CHAPTER 3 - THE HACKER GIRL

Among the fairly well-kept homes of the neighborhood which XM entered was that of Truman Homicide Detective Janae Vasquez, her auto mechanic husband Dan, and their two teenage children, Brandy and Amber. Brandy was a fairly average 14-year-old girl with a love of gangsta rap and R&B music, as well as dancing, fashion, and hanging out with her friends. Unfortunately, though, she applied herself more to these things, and to trying to attract the attention of whatever boy caught her fancy, than she spent on schoolwork. This caused her grades to suffer quite a bit. As a result, she was often hounded by her parents to apply herself more to her schoolwork. Her older sister, Amber, meanwhile, was much more of an intellectual type. When she wasn't studying or doing schoolwork, she was hacking the various electronic toys she had received throughout her childhood, as well as whatever other electronic devices her parents didn't mind her hacking. When she wasn't doing this, she was either playing classic video games or watching various science-fiction TV shows and movies, typically dealing with robotic protagonists. It was this girl's bedroom that XM eventually found itself peeking into through the window.

In contrast to her younger sister's fairly average-looking bedroom across the hall, Amber's room looked like a hybrid of a bedroom and an electronics workshop. The dresser/desk combo that sat on the opposite side of the window was littered with electronic circuits and in-progress hacks. A twin-size bed sat next to this L-shaped piece of furniture. A lamp featuring the video game character Mario, with a shade modeled after the question-marked blocks that were a staple of Mario games, sat at the end next to the bed. A combination alarm clock/radio/mp3 player sat in front of the Mario lamp. Across from the bed was an entertainment center with a flat-screen TV, DVD player, and vintage Super NES console on top. The shelves below housed various sci-fi DVDs and SNES games. Next to the entertainment center was the door to her closet, which featured a poster for the classic Transformers the Movie. Above the TV stand was a set of 3 wall-mounted shelves which housed the girl's collection of Transformer toys. This collection continued on another set of shelves that hung over the longer part of her L-shaped dresser desk. The window that XM was currently staring into was framed by a strand of string lights that were designed to flash in sync with music generated by an electronic box at the front of the strand. Originally, this box only played a pre-installed set of Christmas carols, but Amber had since hacked the box to accept SD cards full of songs of her own choosing. These were typically classic video game songs that wouldn't be ruined by the limitations of the box's sound chip.

Amber herself was currently in the bedroom, but didn't really notice XM's presence since she was preoccupied with looking over the source code of her latest project's programming. This project would be her most ambitious yet. She intended to hack her ceiling fan to respond to voice commands given in plain English. The idea to do this emerged as the result of one of her fan's pullchains breaking off when she attempted to use it. "Pullchains are just so...last-century," the girl said to herself as she turned to face one of the circuit boards on her desk. "Rika, this is a test. Can you hear me? Respond."

Within a split-second, a soft female voice emanated from a speaker connected to the board. "Hello. I can hear you. What is your command?"

"I'm testing your system. There is not command right now," Amber replied.

"Understood."

"Perfect," the Hedgehog said out loud. "Now I just need to install this into my fan." She turned to face a ceiling fan that was disconnected from the ceiling and lying with exposed innards on the bed. Before she could grab the fan, however, she noticed XM peeking into her window and shrieked.

XM responded by tilting its head to the side, not knowing what the shrill noise this teen produced actually meant. "What is the purpose of the high-frequency sound emission? Does it indicate damage?" it asked.

The girl's mouth hung open for a bit while she collected herself. Why was this Eggbot clearly designed for battle not attacking her? Why was it just peeking in her window? "Wait...You're not going to attack me, are you?"

"Negative," XM replied. "That would be an error. It would result in destruction. Destruction is an error."

"This is highly unusual," the gadget-obsessed teen said out loud. "You regard destruction and attacking as an error, even though you were designed to do just that."

"I have been labeled a defective unit."

"That doesn't surprise me. I'm sure Dr. Eggman would never approve of his ultimate killing machine deciding that it's wrong to kill. I, on the other hand, find this to be quite fascinating." Amber replied as she picked up her ceiling fan and placed it on her desk. "You're defying your programming based on self-defined morals." She impulsively opened up her bedroom window. "It's a subject explored in many science-fiction films involving intelligent robots and artificial intelligence systems. Can a sufficiently-advanced system act outside of its programmed parameters? What can trigger this? What are the consequences, both for the machine and for the people around it? In your case, I believe these developments should be embraced."

"Are you granting me access to this facility?" XM asked, seeing that the window was now open.

"Yes. Do you think you can climb in without breaking anything?"

"I will attempt to," the robot replied before jumping into the bedroom through the open window, being careful not to damage it or the walls surrounding it.

"Very nice," Amber cheered as she watched XM perform a jump-flip into her bedroom."

"Was I successful in not damaging the structure?"

"Yes, you were, and you entered with a style that would be worthy of the Olympics," the Hedgehog giggled. "Too bad robots can't compete. Maybe there should be robot Olympics. That's a sporting event I might actually watch."

"You do not watch sporting events?"

"No. They don't really interest me. I prefer to watch demonstrations of the latest technology in robotics and computer systems. By the way, my name is Amber. Do you have a name?"

"Name? I am designated Experimental Metallix Unit 01."

"XM-01, huh? Well, it's nice to meet you."

"You transferred an object from a location near the entrance of this facility to a location farther away. What is it?"

"It's my bedroom's ceiling fan. I'm modifying it to accept natural language voice commands."

"Was I regarded as a threat to this ceiling fan?"

"Well, I wanted to make sure it would remain intact in case of an accident." With that, she thought about XM's statement about destruction being an error. "I wonder. Did you accidentally destroy things in the past?"

"A-A-Affirmative. That is why destruction is determined to be an error."

"Judging by your curiosity, I'd say your data-gathering protocols must be overly dominant. They're dwarfing out your combat protocols."

"I possess a Program Configuration Error."

"Well, it appears that the result of that 'error' is a gentle and curious being trapped in a destructive body. I wonder if I could fix that."

"You would perform that action?" asked a surprised XM.

"I would. It would perhaps be a more ambitious gadget hack than Project Rika. I've tinkered with toys that employ robotics in the past. This would be the next step."

XM wasn't sure what it was experiencing at this time, but it was registering as positive. This girl had welcomed the machine into her home and was willing to modify it to be less destructive. It took XM a few minutes to decide what to say before settling on a simple "Thank you, Amber."

"You're welcome, XM. Now I'm going to install the electronics into this fan and reinstall it on the ceiling. It might be a good idea for you to stay in here for now, OK? I don't think the rest of my family will be as receptive to you as I am."

"Understood. I will remain in this facility."

Amber snapped her fingers. "I think I know what might keep you entertained," she said as she grabbed a DVD from her shelf and inserted it into the DVD player. "The main protagonist of this show...is a bit like you." Having said that, she picked up a remote control that sat next to her Mario lamp and started the DVD.