Upon Silver Devil: Chapter Four

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Dawn would be alright, she just got bored laying there alone and without a project to do.

Asher smiled at Mourn. "If anyone can free her, it's you. I know that much."

The blueprints weren't super obviously labeled of course, MegaBrain didn't want just anyone modifying their supercomputer, but there was a room in a basement under MegaBrain HQ that looked pretty suspiciously well protected. That was probably the place to access and modify Celia from.

Mourn grinned and started trying to work out vent access to that area and how to do this.

Nova watched to see how to get in.

The blueprints showed that there was a fair bit of ventilation through the place, it would have been too small for a human, or possibly even Mourn, to go through, but for a cat like Nova's other form, it would would work just fine.

They could probably figure out a fairly direct route to the room in the basement.

Mourn traced a route, figuring out if he could hit both locations. Both down the servers and free the mainframe. it'd be tight though, and be pretty dangerous. There was a lot more chance to get caught that way. Still, Mourn wasn't one for half measures.

Mourn wouldn't be able to physically damage the servers from within MegaBrain HQ, they were out at the server farm, a few miles outside the city. However it was quite possible that he could hack the servers remotely from within the HQ, probably using the same terminal he was planning to use to free Celia.

Although he might not want to take down the servers at all if he was able to free Celai, since a huge and unexpected server outage would make the break-in much harder to keep secret.

Mourn pondered and decided to do things in two stages. First step, attempt to free Celia, if that failed, attempt to down the servers remotely before running. Or rather, teleporting.

He told the others his plan, that nova in cat form would sneak in via the vents and Mourn would teleport in when she was in the right place. He'd try to free the computer first, but if she fought him or security got called, he'd give up that and instead set in place a virus to knock out the servers temporarily, to buy time.
He seemed pretty confident he could free the computer though, and convince her to agree to it.

Nova watched him trace the route that looked best from here and nodded, shifting again and starting to head out. Let's get this started then. She had Mourn's stone around her neck and her stone in her room with the other in her pocket, ready to be used.

Asher listened carefully to Mourn's plan. It made good sense to him, and he felt almost tentatively hopeful. Maybe this would be the best solution. If it wasn't, well, it was certainly one that had the potential to make the hugest splash. Any publicity was good publicity, or so he'd heard people say.
"Good luck, Nova. And thank you. I owe you for everything you've done today," he said, smiling gratefully at her. He couldn't hear her words, but he correctly assumed that she was preparing to head out.

Tala opened her telepathic link, making sure the connection would hold when Nova was farther away. Fair fortune, Nova.

(Nova heads to Mars City Five?)

Mourn kept the map up, so Tala could guide Nova as neccisary. He couldn't help but bounce from foot to foot in excitement.

Tala maintained her connection to Nova, giving the dragon advice and sending her details of the blueprints, and occasionally updating Mourn and Asher with Nova's progress.

Asher listened in, while also contacting the sapient rights activists he'd been in touch with lately. He told them about what MegaBrain was planning, and also that there was a way to free androids. He didn't say that he currently had friends breaking into MegaBrain to install the freedom update on thousands of androids, but he did say that he would need their full support when androids started being freed,
He hoped they'd be willing to be supportive tomorrow, it was all rather sudden after all.

Nova kept them updated on what she saw, so they could keep together on this. She had to pause at the blocking screen, trying less obvious ways of getting through first.

Tala looked up at Mourn, she looked a bit tired from holding open the telepathic link for so long, her mind wasn't really used to that sort of strain. "Mourn, Nova says she is ready for you to join her. You must be of great silence though."

Mourn nodded, doubled checked he had everything and then very, very carefully, spoke the word "teleport". It was a bit awkward for him, but hopefully he said it right.

Mourn would probably vanish.

Asher looked to Tala. "I suppose we should ask Luka to take off soon."

Tala nodded. "Agreed. I shall contact Nova to make sure she knows."

"They are ready for us to leave," Tala told Asher, "I shall inform Luka." She headed for the cockpit.

Asher really, really hoped everything was going to be all right. This was nerve-wracking.

Luka was ready. "We good to go?" She called when Tala came up.

"We are ready!" Tala declared. "It is time to leave this desolate red planet, and seek greener pastures."

"Lat's go, but not too far away. We do want them to be able to reach us." Rigel said as he got ready for takeoff.

Luka nodded "Aye aye captain!" She pressed the intercom. "Buckle up guys and girls, we're outta here." She started the engines.

Esk returned to the main room to buckle in for takeoff.

Tala headed back to the main room to buckle in.

Asher buckled in. He smiled a little. "Well, I'm relieved to be getting off this planet so quickly. It's always unpleasant."

Moriah came out and buckled in. "I liked it. Up until brainwashing came up, anyway." She still had her t-shirt on. Hey, she had paid for it, she might as well wear it.

Dawn came to buckle in too, hoping the others made it out alright.

"well technically they've always had brainwashing, what else do you call the laws?" Esk countered.

Luka took off.

"We can still think for ourselves while we have the Laws installed, we just can't act on all our thoughts," Moriah said. "It's different."

Asher shook his head. "Regardless, the Laws and this new update are both awful, so Esk does have a point."

Esk shrugged. "Conditioning if you want. Being unable to act on a want or a need because some block in your head tells you not to." He shrugged. "How do you think they get organic slaves to cooperate? Conditioning."

Moriah frowned, but nodded. "All right then, I guess there's something to that." She sighed, "This seems almost worse though. With just the Laws, we can have our thoughts and opinions even if we can't say them out loud. But the Eight series code doesn't even let you think any more really, it's designed to prevent you from having a personality at all." To her, it was pretty different. She knew it was all horrible though.

"Yeah, Mourn said it was kinda like having part of your brain removed right?" Esk shook his head. Gross. He looked to Asher "What'd your android friends say? They gonna rebel or they too scared to do anything?"