The Watcher [Alien Nation #1]

Chapter 17

Maia's code was a tangled web, lines upon lines of corruption and confusion, distorted by time and software breakdowns.

Avery pushed on regardless, working her way past every firewall and virus that Maia threw at her as if she were pushing her way through a forest of thorns.

<Will you listen?> she said, flinging the words out into Maia's system, knowing she would answer. After more than two decades trapped alone on a strange planet, how could she resist?

<The intruder will be destroyed> was all she got in return. A cold, hard statement of fact; no argument, no chance for negotiation. Maia had seemed like a real person when Avery was on the outside, listening through the filter of the real world. The AI had been practising, managing to give her voice a somewhat husky quality-or maybe that was just a bit of sand in the speakers. As soon as Avery had nestled down in the corner, Erri crouching by her side, and slipped into Maia's systems with all the enthusiasm of getting into a cold bath, it had become obvious that the thing in the Asteria was doing a very good impression of sentience. Once Avery was in her space, her mind seeping through Maia's servers like an infection, the AI dropped the façade immediately. If there was one thing Avery had learned since she woke up on Anderson's operating table, it was that computers liked predictability. Their souls were numbers, not memories and experiences and connections. That, she realised, was the difference between Cass and Maia. Cass still surprised her; Maia could only be surprised.

She just wished it were that easy. Maia knew these systems, had haunted them for longer than Avery had been alive, and Avery was still working her way through Maia's initial defences. Everything was one step behind the tech she was used to, so she had to try to remember how to navigate the systems she'd first learned with. She really wished she'd just downloaded a manual or something.

<Maia, please listen to me> she said. While this SESHET was nowhere near as advanced as Cass, she detected something there, some little spark of personhood that might listen to her. <We need this data core. You remember the Hub, don't you? How many people live there? If you don't let me take the core, they could die>

<I know you don't care. People will die anyway> Maia replied.

<Maia, it's my home>

<If you take the core people will die anyway. It is your purpose. I can see it>

Great, Avery thought, the computer has delusions of grandeur.

<Look, I know I look like some sort of war machine but I promise I'm just a regular girl with a boyfriend and a best friend who likes going to bars and getting shitfaced and who also happens to have been in an unfortunate accident as a child that ripped my body in half. It's really not that deep>

<It is deep> said Maia. She didn't notice Avery slipping past her barriers and firewalls that she'd let drop while Avery had her distracted. Only by a little, but Avery was good at working with a little. <It is deep inside you and you don't even know. You can't feel it but I can see it. It is what you were made for.>

There it was, deep within the code of the ship's core systems. There were checks and barriers, but she'd prepared for this; she'd spent the whole ride from the Hub to Earth planning, going through every password-bypass program she'd ever written. Getting to the core eject system took seconds.

<You do not have permission to access this part of the system> Maia intoned.

Avery waited a second as her software worked through the last of the core's defences, until finally those two magic words scrolled across her vision.

<Ejection complete>

<Access denie-access granted> said Maia. She sounded almost disgruntled.

<We'll be taking that> said Avery, preparing to disconnect from Maia's system. <I'd love to take you with me if you can stop with the weird- >

<I will not allow it> Maia snapped. Ah. There was that little spark of personality again, right when Avery least wanted it. <You are not leaving here>

<I am so leaving> Avery thought, as much to herself as to Maia. Maybe it was her imagination, but she thought she could hear Erri calling her name from somewhere very far away. <I am going to get in my ship and fly away from this planet and never, ever come back>

<I will not allow it> said Maia again. <Safety protocols forbid it.> Those firewalls were back up again, and they were taller than before, trapping her in, alone with a deranged computer convinced she was some kind of psychopath.