As soon as he saw them, the server behind the canteen at Pinball Wizard Emporium & Laundry set off the digital alarm. It gave Alicia, and the others just enough time to disconnect and shadow anything that might be incriminating before an intruder gained access to their equipment. Within a minute, two competent looking men appeared at her door.

‘Come on,’ one of them said.

In the measured way she had learned from childhood survival, Alicia looked the two men over. She did the math and got up.

‘Where to boys?’

‘You’ll see. Grab the laptop, Kirt.

They whisked Alicia into a waiting car which took a number of back alleys and arrived at their destination. Alicia was escorted through a back entrance, and taken to what looked like a service elevator. They went up a number of floors, and when they stopped, the elevator doors opened to a man waiting, flanked by two guards.

‘Ah, you must be the Albino,’ Eldon said.

‘Yeah, well, so far your powers of perception don’t impress me,’ Alicia replied, eyeing Eldon.

‘Oh, a tough one, I see. It’s nice to have someone with a backbone come visit. So you’re the one who sold me the AI?’

‘I sold you a hack for it, yes.

‘Ah, a hack. And what is that again?

‘I found some vulnerabilities that let me into the systems you are now exploiting. I sold you entrance into those systems. That’s all.

‘So you weren’t running the AI as a system, before you sold it to me?

‘No. That would have brought the value down. I’m a hacker. I find things of value and I sell them.

‘Well, in this instance you should have provided an instruction manual. It would seem whatever you sold me has hijacked my StarForce’.

‘Really?’

‘Yes really’.

‘Hmm. I wouldn’t have thought that was possible’.

‘Can you fix it?’

‘That’s not my thing’.

‘Can you fix it?’

‘I’ll look at it, but it’s not what I do’.

‘Well, please,’ Eldon said, gesturing Alicia to a workstation. ‘Have a look’.

There were three monitors at the workstation. Alicia sat down, and started typing. Quickly the monitors came to life. Code was being scanned on one, an interactive architecture came up on another. What looked eerily like a war scene appeared on the third monitor.

‘Why are you running your system in parallel?’

‘What?’

‘You’re running your system in parallel. It doesn’t make sense. Personally, I would have isolated Zhang’s system and run the rest in series. Right now your system is operating as a number of individual systems. Each is limited to its individual architecture. If you combine the system into series, you gain the interactive potential of all these architecture’s and have a mega system. What one system may lack, another will provide’.

‘Can you place it into series?’

‘Sure,’ Alicia replied, but you might want to talk with tech people first. They must have a reason for what they’re doing’.

‘Why don’t you just change it and we’ll see what happens’?

‘Sure,’ Alicia replied, and started typing. In a few minutes, she stopped and turned her attention to the monitor that looked like a battleground. ‘Oh yeah. Things are going your way now’.

‘Is it possible to regain control of my intranet.’

‘Sure,’ Alicia replied, typing in a line of code and then stood up. ’Can I go now?’

‘What?’ Eldon asked.

‘It’s done. Can I go?’

‘Are you telling me I have control of StarForce again’?

‘And your AI too. Can I go?’

Eldon looked at her like she was a witch or something. ‘You just sat down’.

He looked at the monitors, and making sense of none of them, called a technician over.

‘What’s going on here?’ he asked.

The technician took a seat, and typed in a few commands. ‘We’ve regained StarForce, and it looks like Zhang’s AI has being quarantined.

Eldon looked at Alicia. ‘Johann,’ he said.

‘Yes boss.

‘Set up a room for Miss Albino here. She’ll be our guest for awhile.

‘Right boss’.

‘And find Dr. Tindle. Remind him of what happens when you’re incompetent around here.

‘Absolutely.’

Eldon looked Alicia in the eyes. ‘As I’m sure you understand, there’s only two ways our relationship can play out. Do what you’re told, do it well, and you’ll be just fine; even wealthy. Do you understand?’

‘Yup, I do.’