Ten yards away it froze, crouching into a defensive stance. Devin searched the horizon, where its attention was drawn, and heard the humming sound moments before he saw the tiny jet streaking across the plains. The creature shrieked and lurched toward the bridge, but the jet was already on top of it, launching a small missile as it passed overhead. The being vanished in a ball of flame.
"Anti-virus software," Flatline hissed. "It doesn't detect us because we look like anonymous users on the system. The beings over there are programs, trying to copy themselves onto this hardware. We have to be more careful. If Network Security finds them, it will be the end of everything. Let's hope they write this encounter off as a routine virus."
"Why would a company destroy its own intellectual property?" Devin asked, confused.
Flatline's face went slack. His tongue dangled from his mouth and his eyes rolled up into his head. When he spoke, his voice was distant, slurred, "I have no response to that." He shook his muzzle, snapping out of the trance, and looked around anxiously. "What do you know about programming?"
Devin shrugged, "I'm a cut-and-paste guru."
"Hmm..." Flatline nodded slowly looking at the ground, missing Devin's attempt at humor. "I think I can hack our way into this network. I'll see if I can't partition this drive so half of it disappears. The anti-virus software won't scan what isn't there."
"What about your avatar masking software?" Devin asked. "Can't we patch that into their code?"
Flatline shook his head, "Our codes are incompatible."
"I don't understand," Devin was confused. How can they be incompatible? "Can't you layer them?"
"I have to take this machine," Flatline said. "It's the only way."
"What about the rest of the network?" Devin accessed the secretary's computer for a quick tally of the intranet. It was locked up tight with 1024-bit encryption. "How will we take it?"
"Maybe we won't have to," Flatline replied. He was crouched low, writing equations in the snow, "If this secretary's machine can surf the Web, I might just use it as a launch pad and send the beings out to my machine. Then it's just a matter of finding other shelters for them."
"I don't understand what they are," Devin muttered.
"Do you remember the Turing tests?" Devin nodded, but Flatline was only talking to himself now, "They tested for artificial intelligence. The idea was to have a person converse with a real human being and a computer program at the same time. If the subject could identify which was which, then the program failed as artificial intelligence."
Devin nodded again. This was old school. Every geek knew Turing.
"They were nonsense," Flatline spat. "Why would a computer think like a human? It has a completely alien array of experiences. The origins of thought are architecturally dissimilar. Synapses and circuit boards don't fire the same way. Turing was anthropomorphizing absurdly if he thought something artificial would think in any way, shape, or form like a human brain." He trembled with anger and his form blurred briefly.
"Go home Omni," Flatline sighed at last, regaining his composure and focus.
Devin logged out, conflicted, his curiosity about these beings competing with his sudden need for distance from this strange friend.
"Wanna play a game of chess?"
Delete.
"I know you're there."
Delete.
"Stop ignoring me."
Delete.
"Okay, stop masturbating to gay porn and talk to me."
Delete.
"Butthead."
Delete. There were several dozen more messages from BlackSheep waiting when Devin came back to the World Wide Web. He tracked her down in the chess section of the ideonexus portal, whipping up on low-rated players. Devin was impressed. She was playing 32 games simultaneously, and she laughed when he suggested she couldn't divert some of her attention from them to finish what they'd started the day before.
"Spanking newbies takes less than one percent of my attention span. You're still outmatched," she scoffed.
Devin began the piece exchange he was so wary of making their previous session. Every possible scenario for the next twelve moves was plotted out in his mind. After that, chaos theory set in and things became uncertain. This was not the case for Zai.
"Hanging out with your hacker friends again?" She asked, responding to his advance with her king's pawn.
He mentally patted himself on the back for correctly predicting her move. "I'm really not at liberty to talk about that," Devin said nonchalantly, taking her pawn with his knight for move three. "At least not until the statute of limitations is up."
"Uh huh," she snapped up his knight with her queen's knight. Devin had also allowed for her responding with the bishop or king's knight. "I guess I don't want to know. Will you do me a favor, though?"
"Yeah?" Devin said, staring at the knight, remembering his options for move five, and trying to see her options for move 14.
"Promise me you'll be careful?"
Devin blinked at the concern in her voice and looked up from the board to find the doll leaning across the table, eyes like saucers filled with concern. When he replied, it was more tactful, "Don't worry. I'm not really doing anything all that illicit. It's just geekdom."
"You mean like getting movies before they hit the theaters and stuff?" she asked hopefully.
"Nothing even that illegal," he assured her. "I'm helping this guy with a project he's working on. We're... liberating information. That's all."
"That's illegal," BlackSheep countered. "If the information isn't free, then you're stealing it."
"Information wants to be free," Devin said, quoting Traveler. "It's the hacker's responsibility to liberate it."
"Yeah," BlackSheep said. "I've heard that old saying. I think it's a quote from the old freeware advocates."
"Really?" Devin asked. "I thought it came from the Legion of Discord."
BlackSheep shrugged, "It's an old saying. You know, if you have to..." the punk-rock doll hopped up on her seat and made quotation marks with her hands, "'liberate' information, even if you think it's the right thing to do, it's still illegal."
Devin squinted at the chessboard, and opted to take her knight with his for move five. She responded with her bishop without pause, leaving him to meditate on move seven, her move 14 options becoming clearer in his mind, "Have you checked the latest odds on the super-computer match up?" he asked.
Devin was referring to the now year-long chess match between the two most powerful computers of the day, Principa Discordia and Buton Cho. Two different companies owned the systems, but the match was not competitive in the traditional sense. Each computer was playing to win the game conclusively for their color for all time. Chess was an equation they were working to solve, one color, white or black, offense or defense, would ultimately win the battle.
The impending "solution" made many players give up the sport, but not BlackSheep. She wasn't impressed with the moves computers hammered out through systematic calculations. Human beings, she had explained to Devin, knew intuitively what move to make.
"The odds still slightly favor white winning in three months, but only by a fraction of a percentage point-and don't change the subject," BlackSheep countered. "I'm worried about you getting into trouble."
"There is no trouble," Devin defended, trying to sound sincere enough to appease her. "I'm telling you, this is something new. It's not copyrighted or even owned by anyone, but it wants to be out on the World Wide Web. That's all."