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She nods and goes with me to the cave entrance. We hurry through the tunnel to find both men sitting on our favorite perch as the rain falls yet again. She runs around me to them. “Guys, Cinq’s found the solution to help Nilt.” Giving me a guilty glance, she blushes. “I suppose I should have let you give the big news.”
“No, it’s all right and I don’t blame you. I’ll be excited along with you if it works.”
“If? Ha, when, dearest. Not if.” She sits next to the Gharian Khscc and looks at me with expectation. “How does this go down?”
I think I understand the idiom. At least, I hope I do. “It’s simple. Since he already has working nanos, I’ll send the instructions to them, which will reverse the prior code. It’ll be a temporary fix, undone if the Kostans send the virus out again or if he accesses the Gharian datalinks.”
The three of them frown at me and I hold up a hand to stop their questions. “I know, not permanent but a test. When I’m sure my code works, I’ll write something far more permanent for the entire affected population.”
“Can you send a virus back to the Kostans?” Jessica asks.
“I’d love to, but no. Not until I get everyone cleared.” I stand in front of Nilt. “This won’t hurt and you’ll know if it works immediately.” He nods and I hold up the datapad with the display facing him. “Good. Look into the green light.” He does, I press the datapad screen to send the fix and he blinks a couple of times.
“Wow,” he says, standing and examining the cave entrance. “You gave me more than I had already.”
Pless, sounds like I made a mistake after all, except… “When was the last update you accepted?”
He’s still staring at everything as if the entire universe has changed. “I don’t know. Never? I stopped allowing any changes once I started my archology career.” He wanders to the entrance’s border, only stopped by the curtain of rain. “Seems like I might have made a mistake in turning down all this.”
“Good. Don’t ping the Gharian datalinks and you can keep the enhancements.” I’m almost a little angry at him because I think some of those updates are ones I created and instigated for the good of everyone. Instead of grousing about how additions to the code are for the benefit of all, I go back to the datapad. “Let me work on the rest of the Kostan’s victims.”
“And then reverse the virus, maybe?” Jessica asks. “Not bad enough to bring the empire down on you, but enough to give them little problems?”
I shake my head at her hopeful smile. “No, no reversing.” Her smile fades until I add, “Not without the emperor’s permission.”
She makes a fist, holding it close to her body while hissing, “Yes! One small step in helping the emperor. One giant leap in asking the emperor for help.”
Chuckling, I snark, “Glad I could make you happy.” I grin at Nilt, who’s still in awe of everything his nano-enhanced senses are telling him. “Get me if anything changes. I need to keep working for a while.”
“Will do,” Nilt murmurs, catching rain in his hand, then peering at the liquid.
His distraction pleases me. I’m glad I could bring more to his experiences and head for the tunnel entrance. Jessica begins a raspy cough behind me and I turn. “Are you all right?”
“Yes. The nanos are working harder than usual thanks to the damp and the air quality. I’ll go in after a bit.”
She’s sitting next to Quin, watching Nilt, so I nod. “Fine. If I don’t fix our meal, it’s because I’ve been preoccupied.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Quin replies. “We’ll manage. You go on and save the galaxy.”
He’s overstating things, I think, but I give a wave as I head through the tunnel. Once in the main area, I’m tempted to do anything but focus. This break feels too good to stop, but like the others have teased, I really do have the answer for billions of Gharians and their malfunctioning nanos.
I settle in again, stretching my neck before resuming work. The code succeeded with one person. A good starting point, but what will keep them from resending the message again? Nothing, so I’ll need to add more. Minutes pass, then hours as I create a block to keep Kostan programmers from accessing Gharian minds directly. None of them thought to send information back to their government. I’m relieved and a little suspicious because why wouldn’t they? Were they counting on their code destroying our minds? I can tell from the code how whoever did this was in a hurry. Good, but distracted and in a rush.
I tap open a new text instance, looking up when Jessica stands over me wearing an unhappy expression. “Is everything all right?”
“No. You haven’t gotten up in hours and I know you must be hungry.”
I glance around at my surroundings. The room is empty and the lights lowered to simulate the darkness outside. She’s right. It is late. “I’m almost done.”
“Are you hungry? Thirsty? Need to visit the waste pit?” she offers, gesturing as if showing off all our amenities.
I check and chuckle at my body’s discomfort. “Yes, now that you call everything to my attention.” I set aside the datapad. “Could you make me something simple while I visit the pit?”
Her face brightens. “Sure. Anything in particular?”
Leaning over to kiss her, I say, “Something you love from Earth would be great. I could use the distraction.”
“Well, if it’s distraction you want,” she begins, burying her fingertips in my hair.
