Adams/Smith

A gay orange cat(?) commanding the E11 space station in the S.S.D.F. timeline. In the current day, he goes by the alias "Smith." Was a Black Ops CORE marine.

Adams's assignment to E11 was from a past attempt to take over the CORE. Currently assisting Cook, under duress. Has reservations about having Michael on the team.

## Days of Future Past

### E11

Onboard E11, Adams summons Tessa to his office. Tessa wants to know what Tin-Head has done now, and Adams assures her it isn't anything he's done YET, but the Maytec contractors coming to the station are concerned about Tin-Head's presence as well as the fact his programming is more or less intact. Tessa protests that shutting him down completely as they have requested would reset him to his factory settings, which would lose a valuable informant and gain a violent machine. Adams agrees to seeing if the head office will compromise on Tin-Head's body being shut down while maintaining power to his neural-net.

When the Anarchists strike the Maytec defences and send an ultimatum, Adams cannot believe the report to the point of calling it a hoax. He takes Cook along to investigate the claim that Norman Gates is hailing them, only to have Cook "gape like a goldfish" at Gates's responses. Angered, Adams demands answers from Cook, going so far as to pull a gun on Cook when he doesn't hear what he wants to hear, incredulous when Cook claims to have built a time machine. He also fails to understand why Maytec chose E11 for their experiment, to which Cook responds, "This is the only station no one will give a shit about if we accidentally blow it up!" Adams is still skeptical at both parties but nevertheless puts the station on red alert.

Adams then asks Cook if he thinks it was actually Gates, and Cook responds that the more likely answer is that was a Gates clone. They are startled when suddenly the station shakes from explosive decompression from the mess hall, targeting the large number of crew who had assembled there. Gates then hails Adams again to gloat about capturing the mess hall forces and to demand control of the Wildfire. As proof of the crew's capture, Gates brings Axon over to the video feed. Adams is forced to admit the idiot on the feed is really Axon, and therefore "All that time machine shit is true!" However, before he can do anything, Cook tases Adams and runs off to try to flee with the Wildfire.

### The Wildfire

Cook encounters an Inlay while trying to reach the Wildfire. Luckily, Tessa takes out the Inlay only to be cornered by Gates. When she's about to be shot, Adams neutralises Gates and assures Tessa the blood in her eyes isn't hers. Actually viewing the body, Adams is still skeptical it is actually Gates he shot, but he recognises that if Gates's crew thinks it's really him, then it would have been better to keep him alive as a hostage.

Given the likely reaction to Gates's assassination, Cook recommends escaping on the Wildfire. Aboard, Adams asks Cook about time paradoxes but only gets a list of possibilities in response. Unfortunately, the Oracle foresees their escape and decides to risk a time paradox by locking the Wildfire's docking mechanism and drastically altering their escape trajectory. Their only chance is to use the time machine.

## Time-travelling Future (current day)

Adams travels to the present day with Cook, Tessa, Sticks, and Tin-Head on the Wildfire. They are trapped in the "past" as the Wildfire had never been designed for atmospheric travel. Adams changes his name to Smith for their tenure in the current day.

### Wire-tapping

Smith is the first "important" person to arrive to the meeting for Tin-Head's wire-tapping recording. (Michael arrives first, at Cook's instruction.) After hearing the playback, Smith is distressed about how "Christopher" discovered their bug in Richard's home, and how familiar he sounds, but he doesn't believe it is a true A.I. behind the operations. The meeting concludes with Smith complaining they are jumping to conclusions based on one singular recording on the bug that they no longer have in place, to which Cook responds he has a contingency plan in place.

Smith trains with Tessa (backup link) and scolds her that her implants are making her overconfident, to which she counters that he is taking his ED out on her. Annoyed, he ends the session early as Cook wants to show them how Gates is being treated as a hero for his involvement in the grocery hold-up. When Tessa fails to understand the significance, Smith comments that the media portraying him as a good guy is bad for them.

At their next meeting, Michael begs Smith to tell him how their future starts so he can warn his family before it gets too bad, but Smith refuses exactly for that reason. Then when Tessa starts goading Cook and they devolve into arguing, Smith pulls out Mr. Gun to get them to shut up, which Cook dismisses as not threatening to anyone with an IQ higher than 12 (also Michael creates a massive drool puddle seeing future tech). Defeated, Smith points out slide 17, featuring Gary Heart, who is not remarkable to anyone else for various reasons, even after adding some lines. Cook finally concedes that Gary Heart resembles Jack Heart but fails to see the significance. Smith angrily points out that Jack Heart was evil AND smart AND had never lost a battle AND they are clearly related. Michael protests that even if they're directly related, it's across hundreds of years, so any significance is lost, to which Tessa remarks that it would be stupid to just ignore it.

### The Blotto Box

Michael informs Tessa that something is wrong with Tin-Head. Sticks is initially upset that she would give up their limited time together, but he joins her and gives a rough diagnostic of Tin-Head's status. Smith asks if Sticks can connect directly to Tin-Head to get a more detailed analysis, but Sticks explains that Anarchist and Maytec hardware are specifically designed not to be able to interact in that way (the "Steve Jobs" business model).

The others send Michael into Tin-Head's room to investigate, and he starts screaming because he stubs his toe. When he emerges again, Tessa asks him if he found anything, and Michael states that he only found a printout of an IP address, then asks if the "Old Man" means anything to them. Tin-Head immediately cowers behind Tessa, which Michael takes as a "yes," although he also feels like Tin-Head is overreacting. Tin-Head counters, "If I had the Devil's phone number, how eager would you be to ring it?" Michael then asks them to clarify for him who the Old Man and what is the Oracle. Sticks explains that they are the same, an old (relative to the time-travellers) A.I. used by the Anarchists to predict the future. Michael observes that's like the ECHELON plug-in that British Intelligence were building, which shocks the others into silence.

When the others complain that they could have used that information earlier, Michael counters that they never tell him anything for him to give any appropriate feedback. When pressed, he goes on to mention how he didn't get a solid look at the Oracle's code before the Inlay went berserk, which is when he asks if maybe the events were connected. The others quickly nod yes.

### A Few Regrets

Tessa asks Sticks to tell her what he would have her do if he was her owner. He admits he would have her stop working for Cook and Smith. Tessa complains at first that she doesn't "work" for Cook and Smith, but Sticks asks, "what do you call being told what to do by someone and getting paid for it?" He protests that the work is dangerous, but she retorts that they have to stop the Anarchists. Sticks questions this, pointing out that Cook Industries isn't actually doing anything to stop them. Also, what happens if they stop the Anarchists? Who will take over? It doesn't matter because they are effectively identical: "Same shit, different day!" Tessa argues that they need to stop Gates, and Sticks says just to kill him. Tessa retorts that someone else will just replace him, proving Sticks's point.

Sticks explains that someone will always get sucked into a power vacuum, and even if they mean well at first, that stops mattering once keeping power becomes top priority, which never ends well for the king-makers. Tessa asks what that has to do with her, and Sticks informs her that SHE is the king-maker here, that an ex-Maytec board member and a disgraced commander who once tried to take over the CORE wouldn't treat her as an equal. Tessa cops to not trusting Cook, but she vouches for Smith as a CORE marine... who was Black Ops... and had classified missions he doesn't talk about... anyway, she trusts him, but Sticks tells her to ask, "Who is the only man on this planet right now who has a realistic chance of killing you?"

Tessa realises that Sticks may be right about Smith, but if Smith wanted to kill her, he was doing a terrible job of it. Still, Sticks points out that believing what Smith is doing is the right thing isn't the same as actually doing the right thing.

### Honey

Cook and Smith call a meeting of the core group, as they have decided to activate "The Hive!" Tessa oohs before asking what that is. Annoyed, Smith asks if she reads anything they send her, and she says if it's important, they will tell her in person. Sticks explains that the Hive is a honeypot for the Oracle, and when Tessa doesn't understand that, he explains that they put in a fake exploit in their phones to get the Oracle to attack them. Cook and Smith are hoping to collect enough data from the Hive to piece together what the Oracle is doing.

Tessa asks if the exploit will damage their company's reputation, but while Smith agrees that it will, he insists that bad publicity on occasion is good, as being perfect is suspicious. When he denies it's about making money, Tessa gives Sticks a knowing look, and he glares back at her. Still, she worries that the Oracle will know it's a trap, which Tin-Head assures her will depend on when in the timeline the Inlay they encountered came from. Also, the Oracle is a glutton for resources, "like your mum in a cake shop!" but also comprised of many intelligences, some of which are "small, dumb and will bite anything that floats close to them! Again, just like your mum!"

Cook loses patience with the discussion, to which Tessa angrily non-apologises for not reading his reports, as she was (like Cook) too busy not getting them back to the future. Cook argues (AGAIN) that having every computer in the world processing for them, the calculations would still take years to determine. Smith loses patience with both of them, eager to end the meeting before the phone is too old and they need to release a new one. Tin-Head notes they have until at least the end of the week, then they can up the storage capacity and add a random letter on the name.

Without further ado, Cook activates the Hive. Smith proceeds with the rest of the meeting to discuss influencing Irish tax law, immediately ordering the others to sit back down.

### Sting

Tin-Head calls another meeting when "some idiot basement dweller" fell into the Hive trap and he thought he scared the idiot off so someone useful could fall in. Instead, the Hive got attacked from multiple sources, meaning in all likelihood the first attacker had an infected system... no prizes for guessing infected by what. The Oracle then broadcast the exploit to "almost every device with an Internet connection." Cook demands he stop being hyperbolic, and Tin-Head insists the "hard numbers" of 100% should be hard enough. Tin-Head speculates that the infection occurred in the manufacturing process.

Smith expresses his skepticism, but Tin-Head points out that there are only a few facilities where processors are made. Michael also expresses skepticism that no one has noticed that every machine runs malware, and Tin-Head insults him then explains that having full control over the process gives the ability for the malware to look legitimate. Finally, Sticks asks what the Oracle is doing with the compromised machines, and Tin-Head finally admits that he doesn't know, or rather, he knows the machines are all crunching a big number, but not why.

Cook then offers to help by asking what kind of number, but Tin-Head has only figured out that the puzzle is bigger than first expected, the good news being that the Oracle will take years to finish, giving them enough time to figure out what the Oracle is doing... unless the Oracle can get ahold of a quantum core. Cook asks if the number could be a vector. Tin-Head supposes it could be, but he's only certain that the number must be very important. Cook theorises that the number could be related to time-travel, but using the current day's primitive machines is baffling, as the time required for the calculations renders the information out of date. Smith supposes that access to a time-travel device would allow the Oracle to deliver a more powerful processor to itself.

Tin-Head patches the exploit to deactivate the Hive. Smith asks if he also informed the manufacturers of the Oracle's exploit, which Tin-Head notes they "aggressively" don't care and in fact threatened legal action if he told anyone about it. Smith realises that the manufacturers are intentionally putting the Oracle onto every possible device. Tin-Head asks if they should publicly release the information, but Smith notes, "That would cause chaos! So we better make sure it benefits us before we do that!"

### The U.S. Military's Inlay Project

During regular monitoring duty, Tin-Head comes across an Inlay Bishop's distress signal. He calls Michael ("Nerd Boy") to check it out because he believes Michael's responsible for it happening. They both agree that they should notify the others of what's happening, but they all ignore or dismiss them.

Smith eventually has to interrupt his business to rouse Tessa after she ignored all calls, and he gives her a lift to the office after scolding her for not answering earlier.

* What does Christmas mean to you? Adams/Smith