EXTINCTION WARRIOR

Chapter 17

Night envelops the ship anchored in a cove off Rutland Island, in the Bay of Bengal.We're in Mom & Dad's room, sitting at the edge of their bed. Tuk's on one side, I'm on the other. The room glows like a firefly from the three different lightscreens that fill the wall. Not sure why it's taking him so long to hack Big Bear's network. He's been at it for hours.

I close my eyes and see White Wolf's superyacht, tangled and glowing with a mass of slender spirit cords in my mindsight. But where?We cruised all day, and couldn't locate the sleek ship.

"You made it sound like hacking his system was going to be easy." I mutter, and getup to grab a pillow, lie on my belly and stuff it under my chest.

"Every XH has built-in GPS," Tuk says, typing madly on the lightboard in his lap, his neck bent uncomfortably.

Staring at the screens filled with code, I could fall asleep.

Tuk types faster than anyone, including Woka. His fingers ripple across the lightboard like the legs of a millipede. "If the XH Corporation wants to locate their androids or gynoids, they search their database for the buyer,and access the model's serial number. It is that simple." He says, sounding impatient.

I know how to write code.Everyone does. Kids are taught in first grade. I was three when Mom and Dad began to teach me coding games. I took virtual classes too,but never learned how to hack, or gain backdoor access with a Trojan Horse or write a virus, like some kids do for fun, and even money.

"I am attempting to use enumeration and access super-user privileges to hack the XH database," Tuk mutters. "It is taking far longer than I anticipated, but I am confident I will gain access to Big Bear's serial number."He moves to the middle of the bed, to the next lightscreen.

He's making this a lot more complicated. "So that's how you're doing it?" I yawn.

"This is demanding..." His fingers continue their crazy dance on the lightboard. "...If my smartskin could perspire, I would be sweating like...." he pauses a nano, and squints into the darkness, "....a Belgian draft horse!"

"You're going around their firewall, or turning it off, right?" My knowledge was basic, but at least I knew something.

"Of course I considered their firewall. Unlike homo sapiens, I am not programmed for forgetfulness...although that is an interesting consideration."

That's a scary thought."Droids should never be programmed to forget. That would be dangerous."

"With a little memory loss now and then, androids could behave even more like humans...did I remember the firewall?" He slaps his forehead hard, and with a goofy grin and says, "Oops, I forgot!"

I reach over and grab his arm, "Be careful!" He jerks it away. "You could damage your neural network, or neuromorphic chips."

"How very interesting...it actually feels good to say, 'I forgot'...and my forehead slap," he slaps again with the heel of his palm, "...is merely a bit of percussive maintenance, although you are correct to admonish me." He shakes his head. "If I hit too hard I may well go into sleep mode, dislodge a neural component or worse, risk harming my mindfile."

"So DON'T!" I exclaim.

Droids with damaged mindfiles were Woka's hobby droids – the ones with shattered neural networks. The ones whose heads took a beating, like if they fell and smashed their heads, or their heads got slammed in a hovercycle accident. Woka said you could always tell if a droid had damage to their affective computing module. Minor damage would be harmless.They might lose their ability to emote, and develop a repetitive behavior, like a Tourette's. With moderate damage, they might curse,and be really disagreeable and have weird tics. The totally damaged ones with Phineas Gage Syndrome became raving psycho-criminals or could even self-destruct.