Drabble No. 4

Kate had left the ship at 11:45am with nothing but a fistful of credits and a knowing smile. At 2am, when she finally returned, she had a bag of money slung across her back, a stuffed Chihuahua under one arm and was dragging a deactivated Series 2/119b droid up the gangway. It was an odd catch, Kaul had to admit. In terms of randomness, this had to be on the level with Kate’s brief glance into the world of live lobsters transportation. The hologram said nothing as Kate dragged the droid across the ship, through corridors and gangways, up a few stairs, to get it into her living quarters. He made no comment as she offloaded the bag of hard cash and the stuffed dog unceremoniously so she could give her full attention to the rag doll android. It was only when she’d lugged the limp frame onto her bed that Kaul finally spoke.

     “So… I see Jimmy Mojo ran out of money then?” he commented, arms folded.
     “Nope.”
She was flittering about, searching for something.
     “Then what…?”
     “I cheated.” Kate told him, deadpan, smiling as she recovered the dusty toolbox from underneath her bed.
     Kaul raised an eyebrow, “Mojo sucks at cards and yet you still felt the need to cheat?”
     “I wanted her.” His captain informed him, gesturing towards the downed droid, “And Mojo didn’t deserve her.”
     “She got a name?”
     “Knell.” His captain replied, distracted.
     Kaul shrugged, and moved to inspect the new item with a scrutinising eye, “She’s a cute little thing…”
     His Captain flashed him a suggestive smile, insinuating what he wanted to deny, and he backed away suddenly.
     “I mean,” He back-peddled, “For a piece of human-made low-grade machinery, that is.”
He paused, to see if his excuses had been accepted. Sadly, they seemed to have failed.
     “So what do we do with her now?” He continued.
     “Now,” Kate began, opening the toolbox dramatically, “we start to liberate the poor creature.”
     The Hologram sighed, “Simple mind… simple pleasures.”

Kate sat on the end of her bed, with the droid sitting in front of her on the floor. From this angle, the redhead had perfect access to the top of the droid’s head. With some tinkering, she’d managed to open the cranium panel without damaging the magnetic seal and had exposed the positronic brain beneath it. Her tools were scattered haphazardly across her bedspread, she had a heat sealer between her teeth, and a needle-thin laser scalpel in her hand. Standing behind her, peering over her shoulder, Kaul had been giving the job of giving his captain the proper instructions.  
     “That’s it… a little to the left…”

A spark leapt up at Kate’s fingers and she cursed briefly, the heat sealer falling from her mouth to her lap. Her furrowed brow told of her deep concentration, and of the fact that she was struggling even with Kaul’s help. As she had explained to the put-upon Hologram, the process of ‘liberating’ a holographic AI and a physical AI were completely different. Re-programming Kaul to be more human, with all the foibles, personality flaws and bad habits of a human, had been a challenge – but not impossible. After a few weeks, so had perfected the technique enough to tamper with almost any holographic AI, able to input swear programs and attitude problem logarithms in under 5 minutes. With physical AI, however, there was far too much for her to take into consideration. One wrong slip in the physical memory core and she could render the droid blind, make it forget how to walk, or even kill it off completely. It was one step down from actual brain surgery. Kaul, who had done a full systems scan of the rag doll form, was there to tell Kate what not to touch. Everything else was just a matter of trial and error.

     “Okay, where’s the security core?”
     “There are four.”
     “Four!?!”
     “And they have to be deactivated in a specific sequence or the brain burns out.”
     “What?”
     “You had to steal a series 2/119b… ‘the bright new horizon in hack-proof technology’…now, if it were a series 2/119a…”
     “The cores, Kaul…” She cut in, “Let’s just concentrate on the cores.”
     “Okay, okay,” He sighed, “Now, take deep breaths, and pray to some deity that your hand doesn’t slip.”

Kate moved in slowly with the laser scalpel, trying not to breathe at all. Though few people were aware of it, as a pirate she was not known amongst her friends for her accuracy. Inching forward, she took an intake of air, and made the first cut. There was a dull beep somewhere, and a few sets of the fibre optic lights went out. Panic struck her. Had Kaul gave her the wrong instruction? Had she misheard him? Had she cut the wrong spot without realising? There didn’t seem to be any change. It was after a few tense seconds of nothing that there was another beep, and the lights came back on.
     “Hey,” She smiled at Kaul, “this is easy!”
     "Oh, don't worry. It gets harder. There's the second one," he pointed to it.
     "The third," he nudged a little black box with a fingertip.
     Finally, he gestured to the thin cavity between the brain and the skull, "And the last one, you'll be glad to know, is right...down...there..."