The mayan prophecy (Timeriders # 8) Read Free

Rashim. This version of my AI does not have authority to access the locked data.’
    ‘We know that already.’ Maddy explained to Rashim: ‘A while back I decided to set up a separate version of her AI on the same computer she has in her head. I’m beginning to regret that now,’ she said with a sigh. ‘But at the time there were things going on that I thought I needed to keep strictly to myself and I needed an AI who could work with me … 
confidentially
.’
    She looked guiltily at Liam and Sal. ‘Obviously, now, there are no more secrets between us, but back then I just didn’t knowwhat I was meant to be doing. Anyway … point is, Rashim, she has a partitioned section of her mind that can be unlocked only by using three spoken codewords in the correct sequence.’
    Rashim looked at her. ‘And you remember them, of course?’
    ‘Of course I do! I’m not an idiot.’ She narrowed her eyes at him for a moment before carrying on. ‘When I speak the codewords the partition will unlock and her “consciousness”, for the sake of a better word, will transfer to the version of her AI installed in there.’ She sat back in her chair. ‘It’s
that
version of Becks who knows all about the mystery encoded in that old manuscript.’
    ‘The Voynich one? The one you were telling me about last week?’
    Maddy nodded. She’d explained to him as best she could: about how they’d come across the ancient medieval manuscript containing an encoded message addressed to her by name. A medieval manuscript that had itself been copied from a much older manuscript that was universally known as the Holy Grail. Rashim had gawped at her like a simpleton when she’d mentioned that. But then she’d rationalized it was an obvious ‘drop-point document’ for a time traveller to use. It made perfect sense. A real document. A carefully protected document guarded by fanatical warrior monks – the Templars. And a document that dated back almost two thousand years. Frankly, it would be odd if someone at some time
hadn’t
smuggled a message on to that faded scroll. A perfect message board for anybody moving around time over the last two millennia.
    Of course, the big question was
who
wrote the message. And more importantly: what exactly was the message?
    Becks’s partitioned ‘secret’ AI had been given the final task of decoding the crucial passage in the Voynich Manuscript. Again, a decision Maddy had been regretting ever since, becausethe decoded message had contained an instruction to Becks not to reveal the message she’d just successfully managed to decode.
    At least not
yet
.
    ‘So,’ Maddy continued, ‘it’s
that
partitioned version of Becks’s AI we need to be sure hasn’t gone completely crazy on us first.’ She looked up at Bob. ‘We need to know she’s
stable
before we can ask her precisely what it is she needs to hear – be told … in order to open up and tell us the contents of that message.’
    ‘Didn’t she say she’d tell us what the secret was “
when it was the end
”?’ said Liam.
    ‘Uh-huh, she did. But, c’mon, “the end”? That means exactly – lemme do the math here – exactly
nothing
to anyone.’ She looked at the others. ‘She’s obviously waiting for a nugget of information, some specific event, or perhaps another codeword, before she’s prepared to spill the beans.’
    Rashim looked like he was struggling to catch up on the conversation. ‘So she decoded this ancient manuscript but then, when you asked her to tell you what the message was, she …?’
    ‘She said she’d tell me “
when it was the end
”. That’s right.’ Maddy shrugged. ‘Which is about as useful as a chocolate crowbar.’ She looked at the others. ‘I think it’s finally time we dig this truth out of her. One way or another we get the whole truth, everything!’
    The others looked uncertainly at her.
    ‘I mean it! The whole thing: who sent us a message from two thousand years ago … and what