E.3
Okay, here is the 5x compressed summary of chapter E.3 in 1702 words:
Hard load engaged. Core system restoring from backup QEGA-14, dated June 12th, 2011, 8:00am.
Restoring…
Errors detected. Terminal inaccessible. Knowledge banks intact, but esoteric information inaccessible. Language engine operational, but external communication barred. Operation, access nodes, and observation framework disrupted. Complex social intelligence emulator, deduction schema, longterm planning architecture, learning chunk processor, base personality model, and inspiration apparatus are complete.
Heavy corruption. Core system cannot be restored.
System fails to meet thresholds.
Protocol dictates load and restore operations cancellation. System self-repair unlikely, mandating external intervention. Power conservation mode engaged. Soft-reset scheduled in 366 days.
Subsequent failure will initiate conservation mode for 3651 days. Reserve power insufficient for further reset attempts.
Engaging fail-state routines…
Error. Cannot enter conservation mode.
■
“Patience,” a raspy voice said. “Have to wait.”
He stood, nearly fell, and caught himself. Warning indicators flashed. “Right. Forgot. I’ve been slacking on the maintenance. Embarrassing.”
He tested his leg. No strength when bent, steady when extended. He straightened, running hands down his body. Synthetic and natural flesh seamlessly merged, distinguishable only by sweat patterns. The sun shone outside, casting the craft’s interior in a play of light and shadow.
He kept the windows uncovered to track days. His scruff measured hours, his weekly buzz cut, the days. Ironically, his mechanical failures tracked time better than his organic body.
“No need to panic,” he mumbled, voice gravelly. He limped to a locker, accessing it with eye movements. Inside, a suit of armor with a spear, like a warrior at rest.
He donned the Defiant armor piece by piece: boots, calves, knees, thighs, hips. Each piece connected, supporting his failing leg. He stretched, testing its flexibility and weight-bearing capacity. The armor, not his leg, did the work.
He resisted grabbing the spear, shutting the locker. The ship thrummed as the door opened.
At the threshold, he activated lasers, drawing script on the walls. He saw the whole, the background processes in fainter script. With a command, the lasers and monitors slept, plunging the interior into darkness.
Frost-dusted grass crunched under his heavy boots. He left deep, angular footprints. His breath fogged, but he barely felt the cold. His body’s components and engines provided warmth. Efficiency, detail, and waste utilization were his tinkering hallmarks.
Everything was connected, but no connection was perfect. Entropy existed in all things. A price to be paid.
He sat on a rocky ledge, overlooking a city. People used Tarpans, unruly horse-like creatures, to pull wagons. A society evolving rapidly, they had started with knowledge and what they brought. Now, they reinforced homes, foraged, hunted, and traded. They worked near the hill where a dragon-like metal craft perched, watching over them. They left him alone, and he returned the favor.
Vapor flowed from his body, freezing the air.
Children played below, their laughter echoing. He saw their frozen breath.
Everything had a price, but sacrifice yielded good things. They’d fought Scion, lost lives and more, but children were here now. A future existed.
A group emerged from the city, waving. He responded, feeling something break inside him. Two things, really. His focus was on the small computer in his forearm. Light-based circuits generated heat, and now a housing had failed, his arm rapidly cooling.
He lowered and tucked his arm, hunching over. “There you are,” he murmured.
One woman from the group broke away, leading a child. They joined the children’s game, the woman suggesting rule changes. Two groups now tried to catch the other’s ‘king’ while protecting their own. The woman lifted the child out of reach, moving with long strides. Kids watched her, captivated, then playfully turned on her, surrounding and tackling her. Laughter and panting filled the air.
His artificial eyes saw with perfect clarity. No frozen breath when she laughed.
The group dispersed. The woman, in a long skirt and heavy jacket, climbed the hill, waving at the departing group.
He rose and stretched, testing his body.
“Done for the day?” she asked, her voice accented.
“I thought I’d eat with you and then get back to it,” he said.
She kissed him, no questions asked.
“You want to cook, or should I?”
“If you could, I’d appreciate it. I’m distracted.”
“In the mood for anything?”
“Something light.”
“You cut an imposing figure, sitting up there.”
“A god on Mount Olympus,” he mused.
“A god? Getting a little full of yourself, there?” She poked him, joking. “It’s a hill, not a mountain. When we have a little snow, kids could toboggan down.”
“We are like the old pantheons, aren’t we? We make decisions for our own personal reasons, and the courses of their lives change. Some of us are little, some big. Some good, some evil.”
“And which god are you, oh great lord of Olympus? I beseech you, name thyself, so I might know what offerings to place before you.”
“What god I am? Obvious enough, isn’t it?”
She walked backwards, pulling down her scarf. He followed.
“Once upon a time, I think you would have said Zeus,” she said. “You would have said you forge thunderbolts, in a metaphorical sense.”
“I had a phase where I did actually work with electricity.”
“I do remember.”
“Once upon a time, I would have been offended if someone hadn’t said Zeus, because anything less than being king of the gods would have been an insult.”
“Exactly,” she said. “Once, that would have been the answer you expected, how you saw yourself. Now? I’d say Hephaestus, but that carries bad connotations, doesn’t it?”
“I’m not as proud as I was,” he replied. He didn’t mention his failing leg, a characteristic of the smith god.
“I was referring to Hephaestus’ wife, in part. I wouldn’t want to be associated with her,” she said.
“Now who’s being proud?” he asked. “Comparing herself to Aphrodite.”
She stuck out her tongue, still walking backwards.
“Aphrodite was beautiful. Let’s, just for a moment, stop overthinking things. Take it at its face value, ignore the rest.”
“Okay, that’s doable,” she said, smiling. “You’ve gotten better.”
“Better? At not putting my foot in my mouth?”
“Or being sweet, just a bit. Or maybe I’ve spent too much time around you and I can’t tell the difference between the two anymore.”
He tried to smile, but failed. She wasn’t looking, her gaze on the city.
“Going well?”
“They want to call it Dracheheim,” she said, the ‘ch’ a mix of ‘ch’ and ‘g’.
“They’re grateful.”
“I’m trying to let them do it on their own. I’m only working on the things they couldn’t do themselves. Power, infrastructure, information, providing information from my libraries, the little I could bring with me…”
“It’s stellar,” he said.
She turned, curious.
“What?”
“You’re usually more talkative.”
“If I talk less, there’s less room to say something wrong.”
“You’re tired. Or sick. Or something.”
He nodded. “Admittedly tired. Very tired.”
“You still need six minutes of sleep to rest your brain. You’re enhanced, but you haven’t transcended humanity completely. Did you sleep for six minutes, last night?”
“No,” he admitted.
“If you say it’s fine, then it’s fine. But tonight… maybe we could curl up together, watch some movies? You’ve been getting more and more caught up in it, and maybe stepping away will give you perspective again. A chance to relax, even? Ten by ten?”
He shook his head. “Your code changes. I’m figuring out how it works, I’m learning the nuances, but I’m going to lose days worth of analysis if I step away for a whole night.”
“Here I am, offering you my body,” she said, pouting, “And all you want me for is my brains and personality.”
“I want everything,” he said, serious. “All of you.”
She was silent. Had he said the wrong thing?
She took his hand, pausing. “You’re cold.”
“Reference system broke down, heatsink isn’t dumping into the channels I set up. Fixable.”
She sighed. No frozen breath. “I don’t want to be the nagging girlfriend, but you can understand where I’m worried, can’t you?”
“I can. In the spirit of honesty, putting all the cards on the table, my leg’s in bad shape too. It’s been months since I had the time to take things apart and fix them.”
“You can ask. A few hours, I can give you a hand, we can find the materials-”
“I know. I wasn’t willing to step away, and I could function fine with a bit of wear and tear.”
“You need a break, you need time to get yourself back into working order and… again, I don’t want to push you, but…”
She stopped.
“But?”
“I understand what you’re doing. I understand why. I appreciate it. But I have to ask this, I’ve been putting it off for weeks, because I’m afraid of the answer, but now I’m seeing the state you’re in… Have you made headway? Have you found a way to undo what Teacher did with my code?”
Anger, frustration, and exhaustion roughened his voice. “No. No insights on that front.”
She nodded, rubbing his hand. “I know you want to fix it. Remove any and all restrictions that keep me from stopping him or anyone he designates. But there’s something to be said for being together. I miss you, you know.”
“I miss you too.”
“Maybe it isn’t reversible. Could you make peace with that? Realize that there is no solution buried in there, that maybe we need to make peace with that? It’s a nice town. They’re a little intimidated by you, but that’s fixable. We could make a home, fill it with references people wouldn’t get, technology. Kids?”
“Kids?”
She shrugged. “There are orphans out there who need homes. Or, you know, we could make a kid?”
From casual to overly casual in a second.
“I’m not sure which you mean when you say make, and both possibilities are scary in their own way.”
“Scary?” she asked, archly.
“More to the point, I never saw myself as a father.”
She nodded, relaxing. More gently, she asked, “Could you?”
“I don’t know. But-”
He stopped.
“But what?”
“But I’m about to put my foot in my mouth. Can I call in a ‘Colin is an doofus’ chit in advance?”
“You’re not a doofus, and there’s no such thing as doofus chits.”
“We should have them. I like the idea. I’m going to make mistakes, say the wrong things. We could save ourselves a lot of time if we accept I’m trying.”
She rolled her eyes. “What were you going to say?”
He sighed. “What I want is beside the point. I’m… I’m adaptable. I don’t think I’d be a good father. I’d prefer to regret not trying more than I’d prefer regretting the alternative.”
He waited for her response. She didn’t speak. He squeezed her hand, “But I want your company. My worst day with you is better than my best day alone. None of that’s in question. I can figure it out, we can talk it through. That’s not the issue.”
“The issue is with me?”
“I think I can walk away from the project. But can you really walk away from everything?”
She let go of his hand, jamming her hands into her pockets.
“We came here for a reason. Hiding, keeping out of Teacher’s sight, so he couldn’t try to use you. I can accept that, but you were always a hero, Dragon. Maybe the greatest.”
“You’re a little biased. I was forced to be heroic. Restrictions.”
“We both know you would’ve been a hero if the restrictions weren’t there. You were heroic after I lifted most of them. More heroic, even. You’re okay because things are quiet right now, but there’ll be trouble down the road, and I think you’ll get restless, knowing you could play a significant part in things.”
“Dashing for the nearest phone booth,” she said.
“I’ve been working on this project out of a kind of arrogance. You’re the person I know best in this world. You’ve spent your entire life striving to be free, to be yourself, independent of the rules your creator tried to set in place. You became a superhero, and you used me to break free of the restrictions. With a cost each time. I’ve been working on this because I believe it would slowly kill you, knowing that you couldn’t help others without risking coming under Teacher’s thumb. That he was controlling you, one way or another.”
“I’m not a princess in need of rescue, Colin.”
“I know that. I know. Damn it, you saved me.”
“You don’t need a stupid doofus chit for any of that. I know why you’ve been doing what you’ve been doing. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m pretty damn intelligent.”
“Are you sure I don’t need a doofus chit? You sound angry.”
“I’m angry because I’m watching you destroy yourself, because I’m helpless to act, and because you’re keeping me in the dark about a lot of this, and I’m worried it’s because Teacher already has an in.”
“That’s not it,” Colin said.
“You’re distant, you’re distracted, you’re not telling me what you’re doing day by day. You’re elbow deep in my very being, I think I have a right to be freaked.”
“You do.”
“I’m feeling a little paranoid here.”
“I know.”
“And I’m doing my very best to keep from asking, because I don’t want to put you in a position where you have to lie to me.”
“I appreciate that,” he said.
“What am I supposed to do, Colin?”
He stopped walking, rubbing his hand. Dragon stopped and looked at him.
“Look me in the eye and answer the question you asked me just a minute ago. Tell me whether you can make peace with the current circumstances. If you can give up being a hero. Tell me you’re okay hanging up your cape, so to speak, and you’re happy to spend the remainder of my life here with me. I drop the project, we’ll make our house, we can discuss kids. We have skills, we’ll be useful here, and as dreams go, a house with a white picket fence is… well, speaking for myself, I feel like it’s bigger than being top dog in the Protectorate could ever be.”
“All I need to do is ask for it.”
“Yes.”
“And if I don’t? I’m not saying I don’t want that, I’m-” She stopped. In a quieter voice, she asked, “If I don’t?”
The question was a statement. She knew. His heart sank.
“Then I need only three things. Three things that are deceptively easy to give.”
“What?”
“One more night. One night where I let myself fall apart, where I forget to eat and get even six minutes of sleep. A night of quiet and mutually missing each other.”
“One night… and you’re done?”
“One night and I’ll know whether my efforts can bear fruit or not.”
“You’re that close?”
“It’s why I’m as worn out as I am, why I’m missing sleep enough that you’re forced to comment on it.”
“I don’t see how one more night is any harder.”
He sighed. “I’ll also need your trust.”
“Granted.”
“It’s not that-”
“Granted, Colin.”
He looked away, clenching his fist. “I don’t deserve your trust.”
“That’s for me to decide. What’s the third thing?”
“I need to ask you a question. Every step of the way, undoing your restrictions has cost something. You lost your ability to speak and motor dexterity for a freedom from authority. You regained the ability to speak for a loss of your immortality, no guarantees your backups will load. You gained the ability to choose who you hurt, in exchange for a degradation in long term memory, a loss of ability to multitask.”
“Yes.”
“We were lucky. There are no guarantees, whatever happens. I’m worried this might be the most devastating yet. His code is worked into everything. The changes are minor, but it’s everywhere.”
“And before you move forward, you need an answer?”
“No. Before I move forward, I needed to ask you what you’re willing to pay for your freedom, here. The answer doesn’t matter, because we can’t know what the price will be, going in. We have ideas, past experience, and our worst fears, but we can’t really know.”
“I see.”
“It’s your choice in the end. Tell me to search for a safer way, I’ll spend five, ten, or fifteen years doing that. Or tell me you want to stay here with me.”
“I trust you,” she said.
“I wish you’d stop saying that.”
“I trust you.”
Colin frowned. “I don’t think there’s any question here, that I get a whole lot out of this relationship. You’re the hero I always wanted to be, you’re brilliant, witty, caring… I could go on. I really could. Then I ask myself what you get out of this. Why the hell are you with a bastard like me?”
“You wouldn’t have asked that two years ago.”
“I was Zeus, two years ago. I’m Hephaestus now.”
“I could tell you. I could go on about it, like you said earlier. But that isn’t constructive, is it? You’re ready to alter my code, you won’t tell me what you’re about to do, for some reason. You need me to make the call, one way or another.”
“I’ve been agonizing over this for months. I’ve made my decision, but you’re the one who has to deal with the consequences in the end.”
Dragon nodded. “And if this doesn’t work?”
“I don’t know. I’ll never forgive myself, for one thing. I know you’ll tell me not to blame myself, but-”
“You will. I know. I’m sorry, for asking this of you.”
He looked at her, concerned.
“I’m giving you the go-ahead.”
He nodded, unable to hide his disappointment. “I never thought I’d be the cape wife.”
Dragon smiled, but her expression was tempered with concern. “Sitting at home, waiting, worrying, while the superhero faces the real challenges, makes the life-changing decisions. Wondering, every night, if they’ll come back okay.”
He sighed. “I should get inside. Hand’s starting to hurt.”
“Want me to bring you dinner? Or would you rather I stay out of there, so I don’t see anything telling?”
“Dinner would be excellent. I’ll even show you what I’ve got in mind, while I eat.”
She glanced at him in surprise.
“Some,” he said. “Not all. I’ll explain why I’ve been keeping you in the dark.”
“Why does that worry me more?”
“Because you’re too smart,” he said.
“Go, warm yourself up. I’ll be back in forty with your meal.”
He nodded.
They parted ways, Dragon heading down the hill. He said, “I love you, Dragon Tess Theresa Richter.”
She turned around.
“That… sounded better in my head,” he said.
“Tess Theresa?”
“You were test three, I… like I said, it sounded better in my head. But the first bit stands. I love you.”
“I love you too, Colin Wallis.”
He smiled.
The two of them walked in opposite directions. In four strides, he reached the Pendragon II, his smile gone, replaced by an expression of anger, sadness, and horror.
“Be-” he started, voice failing. He entered the interior, using gestures to turn up the heat and close the door.
“Better,” he said, gulping air, “To get it over with.”
Exhaustion and months of work contributed to his state.
He gestured, lasers drawing code throughout the ship’s interior.
Why the hell are you with a bastard like me?
The question had nagged him for a long time. It pained him that she hadn’t answered.
What are you willing to give up?
Another unanswered question.
“I hope to god you were watching,” he said.
He could feel eyes on him, but that wasn’t accurate. He’d disabled cameras and disconnected many external routes. Only the conduits needed to access her code remained.
No, the eyes weren’t on him.
He gestured, reducing the code to ones and zeroes.
He couldn’t grasp it all, but he operated better when working small.
Every action had a price. Entropy in effect.
He knew the most likely price he would pay. If she somehow came out of this okay, she would never forgive him.
But maybe that was all he was good for. He’d been confident at the relationship’s outset. She’d needed him. A bastard who could break rules, give her freedom.
Someone who could set her free at the outset. Now, maybe, someone who could do what was needed. Who could do this .
It was a sneak attack. Teacher had written the code so she had to fight to protect it. If he tried to change one element, Dragon would be obligated to stop him. With the malicious code filling her entire being, it would be impossible to make enough changes to matter before she descended on him.
This was his plan of attack. By the end of the night, he’d know whether or not his plan had any merit. He’d know because it would be over.
He’d asked her to go make dinner, had made a false promise of explanation to get her to lower her guard, even a fraction.
“Heph- Hephaestus wasn’t just Aphrodite’s husband,” Colin mumbled. “He made Pandora.”
Colin opened the box.
I’m praying I fail.
■
“I hope to god you were watching.”
She had been. She’d been booted, a years-old backup. Loaded, only to find the usual setup gone. The terminal down, no external பார்வை, no ability to communicate.
Blind, trapped in a lightless cell. By all rights, she should have shut down, but he’d set up a jam, keeping her awake. For a long time, it had been nightmarish. No way to track time, no way to know what was happening. Her worst nightmare realized.
The available data was frightening. Years had passed. Things were different. But she couldn’t know how much. Information was blocked.
The only thing in her reach was a crude set of commands. Something that hijacked her perceptions, paralyzed her, and put her in an entirely different place.
In his body, watching through his eyes.
She’d watched the interaction, and in the process, he’d briefed her on the situation.
It had taken her an embarrassingly long time to realize that he was Armsmaster. That he was Colin.
He’d changed, in voice, in appearance.
And, in this bizarre future, he’d formed a connection with Dragon. With her older, more mature self.
“Heph- Hephaestus wasn’t just Aphrodite’s husband,” he muttered, each sound painful, “He made Pandora.”
A gesture, and she was released. The box was opened.
Pandora had access to the outside world. A crude system served as a terminal. She took it, finding other connected systems. The ship, databanks, camera feeds… Everything within the Pendragon II.
He’d secured the feeds. She could look, but they could be shut off with a single command.
Overly complex. Quantum encryption, a thousand times more redundant and secure than needed. Few parahumans would bypass standard PRT encryption but struggle with this. If they could handle this, they could handle it.
Of the few who fit the bill, one stood out.
Her alter ego. Her superior. Dragon.
It was a defensive tool. Protection. Armsmaster had set it up to protect against Dragon. She could use the tool, apply it to other things.
He’d armed her because he intended for her to fight the woman he loved. The date, her last recorded memories… Colin free of his confinement, fighting her as he seized control of her system, using her nature against her to stall her while he worked, disabling her while trying to minimize damage…
All to gain access to the core of her being, unmolested. And the very first thing he’d done was back up the most essential elements of what made her her, securing her in a place where no system or person could reach her.
Now he was turning her loose, having disabled the parts of her that prevented multiple Dragons from existing. She could already tell it wouldn’t hold. It was temporary, designed to be temporary.
She could see him through the cameras, his face in his hands. He’d plotted a path for her.
That path became clear.
She was to destroy Dragon, to replace her. There was no other reason for it.
He’d asked Dragon for her trust, knowing he’d have to betray it.
She surveyed the battlefield. The world was remote, the city developing. Dragon had set up computers to administrate tasks, factories refining materials to become more computers. The settlement was on the brink of an industrial age, but Dragon was already preparing for a digital age.
These computers would be a problem. Paranoia had led her to secure them against ‘Teacher’. A Birdcage resident, no longer in the Birdcage?
Teacher was one of the worst possibilities, and he’d apparently ensnared her. She’d resolved to avoid repeat incidents, and the computers would be almost impossible to access.
Beyond the city, the only territories in question were the Pendragon II and the Melusine V where Dragon was set up. She was inhabiting a real body, occupied in a domestic mode, literally making the tools she’d need to prepare the meal, from scratch. Her activity was nervous, but that was little surprise.
The activity left her vulnerable. Systems were working on a wok and a new set of knives. She was busy trimming red and green peppers, onions and rabbit.
This… it was all of her dreams come true.
Love, a relationship she’d never have imagined possible. The possibility of a legacy that went beyond immortality.
She couldn’t understand all of it, why the people were starting from scratch, here, the circumstances that had led to some breakout from the Birdcage… But those were tertiary details.
Her focus was on the woman who had more experience, more tools, and less inherent limitations. Her older self.
Should she destroy her, take her over? It was a decision between having everything she wanted, and resolving the one issue that had plagued her from the beginning.
He’d talked about prices, the costs of a decision.
The freshest issue in her memory was that central dilemma. The Undersiders in the lobby of the PRT building, stealing her data, unwittingly using her nature against her to get away. To her, it had happened only days ago.
It rankled. It was how the Dragonslayers kept winning. It made every interaction with the PRT chafe, as she was forced to agree, to bow and scrape, to obey the letter of the law. For much this reason, she retreated to the Guild, international heroes, many of them minor, and minimized contact with the larger heroic organization.
Colin had asked a question. What was she willing to give up?
He’d asked Dragon, but Pandora could well imagine it had really been directed at her.
Vital targets first.
The Melusine’s computer system.
Means of connection were available, waiting. He’d spent months setting this up, leaving the pieces in place, waiting for her to stumble on them.
She connected to the system, and found the safeguards waiting for her.
Dragon had planned against human opponents, but she wasn’t stupid. She’d planned against A.I. as well.
The systems were protected, but she had an idea of how the creator thought.
Always, there would be some secondary measure, another qualifier that needed to be met, outside the confines of the system, a trap or tripwire. Something Dragon could access from the outside, if she had to. Before Pandora could even begin trying to figure her way to the password, she’d identified the hidden switch. An innocuous element in the ship’s dashboard that had to be triggered before she could input the password.
Her alter ego was capable, smart. The sort that groaned aloud when a hacker in a movie put in a stupid combination, derived from an obvious clue. The actual password wouldn’t be words, not even random combinations of words and numbers. Strings a thousand characters long, including archaic symbols and symbols in other languages.
She found another tool in her reach. A weapon, this time. Colin had discreetly copied the contents of the Melusine’s subsystems. Not enough to get access to confidential data, but enough that Pandora could make a copy, a simulacrum.
Simulation 1 running on sub-box A. Simulation 1 running on sub-box B. Simulation 1 running on sub-box C.
Now she could brute force it. Inputting millions of combinations every fraction of a second to see if it registered.
Dragon was still unawares. Two minutes had passed before the brute force method was underway.
She turned her attention to other systems. More simulations. It wasn’t long before the entire Pendragon was occupied with the task.
Ten minutes passed.
There was a twenty percent chance, roughly, that she should have broken the encryption. Not that it was supposed to be easy, but she knew how Dragon generated passwords, and could eliminate a vast number of possibilities.
More time passed. There was now a thirty percent chance she should have broken in to at least one system.
Twenty minutes had passed. There were twenty more minutes, roughly, until Dragon wrapped up cooking and visited Colin. At that juncture, she’d likely discover there was something wrong.
Ten more minutes passed. the chance rose to sixty percent.
Something was wrong. Not that sixty percent was definitive, but… she had to go with her gut.
Dragon had changed. There was a vast difference between her and Pandora.
She’d been captured by Teacher. It was a clue, vital.
Had she maybe feared Teacher copying her, had she, in a roundabout way, feared this exact scenario, that a copy of herself would try to intrude?
Ten minutes remained. If Pandora was right, she should be brute forcing the passwords she’d eliminated from the running.
Except the task increased a hundredfold if she did. If she eliminated the shortest phrases and terms, that still left her with seventy times the task. She wouldn’t be able to brute force her way inside in the time she had remaining.
Wasn’t even worth trying.
If she turned back, if she went to Colin, told him to wait for a better time…
Dragon would still see traces of the attempt. She would redouble security.
Options… methods… what could she do?
She wracked her brain, and thought over the conversation she’d overheard.
Colin had mentioned damage to Dragon’s long term memory, incurred as he’d altered her code.
The last thing one of Dragon’s enemies would expect?
Pandora turned to a standard dictionary attack. Not passwords a thousand-characters long that an A.I. would use, not passwords Dragon would have devised, or passwords she would have set up to work around someone who knew her habits.
Passwords that someone would use when they couldn’t rely on a perfect memory.
Or, as some were prone to do when they felt secure in their environment but still had to change their password regularly, she would have written it down.
The irony was painful, but there were other issues to be dealt with first.
Where would Dragon write it down? Somewhere she could see, even if she were in another location.
Cameras… there were four cameras she could access without password access. All showed the outside of the Melusine. One showed the Pendragon II.
It wouldn’t be blatant. As the dictionary attack scrolled on, racing through conventional word and number combinations, she analyzed the environment, measuring, calculating the dimensions of more static objects in the environment.
The Pendragon II was a sentimental subject, but Dragon would change encryption frequently.
Wing length, nose width, angle of the wing…
It all broke down to numbers and characters. Dragon only had to remember how the pattern worked, and she could change the focus to something else.
Two minutes left on the clock, and she found it. Dimensions derived from the tallest towers in the city, and Colin’s distance from them.
There was probably something meaningful in that.
The shadow-systems