“Yeah, well, so far your powers of perception aren’t impressing me,’ Alicia replied, eyeing Eldon.

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

‘I sold you a hack for it, yes.

‘Ah, a hack. And what is that again?

‘I found some common 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. Anything that was going on has been done by your people. 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 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?’

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

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

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

There were three monitors at the work station. 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 to be a war was on the third monitor.

‘Why are you running your system in parallel?’

‘What?’

‘You’re running your system in parallel. I can see your people might be concerned about Zhang’s system corrupting the others, but I can’t guess why they didn’t isolate it and run the rest in series. Right now your system is operating as a number of individual systems, limited to it’s individual components. If you combine the system into series, you gain the interactive potentials of the mega system. What the individual systems are lacking the rest of the system will provide. This doesn’t make sense to me. I’d look into this if I were you.’

‘Can you place it into series?’

‘Sure,’ Alicia replied, but you might want to talk with tech people first. They might have a reason I’m not seeing.’

‘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 turned her attention to one of the monitors. ‘Oh yeah. You’re starting to kick some butt now’.

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

‘Sure,’ Alicia replied and typed 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 that in less than half an hour, you turned this whole debacle around and given me back control of my intranet?

‘And your AI too. Can I go?’

Eldon looked at her with disbelief. He looked at the monitors, and 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 is being quarantined.

Eldon looked at Alicia. ‘Johann. Go kill Dr. Tingle, and set up a room for Miss Albino. She’ll be our guest for awhile.

‘Right boss.’

Eldon looked Alicia in the eyes. ‘As I’m sure you’re coming to 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.’