"No, no! Please no! Dad! Mum! Please don't go, please!!" Martha could hear James crying in his sleep. She dropped the rag she was using to clean the kitchen and headed to the room James slept.
She gently tapped James forehead, which caused him to jerk awake, and seeing Martha, he began to cry furiously. "No aunty, I miss mom and dad, I miss him so much!" James cried harder as he fell into the arms of Martha, who returned the hug and stroked his head with tears on her face.
"I'm very sorry James, I do. At least I am glad you are back." Martha said looking at the space in the room as she tried to comfort James.
James' head was still hurting by what happened two days ago. He had almost finished with his robot project, so he began concluding the reprogramming as he took out the mini microphone he requested from Martha.
"AI, I'm going to record my voice on this partition, so that it uses the audio as a base to create a new voice," James said as he plugged the microphone into his PC.
[And why did you want to do that?] the AI asked.
"Because it's fun" James smiled slyly. "If I can make this baby sound like anybody, I would make it sound like my favourite celebrity".
[Hmm, that's very weird, but smart].
James snorted. He loves it when the AI acts like a human sometimes, it made him closer to it somehow. James was already done with the internal parts of the toy robot. He soldered a USB wire and stuck it out of the robot's external shell and carefully placed the USB tip to the hole he created in its body, thus, completing the outlook.
James felt a headache. "AI, please quell that for me," James said as he connected the USB to his PC. The PC made feedback, indicating that the microphone was plugged in, which brought relief to James as he opened the terminal in his newly installed OS.
According to an article, he read a couple of days ago, Linux was a far more flexible and viable option when one wants to focus on hacking and programming. James was naturally curious, so he searched for a Linux distro on Google, which brought him to a page to download Kali Linux.
James loved the interface so much. It has a clean UI and amazing tools and apps he could use in the future "I never knew Wi-Fi could easily be hacked though, or you could remotely hack into someone's PC that easy!" James gushed with wide eyes as he kept clicking away.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
A new terminal automatically popped up after James connected the robot to his PC. He typed a few commands to the terminal, causing the robots led lights to blink continuously.
"Listener is active, please record voice data" the robot's small speaker spoke. James then began saying a few word snippets "Hi, I'm James Smith" "My school is ChrisValle High School" "I loved peanut butter cookie…" he kept saying more words into the microphone.
A sudden but quick headache panged James, and he winced in pain. "AI, what was that?"
[Uhh, hold on…. James, I'm receiving commands from an unknown source. Someone is trying to hack me]
James was confused "Who was that?"
[As I said, the commands were coming from an unknown source, but I'll check it out. Meanwhile, your memories have been completely compiled, ready to install]
James was thrilled, then he became confused once more. "Wait, have you been successfully hacked?" James asked. The frequency of the headache flashes was becoming more apparent.
[No, I am unhackable]
James dropped the robot to the table and appeared worried "AI, I'm scared. What does the person want?" James asked. A few days ago, he was told that someone was spying on him through X-ray, and though he successfully blocked the signal, the thought that someone was after him gave him chills.
[I think the person wanted to confirm if the chip was with you, and because I rejected the commands, the person had already confirmed it. James doesn't be afraid. According to my dig on the person's background, she seems harmless.]
"She?"
[Yes, she. She works for AIRC, the company your father worked for, the company I was created from. I would explain this to you later, but first, I need to install these compiled data to your brain right away. They don't seem stable.]
"Alright, when do we start?"
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
James climbed on his bed and lie down comfortably. He was about to close his eye when someone knocked on his door. "What is it now" James was slightly frustrated.
"Come in" James sighed. The person came in, revealing Esther's figure. Esther approached James, then stopped midway. "Uhh hi. I just wanted to tell you that I would not be around for a couple of hours. I'm going to a sleepover with my friends, so, till tomorrow, I'll see ya".
James nodded. Esther smiled and headed towards James door and closed it behind her.
James then closed his eyes and pulled out the 3D map of the house. Making sure that no one was near his room, he then closed his eye and waited.
Moments later, James could not feel his body anymore as the AI began taking over his brain. Soon enough, James fell into a deep sleep.
"Preparing to unpack mnemonic data to partition…"
Checking neural pathways for redundant connections… found 334,685,121"
"Attempting to clean up redundant neural pathways… cleanup successful, 20,455 skipped"
"Checking for any errors… no errors found"
"Applying mnemonic data to all partitions…"
"Creating new neural pathway…. successful"
"Optimizing neural pathway… optimizing successful"
"Start time was Thursday, 18th of January, 2023."
"Installing…"
"Installing…"
"Fatal error at partition 2321#"
"Attempting to fix error… fixing error failed…"
"There was a problem on partition 2322#"
James suddenly woke up from his deep sleep. He wanted to ask if the memory was successful, it was then he realized that he was colour blind, he could not feel his left leg, and he lost sensation of his tongue. His mother's face was displayed in full resolution in his eyes as other forgotten events were floating around him.
James' head was pounding heavily. James gritted his teeth and held the bedsheet tightly as he waited for the pain to pass.
"What the hell AI? What happened?"
This time, the AI did not respond. James could see some code being executed displaying on his eyes as the headache got worse. Even on his slightly dark skin, his face was becoming redder with each passing second.
"AI" James almost screamed. The code was executing faster and faster, trying to fix the error that was created. James could not take it anymore, so he screamed with all his might.
Then he fainted, his heart beating almost flat.