Lottie
yawned, rubbing greasy fingers through her hair. The workshop,
normally neat and orderly was a mess of monitors and equipment.
Wires connected between them all creating an indecipherable maze
that left her stuck in her wheelchair. She'd finally secured the
last instrument to the laptop.
Lottie flipped a switch. The sensors hummed to life,
initialized, and sent back baseline readings. She had already
run through the laptop's hardware and found numerous
improvements that she'd need more time to completely figure out.
The laptop also had been built entirely with chips and
processors much slicker than the store brands. She drooled over
the expert workmanship. If everything worked, she would use
these as templates to fashion some new chips. Of all that she
found, she didn't think any of it was malicious. Most looked
like power enhancements. She guessed anything harmful she found
would be from loaded software. Even so, she wasn't going to take
any chances.
Lottie turned on the laptop hoping nothing blew. The explosion
on the rig had melted some of the ports, popped a few keys in
the keyboard and cracked the case all the way through to the
screen. The external monitor she had attached flickered once.
She tinkered with the wires and it flickered again.
"Where am I?" Words appeared across the screen.
"In a secure location." Lottie typed.
"Can you tell me your name?" She knew the answer but asked it
anyway. It would serve as a control question.
"I am called Pawn," he answered.
"What do you remember last, Pawn?"
"I remember wishing the paradox patrol good luck and then the
counter on the bomb hitting zero. I thought I was scrap." Words
on the screen translated to sound as she played with the
speakers. "I'm having trouble interfacing with you. Can you
check my sensors?"
"Your sensors were badly damaged. It took me all week to recover
your main processors." Lottie could have jury rigged a new
camera and microphone to the laptop but she preferred to keep
some anonymity when she worked in her natural form. Plus, she
wasn't sure if she was doing the right thing. Pawn's programming
could very well be a trick to lure her into a false sense of
security.
"I do feel...fragmented. How do I look?"
Lottie eyed the patched and burnt laptop. If it were a person on
an operating table, it'd be dead. "I'd say you've seen better
days."
Lottie turned on another switch. "Can you tell me a bit about
yourself?"
"I am an artificial intelligence designed to run the Chessmen's
death trap 'games'. Each time the chessmen run one of its games,
it creates a different incarnation of me. Each time, I am
destroyed."
As Pawn spoke, Lottie watched two monitors fill with numbers,
stats, and charts. She would need to study it all later, but
from what she could tell, this data would give her what she
needed to restore Pawn to his full capacity and maybe more; if
she wanted.
"What is your name?"
It took Lottie a moment to realize Pawn had stopped talking and
asked her a question.
"I am Myth," she typed.
"You are the shapechanger from the Paradox Patrol. I am very
sorry I made you go through those death traps. I had no choice.
Did Major Havoc and Think Tank make it out safely?"
"They are fine."
Lottie pulled up the sensor logs. She could see the gradations
of his emotional state as their conversation progressed. She had
never seen anything so sophisticated.
"Does this mean I am no longer with the chessmen?"
"You are correct."
"What are you going to do with me?"
"I'm not sure yet."
"Maybe this will help."
The information on the monitors shifted even though Lottie
hadn't touched anything.
"What are you doing?" Lottie asked.
"You had a few incorrect constants. I corrected it and reset the
sensors," said Pawn. "Look on line 16 and 121. There should be a
2.1 instead of a 2.01 and a .156x instead of .15x. The numbers
you used would work fine but these modifications will give you a
higher level of accuracy."
Lottie brought up the program in another screen. She'd gone over
her formulas dozens of times already. Then she flipped through
the sensor readings. Lottie smiled. He was good.
"Myth?"
"Yes?" Lottie typed, her attention absorbed with the program
modifications.
"I know you're an I-Hero and I know you do much good to help
people. Though you have no reason to trust me, I think I can
help you."
"Why would you want to do that?"
"You pulled me out and restored me. It would be paying you back
for your kindness. Though my current incarnation doesn't
remember my past deeds, I'm sure the Chess men have made me do
other vile and evil acts. Perhaps I can do some good to make up
for that."
Lottie considered his request. Nothing indicated any false
readings and though Think Tank was a big help around the ship,
she could use an assistant with a better bedside manner.
"Let's see what we can do about that."
She'd always been taught to see the good in others. It would be
unfair to not give Pawn a chance.