The most interesting parts were always those most pilots would overlook. Their interest, like Armstrong7's, lay in the guns and weapons the pirates had carried, whereas hers lay mostly in the software included in the mechs they had used. The kinds she had worked with her entire life had been coded and written up to be unhackable, which didn’t allow anyone else to step in and use them aside from the pilots themselves.
Many of the newer AIs did that too and ran software defense.
But those that were designed to run on the simpler software weren't protected. Not many people would even bother to hack into it since most of the functions inside the suit were run on manual anyway, but that didn't mean they were useless.
The tracking software showed where they had come from and other software revealed what they'd been shooting at as well as a whole horde of other small details that would allow them to work out how to use the rest of the parts.
"Oh… Well, aren't you interesting?" Jessica13 mumbled under her breath as she connected the SSD to an HUD simulator and powered it up.
When it activated, it gave her exactly what she had expected it to. They hadn't upgraded the software, which meant it still ran on factory settings and displayed the Minato logo before it opened the rest of the programming.
Very few people liked using Minato software these days—or even back in their heyday, apparently. They had always been the cheaper option for the less discerning or those who cared less for the lives of the people who piloted them.
Opening one of the command prompts was the most interesting, however, as it brought up the code they used. It was, of course, from the same factory Mini had come out of and it was far better than the corrupted, gutted version she'd had to work with.
Her heart immediately began to race with the possibilities. It wasn't much, but it was something to start with and more than she'd ever had. She would be able to get Mini up again. Having a real AI would make the mech work the way it was supposed to.
And hey, having someone to talk to who had more than chirps and whistles in reply was always a plus too.
Jessica13 unplugged the chip from the simulator and looked around at the other the bulletfoots and pilots who currently worked around her. All were engaged in their tasks and paid not the slightest attention to what she was doing or even realized that she was looking at them.
One chip that wouldn't be useful to anyone but her wouldn’t be missed, she assured herself. Maybe this was her very own something incredible waiting to be known. But like Armstrong7 had said, on her own time. The thought brought a tantalizing surge of excitement like this small rebellion—her first ever against the system—was the beginning of something way bigger.
Part of her recoiled at the thought and tried to fall back on her life-long litany of safety and sacrifice. The other part reveled in the daring step that promised untold advantages. After all, fixing Mini was to Sanctuary’s benefit too.
She slipped the chip into her pocket and continued to work.
Chapter Five
Armstrong7 had begun to get on her nerves. This was the third fucking drill he'd run in the past two days, and the man had done all but sound the alarms. He couldn't sound them, of course, since that would send the word to all the other people in Sanctuary, but other than that, he went all out.
The attack had clearly rattled him more than he let on. He hadn't lost very many people under his command before the attack. Most of those who had passed before had been as a result of self-injury. Those had pissed him off too and made him yell at the folks under his authority until they got it right.
But this attack had scared him. Jessica13 hadn't been around as long as the other pilots—or even most of the bulletfoots—but she knew what made her CO tick. And without doubt, something was ticking him now.
While she could understand his grief and not wanting anyone else to die on his watch, she was still pissed off by how far he was taking it. The situation, in general, was bad enough but what was worse was the fact that he seemed to time all his drills when she was supposed to have downtime.
Of course, simply because she wasn't working didn't mean she wasn't busy with something important. Most of her waking time that wasn't spent working was used to retrieve the coding from the chip she'd borrowed from the maybe pile. Of course, even with the complete and uncorrupted code, it was still difficult to apply it to the Mini. They were essentially different models, and while they worked from the same base code, that was where the similarities ended.
Despite the challenges, she wasn't about to be dissuaded from her work. This was as close as she'd ever come to discovering why Mini didn’t access the “brain” function of her software where the AI was really supposed to originate from. Without it, there was no thinking and no higher functions, merely data processing and maybe a hint of electrical current through random areas that made her think the AI was trying to repair itself.
But Mini’s code was corrupted beyond repair and without anything from the original, she would not be able to adjust it fully or correctly. Sure, she could copy from one of the other AI cores,
