Legacy Code

AUTHOR NOTE:

I wanted to try something a little more 'wholesome' (but still extremely naughty) and with extended character development. Feedback is more than welcome -- I might continue this later, depending on how well it lands.

Everyone contained in this story is fully consenting and over the age of 18.

"Jesus." Roland stubs his cigarette out against the side of the door-frame and flicks it down to the ground. A disc-shaped auto-recycler hums as it swoops across the deck and gulps down the crumpled butt. "It's been, what -- three years?"

"Five." The girl on his patio offers a shy little smile. Her arms are wrapped tight around an aluminum tablet squeezed against her chest. "It's... good to see you again, Uncle Brandt."

"Jesus." He grimaces. "Don't call me that. You're making me feel old."

"You

are

old," Penelope counters with a twinkle in those big walnut-brown eyes.

No disputing that. Roland's big and heavy, with grey-speckled stubble and a jaw that could crack a cinder-block. The grizzled old researcher is pushing well into his 40s, now; the dense masculine physique of his youth is trending downward to his gut. He stands just outside his makeshift beach flat nestled along the coastline -- wearing a white tank-top and a faux Hawaiian shirt so obnoxiously bright that makes Chernobyl look like a leaky car battery.

Penelope's another matter entirely. She's a lovely slip of a girl, with sable-black hair and skin like dark amber. There's a cherubic sweetness to her features -- to that rounded nose and those plump coral-pink lips. Like someone took the time to sand away every edge until nothing but soft curves and shapely insinuations remained. She's slender and bird-like, with high apple-sized breasts and a Turkish inflection to her voice. Her flannel jacket nearly swallows her; its sleeves go all the way up to the joints of her thumbs.

The girl blushes and looks down. Roland suddenly realizes he's been staring.

Get it together, old man.

"Sorry, sweetie. Just been a while since I've seen you."

Christ. I used to bounce this kid on my knee.

"What can I do for you?"

She keeps staring at her feet, her smoldering blush showing no signs of fading. "Well... um..."

Five years.

Fuck,

he thinks. Five years ago, he and Penelope's dad had their little spat -- Roland kept his distance ever since. Even when Richard died a few years back, he stayed away. Maybe that was a mistake. The kid could have used a comforting shoulder. He just assumed there were people better suited to provide it. Or maybe he just didn't want to open old wounds.

"--teach me?"

Wait. What did she say?

"Sorry, say again?"

"Teach me." Penelope finally drags those dark kohl-kissed eyes up to him. "Do you think... you could teach me?"

"Wh..." Roland's brow crumples into a tight knot. "About what, exactly?"

Penelope's face tilts up. Roland doesn't need to follow her eyes; he knows precisely what she's looking at. The steel pylon behind his home spears out of the beach, rising nearly a half a kilometer into the sky -- where it acts as a relay-tower for most of the surrounding colony.

"The relays," she replies. "I know you worked on them with dad -- it's what I've wanted to do ever since I was little. And you're the expert."

Roland slumps against his front door. Out of all the things this kid could decide to do, she picks what

he

does...? She's right, though -- if you want to know about the relays that make the colony-wide communication network function, Roland's your guy. A few folks know how to maintain the relays, and a few others know how to run the code -- but he's the only one left who knows how to do both.

His eyes trace up those long, coltish legs, up to her exceptionally pretty face. Something tells him this is a monumentally bad idea. But he could never say no to those big brown eyes.

"You sure

this

is what you want to learn about, sweetie?"

Penelope nods. Roland scratches the side of his head, grunts, and shrugs.

"Alright, kiddo. Welcome to the most boring job on the planet."

It probably isn't actually the most boring job. But it's definitely up there.

By noon, he's taken her through the basics. The relays were built to work with a century-old satellite that runs antique code ("Some kids up north are trying to send up a new satellite, but they still haven't figured out the rocket fuel," Roland tells her). Each pylon fires a signal to the satellite, which reflects it to another pylon. That pylon then distributes it to numerous smaller 'relay towers' in the surrounding area. Since there's only one satellite, the network has a lot of limitations -- but it's better than nothing.

They head out on his buggy to check one of the smaller relay towers. That's when she starts asking him questions -- interspersed between the high-pitch whine of the buggy's electric engine.

"We've had this satellite for years, but nobody knows how it works or how to put another one into orbit. So... where'd this one come from?"

Roland shrugs. He keeps one hand on the steering wheel, navigating down the old hiking trail through the woods. "Dunno. The code it's running is in Russian -- had to learn a whole new language just to talk to the damn thing. Your dad figured some colony ship landed here long before ours... maybe they put it up."

"But nobody ever found any other colonies."

"Nope. And as far as we can tell, we're the only ones using it."

They arrive at the relay tower. It's built atop of a concrete slab, extending about a hundred feet into the air. Roland parks the buggy beside it and gets out, approaching the maintenance box mounted near its center. Penelope slips out and follows.

He takes her through the whole process: inspecting the tower for damage, running a diagnostic check on the internal computer, and even sending a 'ping' to the nearest secondary tower. Once they're through, they ride to Emerson -- a nearby fishing town -- for lunch.

They end up at a small dock-side vendor with outdoor seating, enjoying fish and chips while watching the boats off in the distance. As they eat, Penelope asks more questions -- good questions. Questions that show she's paid attention and already learned some of this on her own. Roland does his best to give her answers.

He's trying hard not to get distracted by just how much she's changed, though. He still remembers the short-haired tomboy who nearly broke her arm trying to impress him by climbing the tallest tree she could find; the girl who gushed endlessly over the home-made miniature rocket-kit he put together for her 14th birthday. But she isn't that little girl anymore. She's a full-grown adult. A very

attractive

full-grown adult.

An attractive full-grown adult who blushes and looks away every time Roland's eyes meet hers.

"What about the autons? Do they interact with the relays at all?"

Roland shifts his attention to the boats off the coast. Most are manned; a few are controlled remotely by someone on another boat. "Not typically. We do it sometimes, but -- the relays are unreliable past a certain distance, and most of the work we do with autons requires constant feedback. You can trust some of them to just do their own thing outside direct human control, but..." He shrugs and slides a chip through a smudge of ketchup before popping it into his mouth.

Something flickers through Penelope's eyes -- a spike of sudden interest. "How

do

we control autons?"

Roland lifts his brow. "I thought you were interested in the relays."

She blushes again. Roland feels a tiny surge of warmth at the sight. "I mean, I am -- but I'll have to use autons for some of the maintenance work, right?"

That's true. Roland uses them extensively -- everything from repair drones to constructors to even the little auto-recycler he keeps at his home. And when a remote tower needs repairs, he's even controlled one

through

the relays, just like she suggested. Still... something dangerous tugs at the back of his mind. "Point taken. What specifically do you want to know?"

"I guess... well. We broadcast our thoughts to them through the neural chip, right? And they respond. But I can't control those boats out there right now." Her eyes turn to the ocean.

"No," Roland agrees. "Autons only respond to the chip they're calibrated to. And it's a little more complicated than -- see, that chip in the back of your head?" He gestures to the near-invisible scar underneath her hair. "It's broadcasting your brain's signals, but encrypted. Autons need to have a key to read it; otherwise, it's just background noise. Meaningless static. And even with a key -- everyone's brain chemistry is unique. Autons have to decode that decrypted data into instructions."

Penelope nods. "That's calibration -- right?"

"Yeah. Once it's calibrated, it's almost like... like a neuroprosthetic. An extension of you. Some of the more advanced models can even send feedback, stimuli directly through the chip, that your brain can interpret --"

Alarm bells are going off in his head. He's not sure why. Penelope is looking at him with rapt interest -- her eyes meeting his own. Something about the focus of that gaze makes

him

want to blush.

He turns back to his chips, stirring one in the last remaining dollop of ketchup. "That was more your father's thing. He understood the underlying neurology better than anyone. He's the one who figured out how to fine-tune our control via reactive feedback. Sending signals back into the brain -- safely."

"But you figured out how to upload the changes -- modify the software in the chips remotely. Right?"

Roland hesitates. Where is this going? "...yeah."

Penelope's soft, pink lips stretch into a thin line. "You found a way to modify the existing code of everyone's neural chip..."

He sighs. Familiar wounds stir inside him; anger, hurt, pride -- regret. "Yeah."

"Isn't that... dangerous?"

"Extremely." The word leaves him with an exhale of relief. She recognizes the problem -- the problem her father never accepted.

"You could..."

"Fuck with everyone's brain? Yeah. And even if I didn't want to abuse that, an update that lets the chip send signals

into

the brain is fraught with peril. It's a wonder I didn't lobotomize everyone." His eyes trace their way back to the vendor, working on someone else's order. He looks on to the town, bustling with life. "I was cocky. Wanted to see if I could do it. I didn't realize how dangerous it was till later."

Her tone shifts from fascination to concern. "Well... you didn't. Lobotomize everyone, I mean."

"Not yet. We never did an extensive study on this shit. Who's to say the update won't eventually fry our brains on account of some floating point error?" He doesn't think it will, but the fact that it's possible makes his chest clench. There's more bitterness here than he realized. He tries to pull back a little. "Sorry. I'm not trying to scare you. I don't think... The chips were already designed to do this, to a degree. I just expanded on it. I don't think we're in any danger. But it was still deeply irresponsible of us."

"I understand." That tiny hand of hers reaches across the table and touches his own. It looks so delicate in comparison to his.

She's such a pretty thing; so soft, so warm. Something stirs inside him. He gingerly pushes the feeling down, even as he offers her a tired smile.

"Is this what you were actually looking for? To find out about the shit your dad and I got up to twenty years ago?"

That shy little girl comes flooding back. Her cheeks burn as she glances down. "I do want to learn about the relays from you. But... there's something else, too. Something I've wanted to ask you about for -- for a while, now..."

When she asks her next question, Roland nearly chokes on his next bite of chips.

"The update you installed -- did it ever... Give you a way to, um... control someone?"

Several years later and he still remembers the day Penelope nearly broke her arm.

She was a fearless little spitfire, back then; lacking any trace of the shy, dignified bookworm she'd become. Her licorice black hair was chopped short, with a constant gap-toothed grin plastered across her face. She was wearing that grin when she climbed up that tree, shouting out for 'Uncle Brandt' to come see.

Her father had asked him to look after her for the afternoon. He figured it was safe to leave her to play outside while he worked on some code. When her cries for attention drew him out, he immediately regretted his decision.

She was nearly twenty feet up, standing with her arms out -- balanced atop the long branch of an old oceanside pine tree. With each step she took, the branch wobbled and creaked.

A pile of large rocks jutted out from the ground under the branch.

He called out for her to stop, but she just laughed and told him to watch. He yelled at her, pleaded with her -- she just kept wobbling forward as the branch bent down. She clearly intended to walk all the way to the end, where she expected the branch's tip would safely touch the ground.

The branch cracked.

"

Stop.

"

He was aware of a pressure, then; like a thin membrane of plastic separating her mind from his. His command pushed against that membrane, stretching it -- it felt like, for a moment, he was squeezing his thoughts against hers. Squishing them. Compressing them.

Penelope's bright gap-toothed smile faded. Her dark walnut-brown eyes grew somehow even darker. A stillness swept over her face; she did not move.

Roland had no idea what he was doing. He only knew that whenever it was, it was working. "

Climb down. Slowly. The same way you came.

"

She obeyed. That lively, ferocious little imp was as placid as the eye of a hurricane. She clambered down slowly, picking her way through the branches until she touched the ground.

Roland scooped her up into a hug. For a moment, the look of docile calm lingered -- but then that fiery grin slowly seeped back in. The stillness gave way to excitement. "Did you see?" she asked. "Did you see?"

He told her that he did. Even then, he couldn't shake the notion that there was something new in her eyes -- something about the way she looked at him from that point on. Something softer, gentler -- and fascinated.

"You remember."

Penelope nods. They're sitting inside Roland's house alongside the beach. The very same tree she nearly fell off is still outside, visible through a window that faces the mainland.

"Jesus." Roland rubs his temples, dropping his head. "Yeah. Your dad and I did an extensive follow-up with you. I don't know if you remember that part. We tried not to alarm you. As far as we could tell, your chip reacted to mine. Like... I used the same mental reflex I use to control an auton, but on your chip. Forcing you into some sort of hyper-suggestible state."

Penelope's face is now beet-red. Once again, she's staring down -- this time at the aluminum tablet she's been using all this time to take notes. "I -- I figured it was something like that. But... you said autons can't decrypt brainwaves without the right key -- right?"

"The right key

and

being calibrated to those brainwaves." Roland lifts his head and nods. "But, uh..." Now it's his turn to blush. It's subtle, but there -- the first time he's done so in what feels like a decade. "Well..."

Penelope's eyes snap back up to him, her flush interrupted by a sudden surge of excited realization. "All the chips are calibrated to you, aren't they?"

"Yeah. That's how -- look, I know in retrospect it was incredibly fucked up, but at the time I was an arrogant dick. I wanted to see if I could do it. I wrote a virus that -- any time someone calibrated with an auton, it would upload the patch. But when I built the virus, I didn't realize... it also uploaded my calibration. My key, too -- into

everyone's

chip."

"You can... control chips like they were autons?" The lack of apprehension in Penelope's tone concerns Roland.

"Not exactly. Kind of. I can... Trigger certain responses from a chip. If I'm not careful."

"Is this why you and dad stopped talking?"

He sighs. "Yeah. After this, I realized... I started to see just how fucked up this was. Even if we'd made huge progress, I thought -- it's way too dangerous. Your dad, he didn't see the problem. Even wanted to examine the possibility of doing this on purpose."

Penelope nods. She's staring at Roland with a familiar look of rapt interest. He feels a tiny shiver roll up his spine.

The interior of his house is small; just three rooms with a closet. Right now, they're in the living area -- it includes a fold-out cot that Roland is sitting on. Penelope is in the small nook beside it, resting on the large, comfortable bean-bag that doubles as a guest bed for anyone visiting.

Everything about this conversation is setting off more alarm bells. Initially, he was worried that Penelope might see things the way her father had seen them. Now? He's concerned over just how unconcerned she is. He's told her that he effectively has an internal remote control for everyone in the colony, and she seems... almost

excited

about it.

"Have you... did you ever use it on anyone else?" Her question is asked with a sort of breathless murmur. There's something in those dark brown eyes, too -- something that reminds him of the look she had way back when he stopped her from climbing the tree.

"No," he replies, only to add: "I mean... yes. I experimented -- with your dad. To reproduce the effect. Once we were sure it was safe."

She nods. "Did you, um..." She swallows, licking those soft lips. "Did you ever... use it on me? Again?"

There's something going on. Roland can see it in her face; hear it in the slight tremble of her voice. He can almost

feel

it.

Her father never gave her the attention she wanted and deserved. Roland had always been happy to fill that space; listen to her problems, help her with her projects, and even advise her on navigating the complexities of being a teen. Out of all the adults in her life, he was the one she confided in the most. Up till he had his falling out with her father, he'd done his best to play that role.

But after that day in the tree... something changed. She grew fascinated by him -- always trying to get closer. He chalked it up to a kid's adult crush. She'd grow out of it eventually. But now here she is, all grown up -- and it doesn't feel like she's grown out of it at all.

"No," Roland tells her, his voice soft. She nods, looking down again. Her face is as red as an apple.

He suddenly knows what she wants to ask. Why she came here; why she wants to learn from him. His chest tightens. Warmth stirs in the pit of his stomach. He forces himself to breathe slowly.

This is wrong,

he tells himself.

She's too young to know better. But you know better. You know how wrong this is.

Her breathing has gotten a little quicker. She's working her way up to asking, and -- he's worried that if she gets the words out, he won't be able to tell her no.

You can shut this down right now. You just have to tell her that you can't -- won't do it. You just have to stop her before she gets the words out. Before...

She's such a pretty thing. So soft, so supple. Her hair is dark and slightly curled, draped past her shoulders. Like a tender little golden brown nymph seated in his home.

"...Penelope."

Warm, infinitely dark brown eyes rise up to meet him, gulping every molecule of light in the room.

Roland swallows. Every instinct inside of him is screaming. A mixture of loneliness, lust, and paternalism coalesce into a single overpowering impulse.

"Do you want me to do it to you again?" He whispers the words, as if some tiny part of him -- the part of him terrified of what he might do -- hopes she won't hear.