CYBERLIFE

Chapter 3

    Those few hours quickly turned into several while Elijah broke down everything he had been thinking about the past near forty-eight hours. His main focus had been self-destruction which he had broken down before, but was breaking down again after what happened with Tanner. He hadn't made any further progress, just rewrote everything he had thought through before. Looping himself in circles. There's nothing he hates more than doing that. The circling around unsure what he was supposed to be doing.

He placed his head to his hands as he leaned against his desk. Frustrated, he was incredibly frustrated and he didn't know what to do. If he didn't figure out the self-destruction sequence, how to pull an Android from it, more were going to fall into the same pattern that the MP500 did. He knows what triggers it, incredible emotional distress which ironically was also what triggered deviancy. Incredible stress was more likely to cause the self-destruct phase where other negative emotions caused deviancy.

Like with humans, sleep CyberLife found was a way to lower stress in Androids. Resting in stasis while they charge was found to lower all stress levels and give the Android a chance to fix any problems that occurred during the day. It's why it was recommended to enter stasis at least three times a week, charge and recover. But sleeping doesn't pull an Android from a self-destruct phase, it only delays the inevitable.

Picking his head up he sighed and stared at the string of code and notes on the computer screen. "Why can't I figure this out?" Man of the century, creator of Androids, one of the most intelligent men in the world currently and he just doesn't know what to do. Is it just something in the code? Maybe a virus or a development in the code that creates itself the longer an Android exists and evolves itself. Code was constantly progressing and changing itself, which is part of what can make Androids so unpredictable.

The problem is even with analyzing Androids that have entered the self-destruct phase, it damages their code so much that if there was something then it was impossible to find. Elijah before had pushed an Android to self-destruction while analyzing it and the corruption process starts before he can find anything within the code that could explain why this happens.

It was almost like a virus, but he's never seen one develop that way.

Leaning back in the chair he draped his arm over his eyes and breathed out a sigh. Thirty-six years old, he made Chloe when he was sixteen. Twenty years and he doesn't feel like he's made much progress in solving the problems that Androids develop. His carelessness is what gave those people the opening they needed to take advantage of him and then use the RK line and the Zen Garden against him.

Something touches the back of his head and Elijah moves his arm from his face, blinking up at Connor who was staring down at him. The hand that was touching the back of his head slowly removed itself and Connor dropped it down to his side. "You've been down here a while, Mister Kamski. You should get some food, water and sleep." The Android's gaze flickered up and he saw Connor take in the string of chaos on his computer screen, the notes he had made on the self-destruct sequence.

Elijah sat up in the chair and reached his hand out, pressing a button on the terminal and making the screen go dark. "Alright." He could use some coffee to keep going at the very least, he had no intentions of sleeping at the moment. "I wasn't getting anywhere anyway."

While he was working away, Connor had cleaned a bit more around the Villa and made some soup apparently. He must have had the food delivered to the Villa. How, though? Did he use his own money to do that? He headed around the counter and started the coffee machine to brew a pot while Connor started pouring a bowl of soup and sat it down at the bar.