Initiative

Date/Timing: 5 December 2011
Setting: Hermann & Edan's flat; Battersea, London, England, United Kingdom
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Edan's slippered footsteps stop at the office door as Hermann tries to find the words to properly skewer Dixon's complete misunderstanding of intelligent agents like PAIGE.
""Hermann?""
He grunts.
""Was I drunk last night?""
"You were vertical and coherent before noon, so, no, you weren't." Stabs a sentence into the keyboard.
""Did you do anything with my laptop?""
Hermann spins his desk chair, faces him, eyebrow up. "No. Why do you ask?"
"Because there's a copy of that gravity archive I was telling you about—Coen's—on there and I don't know why.""
"You've wanted that for a while. What's the problem?"
"I didn't download it? And Coen /definitely didn't give me permission to download it?"
"That's ... odd. You're sure it's Coen's data and that he didn't change his mind?"
Edan scoffs. "Dr David Coen /never changes his mind 'coz he's always right in the first place and his name is literally all over this."
"Bring it here and I'll see if I can figure out what's going on from the logs."
Edan hustles off and's back a moment later cradling the device.
Hermann takes it, turns back to the desk, heads to the command line, pokes around. Frowns.
"So?"
"Everything here's in order. No one's broken into this machine."
"Is it haunted or something?"
"'Or something'."
"What kind of 'something' do you suspect?"
"No idea yet." Pokes a bit deeper. "It looks like you woke up your laptop with your mobile remote desktop app."
"Oh, I do that all the time."
"At four in the morning?"
"Yeaaaaaaa ... not my m.o."
Hermann chews his lip. "Then someone used your laptop to log on to a secure server using ... Coen's password?"
"Did /Coen break into my machine?"
"I've already said no one broke in. Bring me your mobile."
Edan's gone and back in a flash.
Hermann taps and swipes through menus and settings. "No one compromised this either."
"Which means?"
"Which means whoever downloaded the archive had physical access to this phone at four this morning."
"Which would be you, me, and Dottie."
"This doesn't make /any sense," mutters Hermann.
Edan shifts his feet.
Hermann drums his fingers on the desktop.
"/PAIGE! PAIGE can use the mobile to start the laptop!"
"But why—" Whirls. "What did you do to her?!"
Edan jazz-hands. "I didn't—" Shuts his mouth with a snap. "Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck."
"Reid." Hermann steels himself. "What. Happened."
"I've, uh, been spending my commutes trying to teach her how to, um, anticipate my needs? Sorta expand on your gift selection algorithm?"
Hermann's heart flutters.
"She must've read all my texts whining about Coen and how I needed his archive for my research—" Blinks rapidly, eyes wide and shiny. "—and decided to 'help'."
"But how did she get Coen's password? Phishing? Hacking his email? Brute force? Some sort of al—"
"Not the point!"
"I need to doc—"
"Hermann! It looks like I've broken into my doctoral advisor's computer and stolen research data!"
Hermann blinks. "But you haven't."
"You think that /matters?!" Edan squeals. "What'm I supposed to say? 'The copy of Professor Gottlieb's baby AI that lives in my mobile, of her own volition, logged in as you and downloaded the data you /expressly forbade me to touch to my laptop because she wanted to be helpful'?"
"It's the truth?" Hermann shrugs.
Edan folds to the floor, hugs his knees to his chest, hides his face, wails, ""I'm getting kicked out of the program!""
"I'm sure we can figure something out."
Edan emits a high-pitched, hopeless whine.
Hermann picks up his own mobile. "I'll call Dr Coen and explain my experimental AI broke containment and compromised his machine after finding his contact in your address book."
""How're you gonna explain why she only took the gravity data?""
"She was pulling files at random and I stopped her before she could misappropriate anything further."
""That /might work.""
"Of course, it'll work. If my daughter can hack a server, I can certainly hack a fellow professor."
""I sure hope so.""
"Trust me, /leannan."
""I do,"" sighs Edan.
Category:Ficlet
Category:London (setting)
Category:Hermann
Category:Hermann's POV
Category:Hermann (ficlet)
Category:Hermann is a professor
Category:Hermann is a programmer
Category:PAIGE (mention)
Category:Edan
Category:Edan (ficlet)
Category:Peridot (mention)
Category:Ficlets with images
Category:Celestial Mechanics
2011 12 05