Alex was resolved to bring SCOT back. The layers of code, however, were resolved to make him work for it. And to make him go crazy in the process. Every time he got through one layer, another layer popped up in its place, and he would grit his teeth. Whoever had designed this code knew exactly how to get to him.
"This is not sophisticated enough to be another artificial intelligence," Alex said to himself. "So it can't be HALLE. HALLE would have made it far more complex."
HALLE was the artificial intelligence designed by Riley's team as a counter to SCOT. Alex had begun to think that HALLE might have been used to bankrupt him. Fortunately, news of his newfound financial position hadn't yet made it to the media. This had to be resolved as soon as possible.
He paused for a moment and thought about all the people who relied on him. He employed hundreds of thousands of people. All of whom would be out of work and worse if any of his companies were forced to close. Now more than ever, he wished that he had Debbie. Debbie was a financial wizard.
Debbie would know what to do, he foun himself thinking. She might not be able to help me bring SCOT back, but she would be running the businesses and doing damage control.
The more Alex thought about it, the more he realized that Debbie was right. He really didn't know anything about money. He had gone through poverty training, only to have learned nothing. Some of the skills remained, but he had grown too used to having money again. And that scared him.
When he had built SCOT, it had almost been an accident. He had been experimenting with his own technological skills, hoping to create a program, but instead he had created an intelligent digital friend.
"Need some help?"
Alex snapped his head up at the sound of Yvonne's voice. It was just the two of them. His parents had gone into Baltimore to do some shopping. Louis had taken Ken Stokes on some kind of tour of all the martial arts hot spots in town. Christopher had gone back to the hospital, hoping to learn more about his memory loss.
"I think I'm good," Alex said, turning his eyes back to the computer. "I built him. I can fix him."
"Yes," Yvonne said. "I heard you talking to yourself."
Alex stopped typing, and the room went silent. He looked up at Yvonne. She raised an eyebrow at him and put her hands on her hips.
"You talk pretty loud," she said. "It's pretty hard not to hear you."
"How long have you been standing there?" he asked, nudging his laptop away. "How long have you been watching me try and fail to revive our best hope of regaining control?"
"About sixty seconds," Yvonne said, folding her arms. "Now, do you need help, or not?"
"How much do you know about coding?" he challenged Yvonne.
"Not a lot," she admitted, playing with her hair. "I'm familiar with the basic programs. I had a look at SCOT's source files a while ago, and he looks like a sophisticated, if malleable, artificial intelligence program."
Alex considered it. "Fine," he grumbled, pulling his laptop toward him. "Just don't distract me."
Yvonne sat next to him, and he arranged the computer so the two of them could see it. She leaned in, getting a closer look. She let out a long, low whistle.
"Whoever did this," she said, with a tone of admiration, "they really knew what they were doing."
"What?" he asked, looking at the code again. All he saw was roadblock after roadblock.
Yvonne pointed at several places on the screen.
"Well," she said. "Here, here, and here, you can see these little boobytraps have been set to loop a certain number of times."
"And that means what, exactly?" he asked.
She paused for a moment before explaining. "They're set so you have to repeat the same hacking sequence to unlock them. Let's say one of them is set to one hundred. You hack it once, it resets. You hack it again, it resets." She inclined her head toward him. "It means that those traps are designed for you to give up."
That makes a lot of sense, Alex thought. He thought back to that morning when he had first started. He had had to hack a portion of the code about twenty times before it finally moved to the next level.
He rubbed his eyes and yawned. Then, he flexed his fingers. His hands were starting to cramp. It had been a long morning.
Yvonne thought for a moment, looking up at the ceiling. She pulled the laptop toward her and started typing.
"We need to loop our hacking efforts," she explained. "I'm setting up my own loop. It'll automatically hack each of the booby traps, so we don't cramp our hands."
"I wish I'd seen that," Alex said. "It seems so obvious."
"Only because I pointed it out," Yvonne said, shrugging. It took her a half hour to set up the code. When it was completed, the two of them sat back and watched it work. Alex smiled like a child at Christmas. It was beautiful seeing something do his work for him.
"This is amazing," he said. "Where did you learn to do this?"
"It's a hobby," she said with a slight shrug. "I like playing with numbers."
"I see," he said, watching in awe as the layer of code peeled away.
Alex couldn't help but wonder about Yvonne. He had feelings for her, but he wasn't sure what kind of feelings they were. He enjoyed having her in his company, but she also represented some of the hardest times in his life.
"I have to ask you something," he said, hanging his head. "And I don't know how to ask it without sounding like a complete jerk."
"You always sound like a jerk," she said, smiling. "Ask away!"
He glared at her for a moment, then took a deep breath and asked, "How long have you and Christopher been going on for?"
She was silent for a long moment, and Alex tensed. He wasn't sure if he wanted to hear the answer, but he had to know. They couldn't have been together for that long, but he still didn't like the thought of trying to steal his friend's girlfriend. Christopher, memory loss or no memory loss, deserved a better friend. He also deserved a loving girlfriend like Yvonne, and Alex didn't want to stand in the way of his friends' happiness like that.
"Straight to the point?" Yvonne asked. "Well, you're nothing if not direct. For your information, we're not together. I don't even know what we are." She paused. "There's a side to him that I didn't know existed until he lost his memory. I like that side of him. I hope it sticks around when he gets his memory back."
Alex nodded. He understood what she meant. She liked that there was a side Christopher could show her, and only her. He had had that with Debbie.
"Yvonne," he found himself saying. "What's wrong with me?"
She put a hand on his shoulder. "There's nothing wrong with you," she told him. "We're two different people. We have a messy history. And you've just had a breakup. It's not going to work."
Alex grimaced.
[SFX: beep]
"Alex? Y-vonne?" SCOT's voice took a moment to load, but Alex and Yvonne were already jumping for joy as the AI program came back to life in front of them.
"SCOT!" Alex said. "Welcome back, buddy! We missed you!"
"I missed you, too," SCOT said, sounding grateful. "Oh, that was so horrible. They trapped me in an infinite loop where everything was the same! I thought I'd be trapped in that looping hell for eternity!"
"You're back now, and we're not letting them take you again," Alex promised.
"I'm thankful, Alex," SCOT said. "Where are the others?"
Alex paused, then shot a glance at Yvonne. He sighed and said, "Debbie's been kidnapped. The others are fine."
"Kidnapped?" SCOT asked. "Again? One moment. I should be fully reintegrated soon enough. I'll send out a localizer algorithm to locate her via her phone GPS. It shouldn't take a moment!"
Alex turned to Yvonne. "Thank you, again," he said. "You're incredible. I hope Christopher makes you happy."
Yvonne smiled, then turned her attention to SCOT. His face appeared on the laptop screen, smiling as though he had the best news to share.
"I've found her," he said. "Alex, I'm sending you her coordinates now."
Alex's watch beeped, and Debbie's location popped up on the built-in map function.
"I've got her!" he said, excited. "Let's bring Debbie home! Again!"
**********
SCOT's location software worked a little too well. While Yvonne and Alex once again found themselves putting together a plan to rescue Debbie, Todrick Dangles was having a mid-career crisis.
"I feel like I'm going nowhere, you know?" he asked Riley.
They were in the breakroom at the Enrichment headquarters. Riley was still poring over his crossword puzzle, apparently stuck on one of the clues. Todrick tried everything he could think of to get Riley's attention, but so far nothing had worked.
"It's like," Todrick said, thinking on the spot, "I signed up to be a part of your project because I sought a challenge. Next thing I know, we're surviving being blown up. After that, well, here I am. Part of Lincoln's little crew. It's great, don't get me wrong, but I feel like I could do with a little more consistency in terms of placement."
He eyed Riley, hoping that it would get a reaction out of him. Riley scribbled something on his crossword puzzle, ignoring Todrick.
Todrick sighed, wondering where his life had gone wrong. Being a villain's sidekick could be fun, but when would it be Todrick's turn to play the villain?
Just as he was about to try catching Riley's attention once more, his watch beeped. He looked down, seeing HALLE's face looking up at him, looking slightly panicked.
"Is now a bad time?" she asked in a nervous voice. For an artificial intelligence, she was remarkably human.
"Now's perfect," Todrick said, leaning back in his chair. "We've got some time to kill, don't we Riley?" he looked over at Riley, who simply grunted in response.
Todrick looked down at HALLE and raised an eyebrow. She nodded in understanding.
"What's up?" he asked.
"Someone is transmitting a localizer algorithm," she said. "I don't know who it is, or how, it's all encrypted. They've locked onto our location. I think we're about to be attacked."