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- When the Company first gave her Marcus, she secretly opened up some of his wireless data ports. It was an act of paranoia—one that no longer seems unrealistic. The ports wouldn’t respond to an open scan, but a targeted attack might reactivate him. Blue unfolds her portable terminal and begins typing.
- They should’ve come and searched her room after accusing her of malfeasance. They should’ve taken her portable terminal, tossed her bed to find the cipher drive, and confiscated any data sources she possessed. But they didn’t, so sure were they that she was utterly immobile, and she logs in with ease.
- >>Weyland-Yutani Systems MARCUS
- >>Trademark and Copyright 2169, All Rights Reserved
- >>Bootloader v1.6.5 BY DR_HODENT
- Basic Motor Functions………OK
- Basic Cognitive………OK
- Basic Thinking………OK
- Higher Thinking………OK
- Fine Motor………OK
- ISIS………OK
- OSIRIS………OK
- SET………OK
- RA………SUNRISE
- >>Marcus Online
- >>Last Connected Five Minutes Ago: 0829 2179.07.27
- She draws up short at the last status message. That can’t be right. She’s been out of commission for at least a few hours. Has Sudler been ordering Marcus around while she was unconscious?
- “Okay,” she mumbles, and begins to type. If he really got into Marcus’s head, she won’t be able to access her pilot programs.
- //EXECUTE PILOTSTRAPPER.IMT
- Searching Local Neural Networks…
- …
- …
- The ellipses roll past, her heart beating in time with the appearance of each one. It’s taking longer than usual— often a sign that the program is missing. However, she isn’t sure how long it’s been since she’s had to reload her code from scratch. Maybe it’s always taken this long.
- She gasps aloud.
- >>AWAITING BDI CONNECT_
- Blue eases to the floor and crawls back to her bed, wishing she had made it to the motorized chair, muscles aching all the while. She reaches across to the brain-direct interface gear and pulls its gelatinous cap over her head, snapping the plastic outer visor tight across her nose. She taps a button at the side of the set, and strength begins to return to her limbs.
- She slips into Marcus like a swimming pool, all the discomfort melting away inside his skin. It’s cold here. She peers around, expecting to find synth storage, but sees frosty cubic packages lining a hundred shelves. Robots work diligently by the blue lights of their barcode scanners, moving the packages to and from various shelves.
- ***
- Alien: The Cold Forge, Chapter 13
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