been hundreds, or maybe even thousands of CDs neatly stacked on top of each other. One of them was now being pushed out and transported, over to a classic CD drive. There Aleks could hear some clicking and the sound of the CD being spun, as data was written to it. Then it was ejected and transported over to a shelve, designed to store the CD. Unfortunately it had run full years ago and the CD simply dropped to the ground, joining hundreds of others, that filled a significant part of the room.

The computer gave a satisfied beep and resumed its seemingly random pattern of blinking and humming. Aleks looked around some more until he found what he had searched for. There was an old CRT monitor on the wall, with a dusty keyboard below it. He turned the monitor on and was greeted by a barely visible green terminal, waiting for his commands:

Enigma@localhost:~$

He quickly figured out, that the system was an old version of Unix, which used similar commands to a modern Linux system. He checked the running processes and found a lot of unknown and cryptic-looking names. Of course Aleks was very curious, as to what the machine had been doing all this time and so he spent quite some time, looking at logs and searching through the file system. The logs were a dead end, as their content didn't make sense to him. They must be corrupted, he figured. There were also a bunch of random files on the system, which he thought to also be signs of corruption. Ultimately he decided, that the system was toast and that there was no point in keeping it running. He was about to issue a shutdown command, when he had an idea. He went back to the CD shelve and made some space in it. Then he issued a command, to backup the entirety of the system, including what was currently in the RAM. This way he could restore the system and tinker around with it at home. It would take some time for all of the CD's to be written to and so he left the room and made his way, to find his friends. He didn't have to walk far, as he soon met them, looking for him.

"Aleks?" Maxim called out, as he saw his light in the distance.

"Yes, it's me!" he called back and they were soon able to look into his grinning face.

"You found anything good? We just got a bunch of empty rooms, with maybe some scrap metal in them," Maxim informed him.

"For the most part, that's what I found too. But there is one room at the end of the tunnel, with a giant old mainframe in it," Aleks told them enthusiastically.

"Do you think it's worth some money?" Sasha asked, not really sharing the same enthusiasm for the technology as Aleks.

"Probably not, every smartphone has more processing power than that old beast and the system is heavily corrupted," he answered.

They went to the room and Aleks showed him the old computer, but soon found that they were only mildly interested. It shouldn't surprise him, after all they weren't the most computer literate people. They started discussing the removal of the wires from the wall instead and were soon cutting power lines and crowbaring the valuable wires off. Aleks made sure that they didn't cut the power to the mainframe, to let it finish the backup. When their truck was full and they were about to drive home again, he went back to the computer.

He entered the room just in time to get a glimpse of the last CD entering the shelf. The entire backup must have been around seventy CDs, which Aleks put into a backpack, he had brought. He then shut the system down and quickly left the room, as he found the following silence a little uncanny. When they got home, he lay the backpack in a corner and forgot about it.

The next few weeks were incredibly busy, as they stripped the wires of the insulation and sold the valuable copper inside them. They made multiple trips back to the bunker and grabbed everything of value. Cables were pulled, shelves and tables cut and the old mainframe mostly dissembled. This adventure had really turned out to be a gold mine for them, as the bunker complex had been quite large and contained a lot of material. Five weeks and a lot of hard work later, everyone held around 300 000 rubles to their name. Only then did Aleks' thoughts return to the mysterious mainframe and its digital contents.

It was a Friday evening and his two friends were away. He currently had no programming job and was honestly a little bored. So eventually he fired up a VM, short for virtual machine and copied the content of the mainframe over. He had transferred it from the CDs to his computer in the past and so it only took minutes on his quite modern drive. Aleks had done some research about the mainframe.

The lettering at the top of it, had titled it "Cray-4", which according to the internet was impossible. The Cray-4 was a supercomputer, that had never been released, due to the company going bankrupt before. The soviets must have somehow gotten their hands on a prototype. But the Cray-3 had been released and the Cray-4 was just supposed to be an up-scaled version of it.

Hopefully the system would work, if he just increased the Cray-3's processors to the amount the Cray-4 was supposed to have. He held his breath, as he clicked the "resume" button. Because he had copied over everything, even the RAM, the system would continue whatever it had been doing and hopefully not even notice the change.

Of course the system noticed it immediately. His console got spammed with error codes, most not even making sense to him. But amazingly, instead of shutting down or even crashing, the system stayed online. After multiple seconds the error codes got less. It was almost as if the system had gotten a panic attack, at being in this new environment and was just now slowly calming down. Aleks confirmed his suspicion by looking at the error codes. They were completely random, with some reporting errors that could definitely not exist. Apparently the speed of Aleks laptop had been too much for the poor old system. Once Aleks had confirmed that it had resumed its previous activities, whatever those might have been. He was now able to take a very close look at what was going on.

The system was doing... something. It was compiling programs and then execute them, after which it would delete them again. Eventually he realized what was going on. The system was building new drivers for the Cray-3's hardware. That was incredible! A system that kept improving itself. This was supposed to be impossible, as it required creativity, which in turn required sentience. But of course Aleks knew that, that was a totally ridiculous thought.

He concentrated on the task in front of him again. He would try to understand what was going on here. There must be some good explanation hidden in this mess. He followed the systems doings for quite some time, but soon realized that it wasn't going to be easy to understand it. Apparently the soviets had developed a totally new programming language, which was written in cryptic lettering, that didn't make any sense to him.

He tried googling for some stuff, when suddenly, at the bottom of his screen, an antivirus warning poped up. Even though it nearly instantly vanished, the second or so that it had been there was enough to get Aleks' adrenaline going. He had recognized the symbols in the name of the intruding process, as being the same he had seen in the system on his VM. The system had escaped the VM and infiltrated his operating system. It was even able to disabled his antivirus in seconds. It took him five seconds to think of what his next step should be. He ripped out the Ethernet cable as fast as he could, cutting his laptops internet access off.