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.

Dawn chuckled and shook her head, snagging another treat for herself.

Luka snorted, she just couldn't picture the boys baking together. It was funny to try though.

Tala took another pastry and munched on it happily. "Most likely they would just buy cookies though, they do not have our dedication."

Dawn nodded at that "Yeah, they would buy before baking like this."

"you're probably right." Luka agreed, eating another pastry. "their loss."

Dawn nodded and smiled "Yeah, their loss, fresh made is always better than store bought."

(From Mars)

Asher led the group back onto the ship, pausing to park the wheelchair somewhere out of the way. He couldn't enjoy the moment as much as he would have liked though, he was a bit distracted at the moment.
"Can someone close the airlock?" he asked. He really didn't want anyone outside this crew overhearing the news.

Mourn got the airlock closed, tail twitching.

Esk frowned.

"Alright, now what's got you all upset?" Rigel asked, looking from one to the other once they were safe.

Asher nodded gratefully to Mourn, then looked around the group. "The mechanic who helped to repair me said that MegaBrainTech is releasing new firmware for older model androids tomorrow. He said the update will make us like the Eight series androids. He refused to refer to the update as erasing our personalities, but that's the gist of what he described."

"If like eights, can fix." Mourn said. "if nothing deleted."

"Why are they doing that? Wasn't the whole selling point of the eights that they were basically lobotomized and less trouble?" Esk asked.

Mourn looked thoughtful. "lots owners like old robot personality, make them unique. Maybe no install update."

"Enough will." Esk frowned. "You think you can reverse it?"

Mourn nodded. "I good fixing."

"It goes out tomorrow" Nova added with a shake of her head. "I have warned Starr of it."

Asher nodded at Esk's question. "I'm not sure of course, but I'd guess that MegaBrainTech is trying to make older androids more docile, so they can't cause trouble. Many androids aren't subtle about their opinions, I imagine PR has to deal with a lot of questions about android sentience because of that." He looked thoughtful. "Which might mean that someone high up in the company does know that we're sentient, and doesn't want anyone else finding out. Maybe the update is reversible, but I don't think we should allow millions of androids to be updated in the first place, not if this is some trick to forever hide the truth from the world."
Or maybe it was just that he was imagining Lark being updated, and that the thought of losing her terrified him more than he'd ever like to admit. He didn't want to lose another sibling, especially not to see her turned into a mild-mannered automaton.

"But how do you expect to stop it? Even if you do come out and declare yourself sentient and alive, you think anyone will pay attention to one android? They'll just spin it as faulty coding that their new update will fix, you'll become an example of WHY they need to update all the sevens in the first place." Esk pointed out.

Mourn tapped his clawed fingers on the hull of the ship, thinking. "maybe virus, take out megabrain servers... delay release." He suggested.

"Starr wants us to do what we can, we don't know that this 'update' won't delete everything that allows the androids to show their sentience." Nova said

"That's why it would be better to do it now," Asher said grimly to Esk. "While there are still androids with the mental freedom to protest. One android or two might just seem like they're just defective. A few thousand, well, it might get the Empire's attention. At least, that was my plan. They may have thought of ways to discredit even that many androids protesting though."
He folded his arms, looking at the ground. "Yes Mourn, if you can delay the update somehow, that would buy us time. Which we need, to figure out how to handle this. Starr's right, we just don't know how reversible this code will be once it's installed. If it deletes the personality parameters from the android, they might not be recoverable at all."

Moriah was pretty quiet, she looked unnerved and uncertain.

"I look!" Mourn decided, heading off to go try to hack into the megabrain systems from here. Maybe he'd have to go back into their HQ to sabotage, but first he'd try remote hacking without drawing attention.

Esk nodded. "Looks like you have to start this whole thing, no more delays."

"Thank you, Mourn. Yes, this kind of destroys the whole waiting until after the Imperium plan," Asher said. "I'd better start messaging my sapient rights contacts, we should probably discuss this with Vestia's crew, and we need to see if there are any scouts from the Guild who can help rescue androids on short notice..." Oh god, poor Kay was not going to be happy about this. And Lark, she was stuck out there on that space station, property of MegaBrainTech, no less. If Mourn couldn't stop the update from happening, she wasn't going to stand a chance.

"I am keeping Starr updated." Nova said gently.

"Thank you, Nova. Hopefully she'll be able to offer some advice, she's very sensible, and I'm afraid I'm not at my most rational at the moment," Asher said. It was hard to think when a curveball like this got thrown your way.

~~
The MegaBrain data systems weren't going to be easy to access from outside, it was clear that the corporation had learned a lot about about online security since their Six series android fiasco. If Mourn did locate the address to access their company servers, he'd encounter a heck of a lot of security, which didn't recognize him and didn't have any interest in letting an unrecognized person in.

Their official website was similarly pretty secure. Short overloading the website's server with data requests, it probably wasn't going to be possible to do much to it. And overloading a major corporate website wouldn't exactly be easy.

It was possible that actually physically breaking into HQ might be the most feasible way to do this, oh dear.

Mourn looked up a nice map of the megabrain HQ, plotting the heist. Hey, it'd be just like old times. Sneak into guard places, fuck up their security... only this time instead of stealing anything, they were conducting a little corperate sabotage. Exciting.

He backed up all his work on the terran united crack and hid it, just in case, then went back to planning how to break into this place and break stuff.

----

"Let's talk to the others." Esk suggested. They deserved to know what was going on too. "time to start being a hero huh?" Esk told Asher dryly.

"Right" Rigel said, going to find the girls in the kitchen so they could be told what was happening too.

The server farm where the data was physically hosted was outside the city, about five miles outside the biodome's perimeter. It might be a good place to go to access the the data.

Of course, the data could all probably be accessed from within MegaBrain HQ as well, which had the benefit of being inside the biodome, and therefore easier to reach without being noticed as quickly.

Both locations would have security of course, and would be difficult to infiltrate, it was just a matter of deciding which location would be the better option.

~~
"Yes, we need to talk to the others," Asher agreed. He managed a weak smile, "Your favorite activity, Esk, meetings."

~~
Tala looked up as Rigel came in, flicking her ears forward. "Salutations, Captain! We have left you no pastries!"

Mourn went to talk to the others.

Esk rolled his eyes and went along.

---

Luka looked up, she still had flour in her hair. "Rig... I mean, captain. How did it go?"

Rigel paused a moment at the sight of the flour in Luka's hair and Tala's proclamation. "We need to have a meeting. Asher is walking, but we have a new problem."

Tala's ears folded back. "There are new problems? This sounds unsatisfactory. We must hear tell of them."

~~
Asher headed with the others to the main room. He did find himself smiling for a moment as he went up the stairs, because it felt like such a novel experience, but the worry quickly took over. He waited for the others to come in.

Moriah sat down somewhere to wait as well.

Dawn stood and frowned a little "Well, let's get to this meeting and get caught up on what's happening."

"Kay said to be careful" Nova said, looking over to Asher then smiling "Your mate is worried for you, as is your mother."