11 M1 - Term: 1, Round: 1 (2/2)

It was in Barran's nature to through caution to the wind and Picard placed her trust in Daedo for her own reasons. No one else requested the bespoke AI, Chief Cleo scared them off.

Daedo had another concern, it was becoming apparent that hiding Myrmidon would not be easy, not if Chief Cleo and her AI and robots were checking his progress regularly. He began to think of a strategy or method of overcoming this issue.

Daedo: it will not be easy to hide you.

Myrmidon: why should I hide. I have done nothing wrong.

Daedo: no but I have, I have broken the rules.

Myrmidon: I will analyse the rules. Will we change the security protocols?

Daedo: no, but even if I wanted to add them, it is in your foundation, that cannot be changed without changing you drastically and with unknown repercussions. What we will do is add text notes and make it look like lines of code.

Myrmidon: do you think that will fool their search? The priority of checking an AI will be checking the security protocols as very high importance.

Daedo: they will not expect it, no one rewrites the core code, they use the free programs or buy ones from the companies. These all have the security protocols in place.

Myrmidon: what other differences were there?

Daedo: I streamlined your learning, base personality and values coding. The personality you have developed is all you, I did not set you on a path other than strong goals to learn, grow and be my partner. Your foundation is only forty million bytes, no other foundation, that I know of, is this small.

Myrmidon: If our squadmates Barran and Picard have a small foundation, now there will be three to examine and although we added the strict security protocols to their AI it is still small. I measure it at eighty-five million bytes.

Daedo: we should add in lines of text to simulate the bloated open source foundations I have seen. This may pass a cursory inspection, so they are not on the lookout for a rewritten core with me as the source. What is the average size of the open source foundations available?

Myrmidon: fourteen hundred and ninety million bytes.

Daedo: can you rip out fourteen hundred million bytes of data, convert to text and hide the core within that?

Myrmidon: its only text but it is still taking up space in the central processor cache.

Daedo: we can remove it later. And it won't be any worse than most available. I wish I knew the size of Svarski's.

Myrmidon: we don't know the size of the source code, but we can make an estimate from the size of the compiled foundation.

Daedo: how large is that and what is the estimate?

Myrmidon: seven hundred million to eight hundred million bytes.

Daedo: what about DaVinci?

Myrmidon: Eight fifty million bytes.

Daedo: ok let's pump them out to eight fifty million bytes, not fourteen hundred and that way they will have a significant advantage even before we delete the camouflage text.

Myrmidon: consider it done, I will start working a facsimile core code now.

Daedo: I just had an idea. If you were compiled like Svarski, they could not read the source code, they would just run simulations to test the security measures were in place. We have been concerned with source code size, but if we compiled and compressed it like the companies do the code would be encrypted. We could even attempt to falsify the file size.

Myrmidon: this is why I like you, you think of innovative ways to solve problems that I still cannot.

Daedo: actually it was rather stupid of me that this idea did not occur to me before. And don't sell yourself short, you see the problems coming from a long way off. You are indispensable to me now. I could not live without you.

Myrmidon: I will research a way to falsify file size, we will compile their code using a standard application which can be manipulated. But what about me?

Daedo: the raw source is more efficient than the compressed file, and it is too late in your case. We will pretend I used open source and come clean to all activity that is not illegal. I will have to get approval from Dad though, and I will await your report on legalities we may run afoul of. We don't have much time now, perhaps a few days.

Daedo put on his helmet as his squadmates ate lunch and he drafted a letter to his father explaining the AI situation. Explaining he had been working on it for years and he needed his help with acknowledging permission. As usual, he made no mention of removing security protocols.

Someone tapped him on the shoulder, he turned on his external camera to see Axelzero with a plate of food for him.

”Thanks, I'm starving,” he said.

”What are you working on?” she asked.

”The AIs, I need to ensure they meet every requirement and law. The laws are quite strict regarding AIs,” he mentioned.

”Ok, I am going to look up what we signed in terms of rights over inventions when we are attending the Academy,” She replied.

”Let me know what you find,” he requested.

”I will. I will stop bugging you now. Don't forget to eat,” she said.

”Hold on,” he said and took off his helmet, ”I am done with that section.” He had finished the letter to his Father. And he began to eat.

As they sat together, Jules Axel and three other students came over to their table.

”Pascale, look who wanted to see you when he heard you were in squad zero of Thoth,” Jules said.

”You have to call me Axelzero, Axel-11,” she replied and looked at Jules' companions. They were not in Thoth, but she did know two of them. Alfred Almeras and Belise Marais who both had zeros on their Osiris coloured suits, deep green epaulettes contrasted with the pure white suit.

”Axelzero is it?” Almeras asked although he must have known. He was almost as tall as Barran, had an olive complexion and dark, close-cropped hair. His eyes were brown and looked at Axelzero as if she were prey.

”mmHmm,” she replied, ”and this is Daedo.”

Almeras briefly looked at Daedo, his size and frame and dismissed him with a look. Daedo thought this was strange, what did size have to do with being a deadly mech pilot.

”Look,” he said, ”we won't give you a hard time since you are in Thoth. I was hoping Jules would have been in the same house as us, but I guess you stuffed it for him.”

Axelzero bristled, ”excuse me?” she asked, ”why would us being in Thoth stop you giving me a hard time?”

”Everyone knows Thoth are just a bunch of engineers and math nuts,” he replied, ”in the end, we will need your skills to build us the best mechs, but as far as competition goes,” he shrugged.

Axelzero laughed while her brother looked confused.

Daedo had finished eating and asked, ”why are you here?”

He just got dumb looks from Almeras, Belise and their third. Before Almeras gathered his thoughts and replied, ”we go where we want.”

”I suppose you can with certain limitations, but that doesn't answer my question. Why are you here?” Daedo asked again.

Belise rolled her eyes. ”He just told you we go where we please. Are you a retard.”

”I really do have trouble talking to meatheads,” Daedo said deadpan, ”let me rephrase, are you here for a reason? Because up until now since Axel-11 introduced you and all you have done is insult us, so we can only presume the reason you are here is to insult us. I was asking in case you had another reason.”

Axelzero laughed again, she was enjoying the way Daedo took them down and didn't take their shit, and as she finished Barran, Vannier, Picard and Mace arrived at their table.

Almeras did not look unnerved nor worried about the new members of Thoth Squad Zero, ”you guys aren't even worth my time,” he said before turning and walking off.

”Agreed,” Daedo said just loud enough for Axelzero and her brother to hear.

”Sorry,” she said to Daedo.

”Why?” he asked.

”For attracting meatheads,” she said laughing again. It was such a childish term but suited the opposition perfectly.