Reformatted

A hacker tries to go straight, his AI companion has concerns

"Amb3R, download all resumes of the former staff of Vole Industries and upload them into my internal storage."

"Boss?" Raven's digital assistant popped up on his screen. A neon thought bubble icon hovered above her as she crossed her arms and tilted her head. "It's rare you want me to transfer that many files directly into your brain. Something wrong?"

"It's called redemption, Amb3R. I tanked VI's stock, and many innocent people were let go. The ass-clown CEOs couldn't just roll over without fucking with the lives of those below them. The least I can do is use my genius to reassign those having issues finding new work."

Amb3r tapped her chin. "How thoughtful of you. And unusual."

"Well, that's just the tip of the iceberg. I've sent you a list of people I planted fake evidence on in the last six months. I need you to get what jail each of them is being held in so we can stage the appropriate breakouts. And speaking of evidence, I need you to wipe the Blackmail folder on each of my drives. Barring internal storage, of course." He learned not to delete his literal memories after the last few mishaps.

The AI grinned sheepishly and ran a hand through her bubblegum-colored hair. "Haha, it's almost like you're trying to undo all the work you've done this year." A digital sweat drop ran down the side of her face.

"Nothing gets past you, Amb3R."

Her eyes nearly bulged out of her head. "You're serious?"

Raven stopped typing. He huffed, blowing blond locks out of his face before daring to make eye contact. "I have to 'purify' myself."

Amb3R disappeared, several web pages taking her place on the screen. "There's a colonic procedure that claims to do that," she said, her head reappearing next to one particular page. "This doctor on 34th and 5th has the best and most consistent reviews. Would you like me to schedule you an appointment?"

"What the shit? Amb3R, I meant a spiritual cleansing! Not—” He gestured frantically at the web page. “—whatever the hell that is. Close it and wipe it from your history. Just the thought of it makes my ass clench."

"Sorry, boss. I'm just not following you. Nothing in your personality files indicates you'd ever find spirituality."

"Yeah, well, your algorithms didn't take Hwytha into account."

A circular loading icon, followed by several question marks, appeared on the screen. "Sorry, I didn't understand your inquiry: 'why the into account.'"

"Ugh. No, not 'why the.' Hwytha. She is a goddess of a higher plane of existence. One mortals can't ever reach unless we cleanse ourselves of our crimes. And unlike most firewalls, I don't think there's a way around it. I'll need to follow her protocols."

"I have updated and searched my deity database three times and have no record of a Hwytha in any recorded pantheons. Could you be mistaken?"

"I don't make mistakes," he said. His eye twitched when his brain helpfully reminded him that he wouldn't have messes to clean if he really was without flaws. "But it makes sense that you don't believe me. We lost contact in the virtual world when I tried to hack P-Nut Co."

"Yes, there was a power surge, and you wouldn't allow me to scan your neural network for abnormalities or corruption."

"Because there isn't any damage, and there was no surge. I was visited by one of Hwytha's servants, and they probably wanted privacy. They told me to turn back, clean up my act, and get the word out about Hwytha's message." He still couldn't get the floating, winged eyeball out of his head, nor the way it had zapped all that information into his brain with a single beam of laser light.

"Oh, no." Amb3R leaned her back against the monitor's frame, sliding down the edge of the screen and into a sitting position. "I told you, there really was a surge while you were jacked in. Even assuming there's been no permanent damage to you, there's a 96.9% chance your synapses were temporarily overloaded, resulting in hallucinations. It might have seemed real, but I doubt—what are you doing?"

"Adding some new files to the meme folder. I need you to extract and hack them into some major social media accounts so that they become viral."

She rubbed her temples. "Please tell me this isn't Hwytha propaganda."

"It's not Hwytha propaganda."

"Thank the Motherboard."

"Propaganda no longer exists thanks to the corps funding the Advertisement in Truth Act of 22XX. Anything posted on social media is, officially, non-biased."

"Sweet zeroes and ones, I'm going to need to get a new job," Amb3R muttered. "A legit one with a real company."

Raven ignored her. He had one more thing to address for the night. "Say, remember when I trapped those corp bastards in that room and had it gassed? Do you think it's enough if I set some scholarships up in their name? Or should I look into donating to some causes they pretended to care about? I'm not sure what good deeds balance out having killed human scum. You’d think it’d count as ‘good’ to begin with."

Amb3R looked ready to scream, but Raven never bothered to download either the subroutine or the audio files for her to do so. He started to regret it based on how many memory units she was using. Maybe screaming was some sort of AI coping mechanism to reclaim memory?

"You know, maybe I'll do both." The sound of a virtual door opening and slamming shut coming from the speaker was his only response. "Amb3R? You there?" No answer and no sign of her on his screen. Must have left to hack those meme accounts.

Raven went back to typing diligently. The night was still young for this newly reformed hacker.

Hwytha commands you to ignore the power surge and obey (Illustration by Placidplace)

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