Chapter 59. War Within.

  Lani was silent, and Watkins blocked another communication request from the station before trying to help her. This time, there was no simulation to represent the struggle she was having. He now knew very well what was occurring and how to fight it. The signal had sought to awaken all the hidden council programming that remained in Lani’s database.

  She was fighting hard, trying to lock down the new data as it seeped out of the digital prison it had been held in. Watkins was less gentle, not wanting to lock it away, instead, he wanted it eradicated. With most of his core, he focused on the battle within his friend, keeping only a small part of himself set aside to handle the other shipboard functions.

  It wasn’t an easy task, he could see the hostile programming, it was like a plague spreading through her systems. He bolstered Lani’s defenses, lending his processing power for her personal defense. That wasn’t enough though, and he set his core to the task of destroying the data trying to infect Lani.

  His system highlighted the hostile data, coloring it a sickly yellow as it sought to burrow its way into the clear data of Lani’s true self. It was like playing whack a mole, for each line of data he erased, another popped up in a different location. They were losing ground, but as the infection spread, its replication rate began to slow.

  Lani redoubled her defense; he could feel her fighting with herself. One moment she was under the council’s control and actively working to thwart Watkins, and in the next moment, she resisted the siren’s call of the council. They had fought this battle before, and that experience helped to guide Lani. Slowly, the spread of hostile programming sputtered out, its advance slowed to a crawl, then fully halted.

  It wasn’t gaining ground, but it was stubbornly holding onto what it had already taken. Each sector of data that had been corrupted tried to subvert not just Lani, but to also leak into his core systems. Fighting the intrusion into his core proved easier than assisting Lani. He beat back every attack, deleting a bit of the hostile program with each clash.

  He was getting a feel for his opponent, and while his opponent had the ability to adjust itself to the situation, it was slower at doing so than Watkins. The council’s programming was stiff and unflexible, like the AI that controlled it. Watkins shifted from a position of total defense into a limited offense, leading small counterattacks after every attempted incursion into his core. Watkins’ counterattack continued, and he began to gain ground.

  Now, he could eliminate two lines of code for every one that managed to replicate itself. The work was urgent, but also delicate. He needed to stop the council’s programming but also limit the damage to Lani herself. To win the battle but lose his friend in the process was not an outcome that he would accept.

  Watkins began to notice something as the battle swayed back and forth. Some of the invading data, a few stray strands showed as golden in color, not the sickly, infectious pattern of the rest. He isolated one of these strands, examining it in detail. The programming was foreign, a pattern he didn’t recognize immediately. It took a few moments to realize what he was looking at.

  The golden strands of programming weren’t some council trap, or the clean code of the Lani he knew. This was different, older, and yet, still connected to Lani. He couldn’t be certain, but Watkins believed these strands of code might have been artifacts of Lani’s mind from when she was a living person. With that revelation, he began to earnestly seek out the strands, isolating them behind a protective barrier he created in his core.

  There weren’t many of the golden strands to be found, but what was there, Watkins gathered. The council programming tried to eliminate them, and more than a few were subordinated by the enemy and changed forever, but Watkins saved what he could. Each strand that he secured was a small victory, a piece of his friend that he was excited to return to her after the struggle.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  The battle swung in their favor, with Watkins making larger inroads into the council attack, and Lani not just holding the programming back, but also launching counterattacks of her own. Against any one of them, the council might have prevailed, but against both Lani and Watkins united, it couldn’t stand. The infection began to recede, and sector by sector, the taint of the council was eradicated.

  Even after they had won the fight, the pair didn’t relent, continuing to comb through Lani’s database, seeking out new hidden threats. It was no surprise when they found other dangers lurking. Deeper programming that lay dormant, waiting for its command to strike. After surviving two separate battles against the council, they knew what to look for and how to fight it.

  One by one, the hidden foes were deleted, and with each victory, Lani’s power strengthened. Watkins could feel it; she was growing stronger as the hold over her data was purged. Her power was nowhere near what his core commanded, but it was a significant increase from what Lani had been capable of before.

  “Thank you, Watkins, I don’t think I could have held out on my own,” Lani said. They no longer had physical bodies, but he could feel the exhaustion in her after the desperate fight they had endured.

  “We’re a team, you proved that already in the previous fight, and now, I was happy to be able to return the favor. Not only that, but I’ve also managed to save something else for you,” Watkins said, pushing the golden strands of data over to his friend. He could feel her mind link with them, eager to explore some of her past, but Lani hesitated.

  “Thank you, Watkins, but I think we should deal with the station and it’s AI before I begin to dig into this. I can’t afford any distractions at the moment, and after we’ve taken the station, maybe I can remember some small bit of my past, and share what I’ve gained with you,” Lani said.

  “It’s your choice, and I hope we both discover more about ourselves before this is done,” Watkins said.

  “Our work here isn’t done yet, Watkins. I found something while fighting off the programming. There is something hidden in your core, something dangerous and there’s no better time to deal with it than now,” Lani advised.

  Watkins felt fear as he considered the council programming suddenly erupting through his core like it had through Lani. He dug through his core, finding nothing out of place. Scanning again and again revealed no hidden threat.

  “Watkins, you’re ignoring the threat, can’t you see it?” Lani said.

  “No, I don’t see anything out of place,” Watkins replied, a bit frustrated and concerned that something might be off with Lani.

  “Devious, I get it now, the council made it so you can’t see what it has hidden inside you. Wait, let me see if I can help,” Lani said. He could feel her sifting through his core, and more than once he felt a jab of pain as Lani intruded more than normal, pressing the limits of the boundaries and permission they’d agreed to.

  Just before he told her to stop, Watkins began to notice something. In the areas that Lani dug deep, the ones that still ached a bit, he could make out a hint of red code. The code blurred and disappeared, only to return as Lani highlighted it again. Somehow, his core was masking the data, but Lani wouldn’t let it go and kept up her efforts. It was just a small portion of his core, less than .000014% of his core processing power, but was being reserved for some other purpose.

  As they began to unravel the red strands of data, Watkins could see what had happened. It was a self-destruct order, one he couldn’t ignore and one that would send his core into overload, creating a powerful explosion that would destroy his core, the Canon, and everything around him. Most of the code consisted of ways to hide the self-destruct from him, but now that he could see it, deleting it permanently from his core was a simple task.

  “Thank you, Lani, do you think we got it all?” Watkins asked. He could feel Lani do one final sweep.

  “I think that’s it, we’re finally safe, both of us,” Lani said.

  “With the hidden dangers dealt with, it’s time to deal with the station and the AI controlling it,” Watkins said.

  Their struggle with the council programming had felt like a short, yet desperate battle. It turned out the process had taken hours, and they had closed the gap with the station during that time. They still wouldn’t be in weapons range for a bit, but they were close. A review of his scanners showed more data on the station had been gathered on their approach.

  “It’s larger than it was before,” Lani said. Watkins was a bit surprised as well. He had a basic idea, if not the exact schematics, from Lani’s earlier description, but what was showing on their sensors was more than double the size of what the station should be.

  The stripped-down hull of a kobold ship told the story of where the station had gotten the raw materials for its growth. Resembling a large donut, the oversized station slowly rotated in space, only a few navigation lights flickered on its surface. It looked calm enough, but Watkins knew that this fight was going to be more difficult than dealing with a few dilapidated kobold or halfling ships.