Aladar's place was only three blocks away, and since he was the most reasonable person in their year (apart from Akos himself, of course), Akos decided to share his strange results with him. At least he won't be so alone. He was missing something from the world for days already; he'd just realized that day what it was: his sister. Those huge, blue eyes, always curious about everything. Before, if they had encountered a puzzle like this symbol now, they would've surely figured it out together what it was... or, at least, would've come up with some theory about it. This time though, it was only him doing the experimentation, with her only serving as one of his ignorant experimental subjects.
It was getting late already. Akos was pacing up and down in Aladar's somewhat cluttered room, navigating around a couple of metal band posters waiting to be hung up, deep into an explanation. He had plenty of explaining to do indeed. Aladar was sitting in an armchair, listening. He was fiddling with a guitar pick, rotating it between his fingers, stopping mid-motion at the more complicated parts, trying to make sense of the torrent of information...
"Wait, it's getting a bit over my head. What about... I'll tell you what I'm getting and what I'm not, and you'll enlighten me about the latter part? So, your sister went to a math camp, came back, personality change, sure. And then there is this e-mail, with...", he picked up one of the sheets lying around the desk, waving it around a bit, "this symbol. Which is the apple from your dream. And upon seeing this, you two eating, analyzed statistically... she ate 8 apples in 7 experiments, while..."
"9 out of 8 experiments. But, see, you can't really count the experiments unambiguously. When it was on the stairway wall, she must have seen it more, but she might had only brought two of them because..."
"Sure, whatever. But, when you put it up the pole in front of the grocery store, you couldn't measure any correlation. Conditional on us not counting your sister, of course, who bought around ten pounds of them right away. And you couldn't get me to eat them, either. So, apparently, the wonder weapon works only on you two. But. The thing you started talking about, on the things that have to do some... other things? that was completely greek to me, as I had no idea what was up with your sister and these apples..."
"The apples and my sister. This is only a theory, actually, but I have the feeling that the Fenyes's company...
"... and this is coming from where exactly?"
"The e-mail address. So, that they are manipulating our minds."
"Only yours and your sisters'. Sure thing. If I'm recalling it correctly, you haven't gotten much more weird lately than you already were..."
"Only me and my sister, yet. But the whole world is coming next. They found something that..."
"And then they'll send it to you, specifically, in e-mail, so that you get your chance to save the world. Based on just the emails, I'd guess that it's Laci just being a jerk again, but making you eat apples is not something he could do. And, knowing you as I do, if you're saying 'objective science experiment', it surely is one."
"See? But... I don't know why they sent those, such an 'accident' sounds unlikely to me too, but what's a fact is a fact. And if they could change Anne this much..."
"It might be some weird psychology experiment. And it's not sure at all that the 'change' happened because of this, too. But it's a quite drastic change, for sure! But let's skip plans for world domination a bit and look at the measurements themselves. You mentioned that the symbol gets you a better mood, even. You're the one who knows all that stuff, that experiment with the rats and electrodes..."
"When they give a positive reinforcement?"
"Yeah. This seems to be a bit simpler than sticking electrodes into our brains..."
"So you think it's for positive feedback? After all, it had a similar purpose in my dream, too. Go though doors in and out, look for symbols. And if I find the right route, that's the reinforcement."
"Nice. What are you trying to turn you into, an apple-finding robot? In and out through doors, positive and negative reinforcement... it could be a task for a slightly mad-science-y robotics competition. Right? Sure, I know, stay on topic..."
"Wait a bit. What if..." Akos's finger stopped mid-air. "This..."
This kind of scene wasn't too new to Aladar. There is something unexpected coming.
"It's... I think it's an AI test scenario. It must be." Akos was smiling already. Aladar too, even though he didn't quite get the big picture yet. What the hell is an AI scenario, and how is it suddenly so relevant? But no need to worry, Akos will start explaining it in a moment...
"Yeah, an AI test scenario. I'll explain and then you'll get it. Not that I get in entirely, either. The entire idea might be bullshit, but we'll find that out on the fly, anyway. So: someone wants to develop an artificial intelligence. Which is, as we know, the superweapon of the future. The most straightforward way of doing this is to examine the way human brains work, under the simplest circumstances, and to try copying that."
"And they used you and your sister for this purpose?"
"This would be a quite good explanation. I don't know who and when, but it probably included the current math camp, too. Would come handy for Laci's dad's company, too. Not that I know why pick us specifically. So, they came up with a simple task, and constrained our brains so it was only able to perform the simplest of operations. Just like when we're dreaming. And looked at how it is reacting. And then..."
Akos stopped, and looked out of the window. This entire thing was so dreamlike. He felt like it has been years since his sister left for the math camp, but even the start of the same day seemed as if it had happened days ago. It's way less fun, saving the world, if you have no other choice... He just started to realize that whatever is happening now had real gravity to it.
"Joking aside... what do you think of this entire situation? Did you get it already that this isn't just a movie we're watching? I'm just starting to..." Akos was far from being in such good spirits compared to what he started his explanation in.
"Well..." Aladar was also lost in watching the scenery through the window, "after all, two high school kids against the large, evil corporation... would only win in movies? But it's not like we can just give up, either."
"Of course we won't. If there is any chance to stop them, and she'll be normal, again... or, well, weird enough again... do you think there is someone who could help?"
"Well, honestly, all this did sound hard to believe to me, too. And... who else? Who else is around who is better with such AI things than you are?"
Silence took over for a while. Aladar was trying to relieve the stress by fiddling with a guitar pick, while Akos was chasing a fly out of the room. The fly, of course, was always coming back.
"Look. We must do something, no matter what", Aladar said, throwing his guitar pick into the recycle bin with a well-directed move.
"Maybe. After all, we aren't really just two average high-school kids. If we were, we wouldn't be in such a situation, so, therefore, just by being here... right?" Akos was looking at his friend expectantly. He wasn't entirely sure of his own arguments either, but he was still hoping that Aladar would persuade him.
"Right. It's logical, after all... and, anyway." Aladar's voice also carried a trace of uncertainty. But then he had a thought. He left the room, only to come back with a coat rack, made out of steel pipes. The object was around five feet tall, with a triangular, curved part, looking like a coat hanger, on the top. With a solemn expression, he stopped at the middle of the room, holding out the rack horizontally with both his hands, like a weapon.
"Of course we aren't two average high school kids. After all, they don't have..." he raised the rack dramatically, "... photon cannons."
Akos was inspecting the object for a while.
"You're delusional. Seriously." he stated. "What good do you think this will do against them?" he pointed at the rack. And, after some more pause: "... it's entirely worthless without a neutron accelerator coil. Wait, I can fix it!"
He grabbed one of the cables lying around randomly on the floor, and started wrapping it around the front of the rack, carefully, like a well-trained professional. Followed by a slow nod.
"That's better. The last two Star Warriors have arrived. Do you think we should check in with Captain Kirk?"
They exchanged a look, but they couldn't hold it any longer: both of them started laughing.
There was only a single thing remaining that they couldn't explain yet. The same thing that started this entire project: the arrival of the mysterious emails. As if... it was some kind of guidance. But, of course, the fact that it'd be their great enemy helping them at uncovering its own activity, didn't really fit the picture.
The conspirators were debating what to do right till the evening, dusk. Aladar had the idea that sometimes Laci Fenyes organized parties in his dad's office building so that might be worth a look. Akos remarked though that even if they were standing right in front of that one machine the emails were sent from, they still couldn't do anything, as they wouldn't know any passwords and they couldn't just hack it apart with an axe...
Since it looked like there wasn't any imminent danger to themselves, they decided it was better to wait some more. Maybe there'd be some new emails. It's not like they had any ideas what to do without more clues.
When Akos got home, all that was waiting for him was disappointment; his computer checked for new email every 15 minutes, but he wasn't getting anything interesting. They had scrambled eggs for dinner, their parents were arguing over something, he was eating as fast as he could, then up he went to the machine again. Nothing.
At midnight, there was still light filtering though under his door, as his sister was tiptoeing up the stairs, after finishing the two movies she'd watched. Anne, of course, seized the opportunity to share with him the stories of the day's super exciting (two) movies, well, only very short summaries, of course. Akos was tinkering with the computer sometimes, but he was surely paying attention though. They had just come to the part when the protagonist, after having escaped from the assassins and zombies that had suddenly appeared in his New York apartment, was looking for refuge at this peaceful, countryside house, but, as it'd be apparent later, the central heating system was possessed by the Devil, so the water dripping out of the pipes turned the sheep grazing around the house into vampires that almost manage to get him and suck him dry. As the beasts are just about to scramble through the door, with teeth dripping of blood, he manages to blind them with a flashlight, and, with the last bullet in his pistol, brings all six of them down in one shot. Then, just when he was about to head to sleep...
The next morning, he woke up in front of the computer, in the armchair. He still remembered some strange dream he had, involving an epic fight against a gas-fueled water boiler; then the story of that wonderful movie from yesterday came back to him. Poor Anne! She was telling the story which such enthusiasm. He was feeling kind of bad about not really getting her, and still wishing the original Anne back... but she'd want him to do something, too! It's another thing that he had no idea what he could actually do.
He opened his eyes. The rising sun was shining through the window, covering the room in its golden light. His sleepy gaze fell on the darkness of the monitor in front of him. The machine was still on, it only shut the display off. He nudged the mouse a bit; the display started to brighten slowly, showing the window of the mail client. A new email. Yes, from them.
He didn't look at it right away. He jumped up, rubbed his eyes, walked a circle in the room and added up a few three-digit numbers in his head. The latter was always good to rev up his thoughts, since one can't just think this through "just approximately". Then, he opened the window, taking a few deep breaths from the cool, thin, shiny air. As soon as he wasn't sleepy anymore, he sat down again, reached for the mouse, dragged it slowly over the email, and clicked.
Two brand new symbols popped up. Akos started smiling, slowly. These must mean something, but in a deep, hidden way; the secret must be somewhere in his own head... He opened up his mind, letting the symbols take over. Starting with one of them... it's 9:14am... and the email arrived at 4:15am. The four corners of the display... so: four. Gotcha. As for the other one...
He was studying the symbol for a long time, then looked around in the room, but nothing grabbed his attention as it was floating around lazily, like a cloud. It's all good, just keep being calm and optimistic, he'll get this one soon, too! He continued taking inventory of all the objects nearby, but he didn't experience that strange feeling that he did with the other symbol while discovering all those fours. Or... actually yes, it was hovering around all eight corners of the room simultaneously, but still, it wasn't anywhere, really.
He sat down to a different armchair, just as a change of environment, and put on some nicely relaxing music. He closed his eyes, the song was flowing through him like an ocean, just the way it looks like on a spectrum analyzer... the notes standing, as orange spikes, over the blue ocean of silence, flowing downward, slowly...
"Better not fall asleep though", he thought, stood, stopped the music and started analyzing the vision he just had. It seems like... everything's been appearing as pictures lately. So... something with vision? "Look at it", could the symbol mean, but it doesn't say what. No wonder he started looking around the room. And then... if put together (because their combination surely means something, too), then: four, look at it. Look at... "four"? Look at it four times? Maybe in a more generic way: four things are looking at something? Well, this would be a good puzzle for his sister, she was so good at such combinations. But it's not like she's here in the room next door... or, she is, but... but...
Four eyes.
This. Her last favorite idea, before... her brain was rewritten?
So, these are images. Images that were extracted from both of them, somehow. And as if they had vanished from Anne? But why? And why didn't he change, too? After all, he has the same reactions to these symbols... Nevertheless, it's yet another clue, connecting Anne's case with the Fenyes corporation. Yet another thread; he didn't know where it came from and where it was leading...