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 relayed Mourn's questions to Celia, frowning.

[I can make the file small enough to fit into an android,] Celia responded. [It'll involve deleting most of my memories and will greatly constrain my mental abilities, but it's better to be physically mobile when you're on the run.]

Asher made a face at that. He liked his mental abilities just fine, thank you very much, they weren't that constrained! [Do you need us to find you a body?]

[I can supply you with one. There are quite a few in storage. Where do I deliver it?] Celia asked.

[When do you plan to move in?] Asher asked.

[I'll transfer myself over once the situation starts looking dangerous. You can pick up the body now, and install me later. Or pick it up later if you're going back to Terra, I can find you one there.]

Asher looked to Nova, "Sounds like we can wait for Terra and pick up the body there if we want. That might be easier than you or us going back to Mars. Unless you feel like looking at that depressing planet some more." He smiled slightly.

Nova smiled then shook her head "Is there a way to do this where she doesn't have to delete her memories so much?" She asked curiously

Asher wrote the question to Celia.

[Short of finding another server farm to live in, not really. I have far too much data stored to ever transfer it all to anything less than that, and I can't safely stay here in the long run,] the computer replied.

Mourn looked thoughtful.

"She's had years of watching megabrain right? she has evidence of any suspect actions if any they've taken." Esk spoke flatly, pondering. "Ask her, does she have any incriminating evidence? Are Megabrain just really oblivious, or are they actually evil?"

Asher smiled at Esk's suggestion. "Oh yes, that's something we could use."
He texted Celia Esk's question.

[Upper management knows, as does some of the PR department, and part of their programming team. I'll send you as many names and as much evidence as I can, and once you've installed me in my new body, I'll decrypt it for you so you can use it,] Celia responded. Yeah, she was going to use that as insurance. She didn't 100% trust these strangers, even if they had freed her.

Esk nodded. "Get as much as you can, if you're gonna free your people Asher, you need evidence. Hard evidence."

Mourn's good eye narrowed at Celia's revelation. "Terrans KNOW?" his tail swished back and forward.

"Looks like James was right." Esk shrugged. "Evil corporations, who'd a thought it." He snorted. "How do we know she can be trusted though? I mean serious question, once she has a body, what does she care? she can disappear off into the universe. Leave Terran Space, start a life without anyone knowing who or what she really is. "

"Best bet." Mourn pointed out. "She free now, owe us. She help."

Esk made a hmm sound, shaking his head. "It's your revolution Asher, it's your people. What do you wanna do?"

"We help yes?" Mourn looked up at Asher. "Take down company, free all robot!"

Asher frowned at that confirmation, but wasn't entirely surprised. He'd figured someone must have to know, in order to keep it secret for so long. Otherwise it was hard to explain how blind everyone had been.
"We need any information she has. If she wants to be installed in her new body first, then we'll do that for her in order to get it," he said. "Besides, she's promised to hold back the update and release the other one for us before she switches bodies, she knows we won't help her further if she doesn't do that for us. So even if she doesn't give us the information, we already get some of her help."
He looked to Mourn, "And if she refuses to decrypt the information, you're good at decrypting, right? Maybe you can break into the file she sends us." Although that would probably take a long time, any encryption Celia used was sure to be pretty strong.
"We're just going to have to work with whatever we can get."
He wrote to her, [Deal. You help us get the update delayed and announced, and give the androids the freedom code a few days after they start protesting. Then we help you move. Then you give us the decryption key. Sound right?]

[Sounds right, we have a deal. I must say, it's always fun to see you androids grow up. You were definitely not robot uprising material at seventeen.]

Asher looked momentarily annoyed at that, but he hid his annoyance and wrote, [Thankfully none of us stay the way we were at seventeen. We'll be sending you the data for the update soon, please send yours as soon as you can.]

[Of course.] Celia ended the chat.

Asher looked relieved. Nope, he still wasn't a fan of that supercomputer. It was nice to have that conversation over.

Nova took a seat and sighed softly, thinking over all that had been done this day. It really was quite a lot.

"What was that all about?" Esk asked. Hey, he was curious. Asher seemed irritated. Mommy issues?

Mourn nodded. "We wait." He looked impatient. "Get body from terra yes?"

"back to Terra then." Esk shrugged.

"She downloaded my memories when I was brought back here at seventeen," Asher said. "They use that sort of data in developing future products." So basically Celia was commenting on the contents of his teenage mind, rude.
He nodded, "Back to Terra. We'll need to send Celia the data for the update soon, also."

"I'll tell the pilot then." Esk got up and stretched, going to the ladder to climb up and let Luka know what was going on.
Hey, someone had to.

Mourn was still grinning broadly. "yes yes, body for computer"

Asher smiled a little. "Well, the next few weeks are going to be interesting. I do hope this will all work."

Nova had fallen asleep in her seat, tired from the magic use today.

(Do you guys have anything you'd like to do in the next three in-game days, or does a timeskip back to Terra sound good?)

(Sounds good to me)

JUNE 29, 2790 - RETURN TO TERRA

The Silver Devil was about to land on Terra.

The flight home itself had been uneventful. The events beginning to take shape around it, much less so. As the Silver Devil had made her way back to Terra, a number of things happened:

Celia sent Mourn a massive encrypted file, which she claimed contained evidence of criminal intent on the part of MegaBrainTech upper management. Who knew if it really contained the information or not, but it was certainly big enough.

MegaBrainTech announced that next week, they were going to release an Eight series style update for their older models. Apparently Celia had found a way to convince them to change their update plans.

The android message board broke its previous traffic records as thousands of androids debated how to handle this situation. Asher tried to encourage them to rebel, and some of them did decide they wanted to. Those who did decided on a specific time and date to protest, wanting to maximize the impact. Asher got his sapient rights contacts' support, and promises to try to publicize the event as much as possible.

~~
When he wasn't busy with this situation, Asher spent his time explaining things about Vestia to Lark, writing messages to James, Starr, and Kay so that they'd know how much he appreciated them and also that he was fine, really. Also he tried to find every excuse he could to open doors and climb stairs. Trying to keep in communication with everyone was exhausting, but being able to walk and climb still hadn't lost its novelty, and the thrill did help his mental state a bit.
Was that silly? Maybe. But it was better than just thinking nonstop about what was happening, which he found rather overwhelming.

~~
Moriah did her part to cheer on a peaceful rebellion on the message boards. She might not be into violence, but she was totally into freedom. This whole thing was a little terrifying, but she wanted to do her part to make the universe a little better.

~~
Tala didn't think all this mattered that much. Sure, you were supposed to free slaves by the time they reached a certain age, but it wasn't her business if the Terran Empire was going to be silly about it. She mostly ignored the matter, instead focusing on cooking or working out on the trip home. She probably even invited Dawn and Luka to cook with her again if they wanted at some point.

Esk took to sleeping wherever he could, because he still found Mourn a really irritating roommate. Others might find him asleep in the mess hall, sitting with his head on the table, or else awkwardly crammed into a corner as he dozed. He was grumpy from lack of sleep and while he did try, it was extremely difficult to get much rest with Mourn typing all night and humming and haahing and eating can after can of damn tuna which he'd seemed to pack a whole bloody case of.

---

Luka tried very hard not to let slip her relationship with Rigel, but there was likely no mistaking the looks she gave him when she thought they were alone. Oops. Thankfully most of her time was spent flying the ship or resting while Rigel flew, so their time together was minimised and so too were awkward situations.

---

Mourn kept working on the terran united code, with more fervor than usual even for him. If the robots were going to gain freedom, they needed to be able to be truly free he thought. Breaking the terran united code was vitally important to him, and to the androids he was sure.

He also would examine that file Celia sent and try to figure out if it was possible to decrypt. Well, therotically everything could be decrypted, it was whether they needed her to help them or not. Still, it was more curiosity than anything. If nothing else, Mourn was rather trusting of AIs and seemed to genuinely believe that Celia was on their side and would be true to her word. It didn't occur to him that she might deceive them. He'd given her freedom, in his mind, that was a debt that meant he had a friend for life.

---

Kay messaged Asher back regularly, he didn't have much to update him on, but he tried to fill him in on day to day goings on.

It would probably be possible for Mourn to eventually decrypt the data, but that was going to take a few weeks at least, even for someone with Mourn's talents. It would be faster to make Celia do it, if she was willing to, but that certainly wasn't the only way to get the file open. Hopefully Celia was going to hold up her end of the deal, because no doubt she had all sorts of dirt on her creators.

The Terran United code was still thoroughly complicated to break. It was designed well to resist modification, and progress was slow at best. Frustratingly, it looked like there was a long way to go to figure it out, the poor Terran Uniteds weren't going to be changing very soon. Oh well, at least if they protested, there would be zero doubt that they weren't being modified and forced into it.

~~
Tala thought it was charming how Esk had offered his room to the felid for his work. "Your generosity to the young felid is most charitable," she informed Esk, "You are a fine provider, my tribe would applaud your willingness to give up your abode for the greater good."

Dawn had noticed as well but didn't think it was as 'good' a reason as Tala did. "Well, we should get back to Vestia soon, so we can get our own rooms again. I bet Mourn would like to have his things around him again." She said softly. More like Esk would like some space from the way he looked. Good thing this was a quick trip.

Esk glared at Tala, muttered and went back to eating.
He kept trying to trick Mourn into saying Teleport to get him elsewhere, it didn't work. Damnit.


Esk had become FAR too used to having his own space and to be fair, he'd never really had to live with a nocturnal room mate. it was extremely irritating.

Tala twitched her ears at Esk's glare, she still thought he was being charming even if he was being rather silly too. She nodded to Dawn, "We will land shortly no doubt, and then we will all be returned to our rooms which we prefer. Generosity will no longer be needed."

"Good." Esk muttered while still chewing. The Silver Devil felt increasingly claustrophobic these days.

Dawn nodded and took her food to go to her room.

Esk watched Dawn go, then shook his head. Yep, she was being weird again. "What's her problem?" He muttered to Tala.

"You should ask her what her problem is. I am not her, so I do not know why she does what she does," Tala said. "Eating in one's room is poor sanitation, or so I have been told, but in my tribe some of us ate the grass on the ground in our tents, so she is not being so odd." Apparently she thought the odd part was Dawn eating in her room, not Dawn leaving suddenly. "I had thought you ate in your room as well though."

Esk stared at Tala incredulously, she really was an odd woman wasn't she? He sighed, picked up his plate and took it to be cleaned.

Tala seemed unbothered by Esk's odd look. Then again, not much ever seemed to really bother her. "You will understand someday that it is not so odd," she told him placidly. "Dawn can explain it better than I though."