D-13 had reached the ramp. As he ascended, the chamber around him started to vibrate.
"Primary execution. The system senses that you’re about to activate the interface.”
“I am?”
“Well, I am.”

The center of the chamber was a tiny platform, barely 5 meters across. A massive crystal was embedded in the platform. It looked spherical, but only the top showed. It was perfectly smooth and clear.

“Here we go.”

Without warning, a band of code appeared around D-13’s arm. Then it shot downwards, and made contact with the sphere. The code somehow gained entry, and moved to the center of the crystal. When all the code had reached the middle, it condensed to a single white point. Instinctively, D-13 stepped back.

The walls of the chamber started to glow. Little rivulets of blue, pink and red light, within the tiny canals of the sphere walls. D-13 hurried off the platform.

Then a deafening, drawn-out explosion sound. A massive cloud of light filled the chamber, emanating from the central sphere. Then the cloud disappeared downwards. The platform containing the sphere was dissolving, as was the access ramp. The sphere hung in midair, with no support. Then it started to move downwards. Slowly, soundlessly. A faint humming noise from the chamber walls was all the sound D-13 could hear.

D-13 watched as the sphere made contact with the chamber walls. It melted into white light. The light then filled the tiny canals and spread upward. D-13 watched, hypnotized, as the light flowed past him. The light reached the top.

A spot of light appeared in the center of the chamber. A female voice, obviously synthetic, said:
“System Initialization complete. ID Two-One-Bravo-Alpha executed. Standby for global uplink.”
The light suddenly disappeared. The chamber walls seemed to give off their own illumination as the tiny canals emptied.
“Global uplink complete. All systems optimal.” 

Amanda Keene was one of a new breed of teenager. Hip, fashionable and definitely in tune with the times. She was shaking her head in time to music, blasting into her ears from her MP4 player. Suddenly, for an instant, the music stopped. Then, a second later, it started again. Puzzled, she checked her player for any problems.
Nothing. Battery and buffers were fine. Then she looked around the cabin.
She was flying home from holiday, aboard a packed British Airways flight, to Japan. There she had hoped to spend some time with her parents before they left on a business trip.

People were staring at their cell phones, watches, and laptops with expressions of surprise. She paused the music and asked the passenger next to her,
“What’s wrong?”
She shook her head and gestured to her laptop. Earlier, it had displayed a spreadsheet. Now, the screen was blank and a small logo showed in the middle, only for a moment:

The screen cleared suddenly, and the spreadsheet reappeared. The woman shrugged.
“Probably a bug. At least nothing’s missing.”
Amanda was puzzled. That was no ordinary message. She looked around the cabin again. People were using their devices as if nothing had happened. She made a mental note to look up “D3X” when she landed. Then she turned up her music full blast.