Against The Clock

Posted on Wed Feb 16th, 2022 @ 10:02pm by Cadet Senior Grade Brady Macleod & Lieutenant Renee Salchin

Mission: Recovery
Location: Engineering

Brady stood at the Power Operations station, attempting to figure out where this distortion was coming from. And how it got to this point. Thankfully it was just the communications relays, but potentially if not caught, the loop could affect the entire ship. Even cause a core breach.

"Nothing." Brady said. "I don't get it. This loop isn't behaving like anything typical. It's like it knows what we're doing."

"We've checked the relays in person already..." Renee mused, pursing her lips in thought, even as she tapped a heeled foot on the ground in frustration, "The hardware is in good shape, so it's something in the system." She shifted her wait and the other foot started tapping the ground as she crossed her arms, "Knows what we're doing..." An eyebrow raised as she pondered that, then whispered, "Do you think there's a hostile AI in the system listening in on us?" She asked the cadet.

"I mean, I guess we shouldn't rule it out... But how would it have gotten aboard?" Brady asked.

"Getting it on board is easy." Renee waved that away, "Personal computer system, something reaaaaaally sophisticated would require more than just a small system, though, so we can wave that one away.. Which would mean that it probably isn't a full on artificial intelligence, but a reactive limited AI that has been tasked with a limited objective and the means to do it... Which also means it wouldn't be actually listening to us, but reacting to what we do, which means that..." She stuck her tongue out at the computer, "We have to predict what it's going to do to whatever we do."

"Right." Brady said. "So... if I wanted to create something that was predictive enough to be stopped... Where would we start?" the cadet asked.

"If I were going create an adaptive virus to target a specific system, but that I could stop when I didn't need it anymore.." Renee mused as her thoughts went into overdrive, "I'd have to be able to send it the activation or kill command from anywhere. The key for this isn't where to start creating it, but where it would be located. The internal sensors." She was definitive about it, "It has to be in the internal sensors, that's the only place it could react to anything we were doing. Call it eyes in the sensors with fingers in the comms and power systems." She smiled brightly, "Of course, getting rid of it could be a bit tricky."

"I'll run a trace through there... Go back an hour before this all took place. See if we can find anything." Brady replied. "How tricky are we talking for getting rid of it?"

"It depends on the sophistication of that AI. If it's just targeting a limited scope, I can wall it off and just replace it with an archived copy of the programming." Renee tapped her upper lip, "The fingers will go inactive once the AI is removed, then it'll just be a matter of cleaning everything up. But I want to know where it came from, who inserted it. Maybe if I can move it into a VR setting where it thinks it's still in control?"

"Let's try it." Brady said as he continued his trace. "The initial surge appears to have very gradually built up over the last few hours. But whoever started this wasn't that bright. That blowout could have taken out every system in the ship."

"Not one of us engineers, that's for sure." Renee agreed, watching over Brady's shoulder, "But note how it's staying away from weapons systems and engines." She leaned over him and pointed, "Oh sure, it would have done some peripheral damage to the phasers, maybe knocked them out... But if we felt it was done by some outside force, we'd just need to use an alternative means for attacking them."

"So it's trying to keep us paralyzed enough to fight." Brady replied. "I'll start constructing the VR system to trap it... How do we trick it in there though?" he inquired

Renee slid into a chair at the station next to Brady and brought up her own screen, "Oh, you leave that up to me..." She smiled very brightly, "Only the best of bait for something like this. We're going to bring in an entirely new system, one that has more capability but less security. After all, we're panicking about the power surges, right? If we align a new processor with the base programming to bypass the sector that the AI is residing in, it's going to want to corrupt it to maintain the status quo. As it invades, it sees that the processing programming is more efficient and move it's core program to it, then slam the door."

"Works for me." Brady said. "I'll start creating the frame for it and we'll go from there. I just hope we purge it before it does any further damage." he added.

"Lin to Engineering. We have a.... weird situation. Is there an issue with the power relay or the holoemitters? We're under siege in the arboretum by.... If I tell you you'll never believe it. Holographic squirrels that are a little protective of their stash." came a response over the comm system.

Brady blinked... Holographic Squirrels on the fritz? Really? "Doctor, we're a little uhhh.... preoccupied at the moment but there have been some issues. I suppose you haven't considered a holographic acorn or something?"

"We're having problems with..." Renee trailed off as she was thinking about how the problem they were working on could affect holoemitters in the arboretum, but that wasn't all that difficult, especially if they were, "Protecting something?" She asked, "What are they protecting?" This was a demand, rather than a question, "Never mind that, if I told you what was going on, you'd never believe it." Renee echoed the doctor's words, "But I think if we solve our problem, it'll solve yours. We'll get right on it."

She brought up the subdirectory that had been created for the arboretum's holoemitters and slammed preprogrammed firewalls around it, altering bits of the code so that whatever was there would have to adapt itself to get past them, but it would take it some time, "Brady, I'm hoping that this is what I think it is, but the question is, how do we kill it without it hurting our friends?" It was a teaching moment, officers were SUPPOSED to teach cadets.

"Do you think the loop fed into the holoemitters?" Brady asked. "Because if it did, we should shut down the holoemitter. But... Might it be easier to trace the origin point through the emitters?"

"If we shut down the holoemitter, the cache will dump into memory and the AI will have a way out, maybe even have a way to back itself up." Renee shook her head, "But if we can trap it there, maybe..." An idea came into her head, "What if we can isolate that AI into one of the squirrel holograms itself? Then maybe just bashing it could solve all our problems."

"That idea sounds nutty enough to work." Brady said, catching himself after he said that. "God, did I just... Okay, well never mind. I'll start the process, but we'll need to clear the arboretum in case our furry friend decides to get more aggressive, won't we?"

"Nope!" Renee had snorted in laughter at his pun, but shook her head, "Filter out most of what the holoemitters are showing... But we need to do it slower, so it isn't obvious." She tapped her comm again, "Salchin to Lin... Did you ever go to a carnival and play the game 'Whack-a-Mole'?"

"I think we call it something different on Trill, but.... Yeah, kinda. Why?" Lin asked, now a bit confused

Renee perked up, even though Lin couldn't see him, "Well, you know those squirrels that are attacking you?" She paused for a moment before going on, "Well, we can't shut them and the holoemitters down, because then they would cache to the backup, but if you can squish those squirrels, one of them is the cause of this problem: An AI that's wreaking havoc with power systems."

"Lin to engineering. Begin your reboot. We're ready." she said.

"I've got everything filtered and I'm ready when you are." Brady said. "Luring it seems to be the easy part. Whoever set this up didn't make it THAT secure."

"No they didn't... Now, when they're down to just a couple squirrels, perhaps put in a chipmunk in a cage into the program. If it jumps to that, the cage will isolate the program and we can shut everything down around it as we slam the virtual doors on it." Renee leaned into the visual feed to the holodeck, "This should be fun to watch." She tapped the comm again, "Let the hunt begin!"

Brady waited as he watched the crew randomly going about the squirrel hunt. "Deploying the Chipmunk now..." he said as he waited for the crew to figure it out. "It's taking the bait."

Renee watched the scene in a completely different mode than Brady had been. It was the code she was watching as each of the squirrels was eliminated from the environment, causing the removal of that bit of code within the programming. All the while, she was watching their digital trap as the AI they were watching hopped from one to another. Why was it prioritizing the critters? That was curious behavior, was it trying to escape the program physically in one? Or... Then there it was, the chipmunk in the cage, but the cage wasn't just a physical aspect of the program and her fingers flew in the brief execution command and the entire cage flashed red, then blue as the hostile program was isolated electronically from the rest of the program. "Gotcha!" She called out, once again working and setting up additional firewalls and other safeguards around the affected bit of code.

She only paused for a few seconds before bursting into motion, grabbing a device she'd been fiddling with while they were waiting for the hunting of the squirrels, "Wait here, I'm going down to the arboretum to get that thing so it doesn't do any more damage to the ship." And she was gone in a swirl of skirt, heels clicking as she left the room.

It was only a couple minutes later that her voice came back over the comm, "Brady, do a full shutdown on this holodeck and run a diagnostic, I’ve got our friend in hand."

"Disengaging holoemitters." Brady replied. "And... there we go! I'll let them know it'll be offline for a bit. Let me know when we can try bringing sensors back online."

By then, she was already off the comm, but another handful of minutes passed before she returned, a cage in hand with a chipmunk in it and she handled it carefully, "Go ahead and bring the sensors up, I don't think there will be a problem with them, but start with navigational, then short range, then long range."

"On it. Navigational are coming back up... And it's a go. Proceeding with short range now." he added, his fingers dancing over the panel as he input the commands. "Short range is once again active... Stand by for long range." He added. He was still curious where or how this made it onto the ship but that would be the next investigation. "We have long range sensors." He breathed a sigh of relief as he notified the bridge.