Exo Saves the Day, Chapter 10

[gynoneko]

If you missed the first chapter... click here.
The second chapter is here.
Chapter three is here.
Don't forget Chapter 4 here.
Chapter 5 is over here.
And of course, the infamous Chapter 6 is here.
Chapter 7 can be found here.
You must read Chapter 8 here.
Chapter 9 is right here.
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Exo Saves the Day
Chapter Ten: Jack, Be Quick!
By Gynoneko


Jack answered his phone after only the first ring.

“’ello Danny-boy! To what do I owe the pleasure?” Jack answered. His British accent always made him sound superior, but perhaps it was his ego.

“Hey Jack. I’m sorry to call you soo late” I said. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything, I mean… I don’t want to disturb you when you have a *ahem* lady-friend over.”

Jack was known to have a different girl over at his place every other day. He had a thing for blonds, but he wasn’t biased by any means. You’d think a hacker would be the kind of guy that would have no social life, no love-life, and no hygiene. Jack was THE exception to this rule. Not only could he hack his way into secure government and private networks, but he also knew how to hack his way into girls’ panties. He lived one story up from me. I felt sorry for the guy that had to live directly under him. The noises he must make at such odd time… Luckily, I lived one apartment over.

“Not at all, Danny-boy! I was just hacking meself a bit ‘o fun. So to what do I owe this occasion?” Sometimes I couldn’t tell if Jack was being an ass, or just friendly. He had always been nice to me at least, so I like to assume he was just egocentric but a nice guy.

“I need to ask you a big favor”, I replied. “A friend of mine is in serious trouble, and I need your help to save her.”

“Her?” Jack sounded almost shocked, almost. He didn’t fake it well enough, and he clearly had the wrong idea. “Well it’s about time you got some action going on down there. I was right down worried you had lost your mojo. Your good ‘ole friend Jack is here for you! What do you need mate? A bit of romantic advice, or perhaps a sensual mov-“

“Jack, I need your help to save her life” I spat. I normally wouldn’t mind letting him babble, it was actually quite fun to hear. However, today was not the day, and 263 was in serious trouble. “I need you to help me hack into her system.”

Jack laughed nervously for a bit. “What are we talking about here, Danny-boy? Did she lose some files in her computer because I told you I ain’t-“

“No”, I interrupted. “She’s sick, I think she caught a virus, and I need you to find it and stop it.”

Jack was silent, finally realizing what I was talking about. “Danny, are you telling me you have a broken fembot in your apartment you want to ‘save’?”

“Yes, so to speak” I replied bluntly.

“Oh, alright. Better fembots and gynoids than R2D2, I suppose” he said. I was a little surprised to see how easily he accepted the idea, but I never really did know what to expect form Jack. I suppose that as long as it was female, he was fine with it.

“So you’ll help?” I asked.

“Sure thing! Just give me a tick and I’ll be right down.”

I thanked Jack, and we hung up. It didn’t take me long to realize the biggest womanizer I ever knew was about to knock on my door any second from now and see a naked girl laying on my couch. I had to do something. I was concerned that if I put a blanket over her, she might overheat again; blankets don’t breathe that well. I ran into the linen closet, and pulled out a bed sheet. I tried my best to make sure she was covered modestly in the sheet, with most of her access panels closed and the wires running along the ground. I couldn’t help but notice her particularly feminine curves outlined in the sheet covering her. I didn’t have time to do anything better; Jack was already knocking at my door.

“Hey there, Danny-boy!” Jack exclaimed as he walked in my door. Jack was 6 foot nothing, thin but athletic, with a stylish ‘can’t be bothered to do my hair’ look. His jet-black hair and green eyes were always a hit with the ladies, but I think his fashionable clothes really got them hot and bothered. He looked like he belonged in a British fashion snob magazine, although I did have to wonder if he read them. His glowing bright smile defied the very image of poor dental hygiene most English citizens were plagued with.

He stopped in his tracks just as soon as he was clear of me, and stared down at the girl on the table breathing shallowly. The tips of her breasts pushed against the thin sheet and I feared he would make a move on her instinctively. I managed to close most of her large panels, even though I was afraid she would overheat, but that only made her look more appealing. The sheet showed off her feminine figure nicely. Jack put on a professional face, and cleared his throat. “Now she’s a dish!” he said in a low voice. “Not normally into the whole robot thing meself, but it’s horses for courses I suppose. What’s the situation then?”

Jack’s British accent was always fun to listen to, but I was never really sure if it was genuine, or where he was from at all. I didn’t even understand everything he was saying; Horses for courses? He refused to tell me anything about his past, or pretty much anything at all. I decided to treat him the same way, but somehow he managed to learn everything about me without my consent. The most information I ever got out of him was his online alias, and that fact that he calls his home “The Island”. Whatever that means.

I gave Jack the basic rundown, leaving out anything too incriminating, or private. He got the idea that this gynoid, whom I helped, has an overheating problem and I can’t stop it, and that I suspect it is related to the internet. That was all I could figure out, which was why I needed to call him. Jack nodded and gave the occasional “hmm” as I got him up to speed.

“So she’s the one you were carrying in that photo. I thought she looked familiar.”

“Wh-What?” I asked, realizing he was talking about the news reports online. “How did you…”

“Don’t blow a gasket now! I’m the only one who would’ve recognized it was you. Your hat gave it away.” I was stunned. What was I supposed to say? Knowing a little bit about Jack’s past was enough to know that he wouldn’t want to get involved with the police, so surely he wasn’t going to turn me in, right? As I tried to question him more on the topic, he shrugged me aside and rolled up his sleeves.

“Just relax Danny, we’ll have this all figured out in no time.” Jack cracked his knuckles, and sat on the chair beside 263, facing the computer I had hooked up to her. “Let’s get to work and see if we can find this mysterious virus that plagues her.” Jack pulled a small drive out of his pocket, and connected it to the computer. I had never seen him actually do his work before, I mean not like this. I had seen him hack into a computer through the net before, but never something this local or this complex.

“What is that for?” I asked him, looking at the small flat drive he connected to the computer.

“What, this? It’s my magic wand” he said in a spooky ethereal voice, as if it had magic power to it. “Nah I’m just toying with ya. It’s just a drive that gives me access to most the tools I need for something like this. It almost always does the trick.”

As soon as he connected his drive, about 2 dozen icons showed up on my computer at once. He opened about half a dozen of them, and started navigating through various menus and windows. Apparently accessing a gynoid was not as hard as I thought it would be for him, but then again, he is the best hacker I know.

I grabbed a smaller laptop I used for servicing androids in the field, and connected it to her as well. I made sure to use one of the connections behind her ear, so as to keep as much of her covered as I could. I might have trusted Jack with hacking, but with women it was a different matter. I hooked in and booted up, and observed the data incoming and outgoing. None of the data was accessing the net anymore, and she was processing very little herself. The computer Jack was using was directly connected to her and was doing the majority of the processing. I could see the data transferring back and forth. I noticed that her eyes were glowing, but only dimly, as he transferred data. I decided it was best to disconnect the gynoid torso she had been talking through before, and put her away. I’d look more at that gynoid later, to investigate the connection 263 made with her, but right now Unit 263 was my main concern.

“Well I’ve got good news and bad news mate” Jack said after half an hour.

“What’s the good news?” I always liked to hear good news first, just in case they are lying about the good news.

“The data corruption has stopped, and nothing is being sent online to anyone from her.” I was glad he wasn’t bluffing about the good news.

“And the bad news?” I clenched my jaw waiting for the word.

“About 20% of her data has been corrupted, and I can’t find the specific program that gave out the corruption command to remove it. As soon as she is back on, it will pick up where it left off.” I was expecting something like that, but I was sure Jack could do better. I exhaled slowly, trying to look calm but instead it came out as a nervous gesture.

“What do we do now then?” I asked gravely.

“We could sell her for scrap parts. I know a guy-“

“WHAT?!” I snapped.

“Kidding, mate. Just a joke. Having a bit of a laugh. I found out what it is, I just can’t find where it is” Jack said defensively.

“And how does that help us?” I barked. I tried to stay calm, but clearly the stress was getting to me again.

“It’s a Trojan Horse program. It’s probably been sitting in her for days, even months. Who knows? But it was activated when she went online. Knowing that, I can find it with a different program than what I have here. I should even be able to stop it. I just have to go upstairs to get my laptop; I can pop back down here in a jiffy!” Jack was always smiling, and this was no exception. I figured he was right. All I had to do was let him get the rest of his equipment, and she’d be fine in no time. I hoped.

I was still worried about the 20% corrupted data on her. I didn’t know what that could have done to her. Would she be able to start up again? I decided to take it one obstacle at a time. Jack was up to his feet and gone in a flash, slamming the door behind him. I could hear his feet pounding up the stairway outside as he sprinted for his door to look for his laptop.

I sat there next to 263, looking at her face. Her eyes were mostly closed, although the little I could see was still faintly glowing blue. I brushed her hair out of her face. I never really noticed how cute her haircut was. It was relatively short for a girl’s cut, just about long enough to touch her shoulders. It was a little longer in front than it was in back, and it had a layered look to it. It made her look rather sweet and the hint of red in her hair really brought out the freckles in her face. I just sat there admiring her beauty, not sure what else to do or think. I just wanted to help her, but I didn’t know how.

There was a polite knock on my door. Strange, why didn’t he just come right in? I thought to myself as I got up to let Jack back in. Maybe it locked behind him? To my surprise, Cynthia and Tom stood at the door. Cynthia was holding my coat, now wrapped in a plastic bag, and Tom had a large metal case. It was now too dark for sunglasses, and I finally got to see the big guy’s eyes. I was surprised to see how friendly and warm they looked.

They greeted me with a smile, but my shocked expression must have tipped them off.

“What’s wrong?” Cynthia asked, worry in her voice. “Did something happen to her already?” I couldn’t answer; my mind was just drawing a blank. They walked in beside me, and instantly spotted 263 laying on the table in the middle of the room. I let the door close behind them, but wasn’t sure what to do or say. “Oh my- goodness. What happened to her? 263 can you hear me?” Cynthia said as she ran to the gynoid’s side, dropping my coat on the couch. She was panicked, but managed to keep herself under control. “Daniel, what happened?”

“I- I-I think…“ I stammered. “I think… it was a virus” I finally sputtered out. I was holding back the tears; I must have gotten too attached to her in the last 2 days.

“But that’s impossible. She couldn’t have downloaded anything until she’s been- you didn’t already register her, or do anything weird to her, did you?” Cynthia raised an eyebrow as she scowled at me. Tom just stood there silent, as though he was still in shock.

“N-No. I didn’t do anything like that” I said. I didn’t want to mention that she already gave me a titty-fuck AND a hand-job since they last saw her that morning, I had to have some taste. I mean, was that what she meant by ‘weird’?

Cynthia sighed apprehensively, the wheels in her head turning. She felt the girl’s cheek, and instantly realized she was overheating. “Could be a physical problem, maybe something shorted out inside her?”

“No, Jack and I already tested for that and couldn’t find anything wrong with her physically” I said, too caught up in the moment to realize I just admitted to showing her off to a stranger.

Cynthia glared at me. “Jack? And who is this Jack, Daniel?” I stuttered, trying to think of an excuse. Tom put down the large metal briefcase, and sat on the couch next to 263, as my mind scrambled to come up with something. Opening up the case, he pulled out a laptop, and some wires. Carefully, he lifted up her head, and slid one hand under the sheet over her belly. I couldn’t see what he was doing, but before I realized it, he had a wire running from the back of her neck to the laptop in his lap, which was just starting up. He looked at my smaller laptop sitting next to him, and unplugged it from behind her ear, placing it on the floor beside the long couch.

I figured I had no choice. They had trusted me so far, and I had done my best to help her. They deserved the truth from me, and I was afraid lying would only make things worse. “Jack is a friend who lives upstairs. He’s the best hacker I know.”

“A Hacker?!” Cynthia exclaimed. Her reaction was a mix of fear and shock, or at least that’s how it looked to me. “Why would you want to get a hacker involved!?” She was about to start ranting, so I interrupted her before she could.

“I didn’t want to, but I needed to. She was overheating, and nothing I did could stop it! I didn’t know what else to do, I had to act fast. And besides, I trust him.” I trusted him as far as I could throw him, but I also trusted that he could do what needed to be done. That and he owed me a favor anyways.

Cynthia stood there in silence, not sure what to say or do. Very soon she would meet Jack, and I wanted to make sure everyone got along. 263 needed the help. Maybe I should have called them instead, but he got there fast, and already made more headway than I did.

“Look, he’s a good guy” I said, trying to defend him. My mind was not thinking clearly, but whose would when the designers and builders of the most advanced robot in the world which you just broke are sitting in your living room? “He has a reputation with the ladies, but he can hack into any system I know. He once downloaded a movie off the internet”.

“So?” Cynthia spat.

“He ripped it from the studio’s computers while it was still in post-production” I elaborated. It was true. The biggest blockbuster of the summer was his evening’s entertainment in the spring, and he invited me to watch. It was rather painful to see, since many of the scenes were incomplete or missing, some parts were out of order, and the final editing wasn’t done. But he did it, and was never caught. I don’t encourage him to do that sort of thing, those movie makers spend a lot of money and time to make these films, so I made sure I saw it when it was released in theaters, twice! It was much better once they finished it.

Cynthia paused; her brow furrowed in thought. She started to speak when I heard loud pounding of feet coming back down the stairs outside. Before I could do anything, Jack flew in the door.

“Got it, Danny-boy. She should- oh!” Jack paused in his tracks, like a deer in headlights. He was surprised to see two more people in my apartment, one of them giving him the evil eye. “I didn’t know you had company over.” He looked over Cynthia. She was older than him, but apparently that didn’t matter. “Hello there gorgeous” he said to Cynthia, laying his accent on thick. Evil eye or no, a female was still a female to Jack. “They call me Jack. Jack-”

“Jack the Ripper. Ripper Jack. Yes. I know who you are.” Cynthia said, matter-of-factly. Tom stopped what he was doing, and turned to face the newcomer with eyes wide open.

Jack stuttered. “H-Hey now. You- you aren’t coppers are ya?” he said, nervous tension rising in his voice. His smiled faded as he put up his hands in defense, and started to back his way toward the door.

“No Jack. We aren’t the police. We aren’t here to arrest you.” Cynthia relaxed her gaze on him, a sly smile parting her lips. “I’m surprised you don’t recognize us.”

Jack stood there a bit, looking back and forth between the two of them, and then back at 263 on the table. “Wait a second… Do you mean to tell me that you’re Lady Synth?” Lady Synth? What the hell? A smile ran across his face again. “Then this bloke must be Mot!”

What the hell are they talking about? Jack was practically bouncing as he gave Cynthia and Tom a big handshake. As Tom stood up to greet Jack, the size difference was more than apparent. “Blimey, he’s a big bloke, isn’t he?” They were smiles all around, as they greeted each other as though they were long lost friends.

“Excuse me. What’s going on here?” I asked impatiently.

Daniel,” Cynthia started, “you remember the ‘associate’ I talked about you helped us find you and spread all that phony data to the press and the police? Well that was Jack! I knew it was him when you described his movie hack. Jack’s infamous for that one. Although we know him as RipperJack, or Jack the Ripper. It’s his-“

“… online alias,” I interrupted. “Yes, I know. We’ve hung out a few times. So you mean to say that the very guy who has been misleading the police and lurking in the shadows giving the public a false impression of me was you!?” I wasn’t sure if I wanted to slug the guy or hug him. Maybe both.

“Well, yeah. Big surprise! You know, Lady Synth and I have never met before, well not in person” Jack said. “I know these two as Lady Synth and Mot. They’re good folk. We talk online, and I’ve helped them out a few times.” I decided to take this on good faith. It was a bit of a shock, but if Tom and Cynthia were ok with him, I suppose I was out of the hot water.

“What are you guys talking about?” I asked, assuming those lame names were more aliases. Then again, mine was just as lame…

“We’ve talked online in A.I. forums and the like” said Cynthia. She was suddenly very friendly, and seemed glad to see Jack there, but I felt they were forgetting something. They made their own introductions to him, with their real names this time.

My small apartment was getting very crowded. I usually didn’t have more than 2 people over, and here I had already doubled that number, and that was just in the living room. I hoped no one else would show up tonight.

“Now I know why you go by Lady Synth.” Jack was doing was Jack did best, getting on their good side through flirting. They continued to chat together while I tried to focus my attention back to the matter at hand. Maybe they were just too easily distracted with each other to remember why they were all here. I sat down at the computer terminal trying to get access into 263 to see if there was anything I could do at all. I noted a graph on the screen that showed her data corruption. It was slowly growing!

Their attention was quickly diverted back to Unit 263 when she suddenly gasped in pain. Jack jumped 2 feet in the air; he had never seen her move before. We suddenly became aware that she stopped breathing completely after her gasp. Cynthia and Tom jumped into action, and Jack followed suit. Connecting into her head, Jack powered up his laptop, and started typing away. I gave the terminal to Cynthia, and I monitored the situation (a fancy way of saying “stayed out of their way”). She was still burning up, and with that sheet covering her, less airflow was getting to her.

The melting ice packs left wet spots on my carpet, so I proceeded to line the area with towels to pick up any moisture from the ice bags. I refilled the ones that melted the most, and Tom came over to help me. Tom was a really big guy, but despite his appearance, he was actually very gentle. He had a very concerned look on his face, and wanted to do whatever he could to help. I felt the same way. Tom and I talked briefly while we cleaned up the water and refilled the ice.

“So Tom, what is it that you do exactly?” I asked.

“Lab assistant” he replied in his deep voice. It was a strong voice, and you would have expected more emotion in it based on the look in his eyes. He managed to keep his voice calm at least.

“Really? But you’re Cynthia’s husband right?”

“Yup.” Tom was a man of many words apparently.

“So what do you do as a lab assistant?” I knew where this question was going.

“Assist in the lab.” I couldn’t help but laugh at this. Tom managed to crack a smile too and finally opened his mouth to say more than 5 syllables. “I mostly help with the physical labor. I usually work on building and repairing the robots and managing the heavy equipment.” At last his size made sense. Or at least more sense. His job actually sounded very important, something that should have been given to someone higher than a lab assistant, but I didn’t want to question their advanced lab’s politics.

We decided that, despite Jack, it would be best to take the sheets off her, to give her more air to ‘breathe’. I took it upon myself to make sure that at least her breasts and crotch remained covered, so I got out some towels, and made sure to cover her up as Tom pulled off the sheets. I caught Jack taking a peek at 263, but an error on his screen kept him from being too distracted.

With fresh ice in place, the fan blowing on high, her vents and a few ports open, and the sheet removed, we were finally able to cool her down enough that she started breathing again. Apparently, she only needed to breathe in order to control her heat, expel small amounts of waste, and provide oxygen for her nano-bots to operate. She could hold her breath for a very long time, so she was in no danger of any permanent damage despite how long she had stopped breathing.

Tom resumed his position next to her, but instead of picking up the laptop, he handed it to me, and pulled some tools out of his case and started tinkering inside 263’s torso, through a port on her side. I didn’t see how, but he was managing to open ports on her without giving a verbal command. I looked at the laptop screen, and it was obvious that this was a customized computer designed to work exclusively with 263. It was her support, and I could see it monitoring all her systems, better than anything I had worked out so far. No wonder he tossed my dinky laptop aside, this thing could process circles around it and was getting a much faster and better connections with more data. Tom had made himself as helpful as he could by busying himself inside her chassis.

“So THIS is the infamous EVE is it?” Jack said with a grin.

“Yes, but why are you looking in there? Her A.I. shouldn’t have anything to do with this.” Cynthia seemed concerned that he was snooping, and she had every right to be. He was a master snooper.

“Well, I did a thorough search of her entire system, and I can find no viruses or programs that can be causing this problem. Therefore, it must be in her A.I. It’s the only place left to look!” Jack was on the right track. We had done a thorough scan before, and he did another even more thorough scan just now. Whatever was causing this problem was either going to be in her A.I. or in her operating system. They had to look someplace where they hadn’t already searched.

Cynthia seemed nervous to have Jack looking around inside 263’s head like that, and doubled her efforts to find the offending command. Apparently, she realized the same thing he did, but instead of looking in her custom-made A.I., she looked inside her generic OS. GynOS was an excellent operating system, and I could not think of anything that would cause a problem like this. However, I had to remind myself that this was not just a regular release of the OS, it was an unfinished released, probably an Alpha or a Beta release. It could have bugs lurking inside.

It didn’t take Cynthia long to locate it, once she knew where to look. “I found it! It’s part of the registration system, but it is a separate program. I knew it! I’ve heard of this before!” Jack started navigating his attention to the section of 263’s OS that Cynthia had pointed it. Sure enough, he saw it too. Now that they found it, they had to stop it! But as part of her OS, that would be a challenge.

“What do you mean you’ve heard of this? What is it?” I asked.

“All the newest gynoids under development at MMR (Man and Machine Robotics) are equipped with a special version of the OS, which comes with a kill switch in it.” Cynthia never looked up from her work as she talked. “As soon as a stolen or illegally obtained gynoid running this system gets online, they send out a “ping”, which activates the kill switch, and destroys the gynoid from the inside out. First all the data is corrupted, and then it overheats the body until it is a pile of junk.” No wonder her vents didn’t open on their own, the program was trying to break her.

“STOLEN?! Wait a second! What do you mean stolen?” I asked, loudly.

“She’s not stolen, Daniel. And she hasn’t been illegally obtained either” Cynthia replied. “Not exactly” she mumbled.

“So why is the kill switch going off?”

“It’s a long story, and I need to concentrate. I’ll tell you later ok?” Cynthia typed away at the keyboard some more, ignoring my protests.

“We didn’t steal her, we saved her” Tom said. “It’s all my fault really. It started a long time ago, back when I was caught up in the mob. Don’t worry; I wasn’t a hit man or anything like that, I was just a bodyguard. But I had seen things I didn’t want to see. It was almost 10 years ago when I met my wife, and she convinced me to try to get out of the mob. It isn’t easy to get out of something like that, but with the help of the boss, they let me go on my way. However, not everyone was happy about that, and some of them still hold a grudge against me. I’ve kept low, and made sure we were safe, before we started working at MMR. I could only get a job as a paid intern, as Cynthia’s lab assistant, thanks to my troubled past, but we were happy and making a difference.

“We started working on the Evelyn series with another scientist, Rob. The EVE A.I. was so advanced, that we had to keep parts of it a secret even from our superiors. Unfortunately, once they caught wind of the true potential of EVE, they pulled the plug on the entire project. The Evelyn series was only ever designed to work with the EVE A.I., so we were ordered to destroy all our hard work, all our love and attention. They wanted to destroy all our robots. That was just too much for us, so we faked their destruction, and hid the four of them in our own lab. But without any funding, we couldn’t afford to continue our work on them.

“That was until Rob approached us with an offer from a 3rd party. They said they wanted to help us finish our work, and they would have the distribution rights. With all the money they were paying us, we didn’t ask any questions, we just worked on our little family. When we had finished the first 3 prototypes, we were approached by the son of the mob boss I used to work for, a man named Joey Liberati. Apparently, his father died, and he became the new boss. To my dismay, this was the man who fought against my leaving the company. He said I turned my back on them, so he was going to take everything I had. As it turns out, he was the benefactor who paid for us to finish our work!

“They took our 3 oldest, and turned them into sex slaves, working in his night clubs! It pains me to see what I’ve done to them. It’s my fault they ended up this way. He closed off what they’re capable of, and turned them into mindless dolls. He was getting his revenge on me through them!” Tom’s rage was growing in his voice. I realized he lost so much due to a bad choice he made when he was younger, and he was still suffering from it. “Rob managed to hide 263. She wasn’t finished, and we didn’t want him to have her too, to turn into a mindless slave, prostrating herself for his amusement.

“We spent as much time as we could to finish building her, but we couldn’t risk spending any more time or money. Our funding dried up, and Liberati caught wind of our scheme. He came looking for 263 last week, and so we devised a plan to hide her, and keep her safe. On our way to the hideout, we were ambushed by Liberati’s men. We managed to shake them off, but Rob was killed, and we crashed. You should know the rest of the story, since you are the biggest part of it.”

I listened to his story carefully. He clearly thought of their creations as their own children, and yet, I had heard nothing about them having any human kids. I was moved by the tragedy of his story, and I was only glad to be able to help 263 as much as I did. She was all they had left, and yet I felt guilty knowing that I was taking her away from them too. I thought for a moment.

“So why did the kill-switch activate?” I asked.

“She was the last of a line of gynoids that was ordered to be destroyed. MMR probably put their model numbers on the kill list, just in case something like this happened” Tom explained. I realized that while she was not stolen technically, she was still illegal. I mean, is what Cynthia told me before was true, she was capable of breaking the 3 laws, and that made her illegal by itself. It worried me a little, and yet, something about her made me feel it was worth protecting her, as they had done before me.

“Is there a way around that? I mean, what do we do once we get her fixed again?” I was impatient, perhaps anxious as well.

“I think so, mate” said Jack, still typing away. “And I think we… just… about… got it!” He wore a big smile as he hit the enter button for dramatic effect.

“Got what?” I asked.

“We’ve just killed ourselves a Trojan Horse.”

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/Chapter 10
Chapter 11.

[NukuNookee]

Another excellent chapter, nice plot development. If Jack can hack the registration system to remove the trojan, maybe he can fix something else while he's in there....

[gynoneko]

Oh, he'll be getting into all sorts of trouble eventually.
Since I am not British myself, perhaps someone who is, or who is more acquainted with the British dialect can critique how Jack talks. I am doing my best to make him sound overly British, but I'm not sure how he comes off to a native speaker.
Thanks!

Chapter 11 is up now too, and I have big plans for chapter 13.