47) I Don't Think the World Is Sold On Just Doing What We're Told
Mal had found in the course of sailing Serenity with a Reader (witch/assassin/genius) that when said Reader (witch/assassin/genius) looked worried or concerned, or anything besides the serene, interested and sometimes mischievous smile resided on her face that things were about to go not smooth.
This wasn't River's fault. After all, (as she'd pointed out) she was mostly sane now but that meant she wasn't listening to everything around her. Which meant she wasn't going to hear about piratical type AIs from the scheming brainpans that had created said piratical AI. That was probably a good thing, Mal reflected, after all, if she'd heard it (along with everything else) she wouldn't have been able to warn them, due to being mildly (or a bit more than mildly) insane.
The mess had started with the ship doing a little shimmy and then a jolt and after that, some shuddering that boded ill for the folks inside Serenity, not to mention the ship itself.
"'Tross I hate to interrupt," Mal began.
"Then don't," Her reply, clipped and brief, as if she'd bitten off the rest of the words and discarded them as a waste of time. It should have discouraged him, but he did have some pressing concerns.
"But I need to know if I oughta prepare to repel boarders," He pressed onward.
"No other ships within hailing distance," She wasn't paying much attention to him, her fingers dancing over the keys of the console. "Go get Rick and Kaylee," She ordered.
There were times he disliked her imperious tone, and this was one of them, but the two crew members in question were more mechanically inclined than he was, so off to get Rick and Kaylee he went.
Both were in the engine room, working on something to do with the accelerator core, there was a little bit of smoke and some sparks so Mal got the idea that an interruption wouldn't be the best. But needs must, "Kaylee?"
"Not now Mal," Rick's voice held a very credible snarl as he climbed up over the core. "Kaylee, it looks good up here."
The primary mechanic's voice came from beneath the core and Mal stooped to look at her, "Rick, we might have to cut the primary."
"That'll be a bào xīn jiùhuǒ, if it ain't the source," Rick was ignoring his Captain, which Mal didn't like. He liked it less when his genius Reader (witch/assassin) told him to get these two and he hadn't even gotten to say that yet.
Apparently, River had decided he was taking too long because her shout echoed down the hallway, "Rick! Kaylee!"
"Niú shǐ," Rick cursed. "Kaylee, I don't think the engine is the problem." In one of the maneuvers that served to remind Mal of just how dangerous the huge man could be, Rick flung his body towards the wall, ricocheted off it and landed in a crouch on the floor next to Kaylee, helping her out from under the engine.
The two of them took off for the bridge and Mal sighed as he followed after them. "If you'd listened to me, you'd know this already," He commented as he strode after them.
When he got to the bridge River was already deep into the explanation of what had happened. "What I don't get is how," Mal pointed out. "You've got firewalls on top of firewalls 'Tross."
"Not now Mal," River and Rick spoke in unison, something that might've gotten a grin at other times and cries of 'jinx, buy me a kělè'. The conversation descended into technical talk that he was fairly certain required a genius IQ or a gift for machines to understand. (And that said something about Rick's smarts that Mal wasn't going to peer at too closely until such a time as they were not being hijacked and maybe not even then.) But the gist of it, if he understood correctly (something that wasn't too likely in the best of times he had to admit) was that a pirate AI was taking over Serenity's autopilot and the rest of the ship. At least he thought that was the problem.
"Right," Kaylee nodded along, and Rick said something else, and River's hands never stopped moving, trying to stay ahead of the invading AI. "Okay. I'll set it up. Keep the comms open for the countdown."
"What're we doin' now?" Mal tried again.
"Later Cap'n," Kaylee assured him as she took off for the engine room. Rick switched on the comms and climbed underneath the console, practically between River's legs. Something that disturbed Mal more than it did either of them.
"Almost there," River murmured. "Kaylee? You are in position?"
"I'm good back here," Kaylee's voice came through the comms.
"Rick?"
"We're good down here," Came his assurance.
River's hands increased their pace, (he really hadn't thought that was possible) and began her count, "five, four, three, almost, one, now!"
Three things happened simultaneously. (There might've been more than three but that was all Mal could ascertain from his current position.) River punched four keys at the same time, Rick did something that made sparks under the console, and the ship went dark.
"What—" Mal hadn't been prepared for any of that.
"Okay," Rick slid out from under the console. The emergency lighting came on, giving the huge man a devilish appearance (the silver eyes didn't do anything to detract from that impression either). "We're good for now."
"Would someone," Mal wasn't feeling picky at this point, anyone would do so long as it could be explained in words he could understand, "explain to me what in the name of the shén shèng de mǔ qīn hé tā suǒ yǒu gǔ guài de zhí zi is goin' on?"
"Best to explain to everyone at once," River turned the chair to face him. "Zoë must remain warm and lying down."
"Got it," Mal pulled the comm down. "Everyone on the boat, make your way up to Shuttle one." At least the comms still worked. It was a small blessing, but he'd take it.
It took a little bit of doing to get everyone up to the shuttle. Thankfully with the emergency lighting they weren't all in the dark. Though Rick obviously didn't have any trouble. The shuttle felt crowded enough but with everyone talking at once it was even worse.
River's face had gone tight around her eyes in a way that meant she was starting to feel everything around her too strongly. Rick's mouth had settled into grim forbidding lines and Mal guessed he didn't like the noise level or the way everything echoed against metal walls.
"Chéng le," Mal snapped. "Everybody bì zuǐ!" It didn't quite happen instantaneously, but the noise level dropped to something bearable. "All right," He glanced at River. "Lil Albatross, why don't you explain exactly what's goin' on."
"At nineteen hundred hours, give or take a few minutes, a hostile program got past the firewalls. Don't know how yet," River pinched the bridge of her nose. "Forty minutes later it had disseminated through the ship's systems and at twenty-one hundred attempted to hijack the ship by taking over the autopilot."
"Seems to be an AI," Rick explained. "When it took over Serenity did that little shimmy and jolt."
"If it hadn't, we might not've even known," Kaylee shrugged.
"Why'd it do that then, if that was what gave it away?" Carolyn wondered and Mal gave her a half smile for asking the question. He might've come up with it himself but the lines around River's eyes were distracting him a touch.
"Autopilot is…limited in scope," River spread her hands. "Augmented and changed just enough that Serenity's specs no longer completely match that of other Fireflies."
"That's what kept it from takin' over without us knowin'," Kaylee nodded. "Near as we can figure the program is designed take over the autopilot and sail the ship some where's. Likely a net like that one Saffron tried to steer us towards."
"We cut the connection between the console and the engines," Rick explained. "And Kaylee shut the engines down manually. We need to get the bridge isolated so River can dig out the program before we reconnect everything."
"Or we'll be in the same boat only worse," Zoë nodded from her position on the bed. "What can we do to speed the process along?"
"Helps to know the origin of the malicious programming," River ticked off items on her fingers. "If any odd glitches have been noted. Could be symptomatic of the program taking over. Has anything been downloaded from the cortex? Any files? Recipes, books? Films?"
"The bridge flickered while I was up there," Carolyn offered thoughtfully. "But it does that now and then, so I didn't think anything of it."
Mal nodded his agreement, "Same here. Flickers or blinks at least once or twice every shift."
River looked at Rick who nodded, "I've had it do the same."
The Captain watched as River tilted her head, clearly thinking back, "Anything else odd?"
"Last two weeks it's been stuttering some when we bring it up out of sleep mode," Mal glanced at his chief mechanic. "You recall Kaylee? I mentioned it?"
"Thought it was a loose connection, but I couldn't find anything," Kaylee remembered.
"I think we've all downloaded something or other," Simon admitted. "I download medical journals for my encyclopedia."
"Books," Carolyn agreed. "For Jack to study or just to read. And recipes for protein."
"Will go back through the logs," River nodded. "Likely hidden in a file."
"We'll have to tighten up the firewalls," Mal rubbed the back of his neck. "They're supposed to catch anything malicious."
It was the first time the newer members of the crew had seen River really push her limits. Between Rick, River and Kaylee, they got the engine going so they weren't dependent on the shuttles for life support. But they were dead in the water as far as moving forwards or backwards or any other wards that might come to mind.
Mal guessed that his new crew really hadn't understood exactly what he'd meant when he said River did what needed to be done. Lines upon lines of code, streaming across the console screens, until his eyes gorram near crossed but River never stopped. A day and a half of that and she'd identified the malicious software.
The tedious and difficult part began when she had to carve away the malicious code without compromising the integrity of the ship's programming. It was harder to do than it sounded. Kaylee and Rick at least were able to help with that, going through the ship's code and identifying more of the enemy program.
Mal and Carolyn got printouts. Huge, long rolls of recyclable plastic printouts of the code and were assigned different 'strings' of programming to identify. Simon, with his eye for detail, was doing the same thing only on his encyclopedia. Zoë had been given similar duties.
Jack got the chore of keeping them all fed and reminding them when the ship's regular maintenance had to be done. No one was sleeping much, though they did get some sleep at least. But someone had to be on the bridge at all times, manually guiding the ship since they couldn't depend on the cortex until it was scrubbed of all 'infections'.
River was going to need some downtime after all this was over. Mal's three newest crew members were getting a firsthand demonstration of (some of) River's abilities. Not that Jack really seemed to understand just how rare River's talents were. "Gonna need to give River some time off once all this is settled," He commented to Carolyn.
"She has been going at it pretty hard," The blonde agreed. "My eyes ache from going through these sheets, I can't imagine how bad hers are looking at screens."
"I can take the first shift once all this is done," Rick offered as he and Kaylee came into the galley.
"Need to get a real meal in all of us," Kaylee explained their presence. "And there ain't much more to be done with the engines. Once we've got all the code identified and stripped, we'll run the diagnostic and be ready to go." Mal opened his mouth and Kaylee (correctly guessing his question) shook her head, "Can't get away without running a diagnostic Cap'n. If there's any little bit of that code left it could mess with the systems."
"Like trying to work with a cut on your thumb," Rick elaborated. "You don't do something about it, just gets worse and worse." He was pulling down cans at Kaylee's behest as he spoke.
"I can take the shift after Rick's," Carolyn finished her work and began to roll up the sheets.
"And if the autopilot can be trusted we can set it for a bit too," Mal agreed.
"Just glad we've got River," Zoë spoke from the shuttle airlock doorway. Simon had his arm around her waist, helping her to her chair.
"Thought that was her job," Mal had been right, Jack didn't understand how extraordinary Mal's little genius (mindreading/assassin/witch) actually was.
"Maybe a handful of people in the 'verse who can out-code a malevolent AI as it's trying to take over a ship, and pilot and figure how to stop it at the same time," Rick told his little sister. "I couldn't have done it."
"Me either," Carolyn shook her head.
Simon smiled, "Jack, when we say River is a genius, we mean it literally. She was correcting my spelling when she was three. Given time there's nothing she can't learn."
"Huh," Jack didn't seem terribly impressed but that likely had more to do with Rick and River flirting than River's abilities.
Mal exchanged a look with Carolyn and sighed. Zoë had been right when she said of the three newcomers Jack would be the biggest problem. He just wished she'd been wrong.
Author's Note: So with everyone in the 'Verse so dependent on the cortex I wondered if more ships wouldn't have trouble with things like trojan horse programs and other malicious software. It seemed like the sort of thing that would make having a genius aboard very helpful. And I wanted to give them a problem that wasn't something we'd seen in the show or comics. Ransomware seemed appropriate.
Chinese Translations:
bào xīn jiùhuǒ (lit. to carry firewood to put out a fire (idiom); fig. to make a problem worse by inappropriate action)
Niú shǐ (cow dung)
kělè (coke)
shén shèng de mǔ qīn hé tā suǒ yǒu gǔ guài de zhí zi (holy mother of god/sacred mother and all her wacky nephews)
Chéng le (to be done / to be ready / that's enough! / that will do!)
bì zuǐ (Shut up!)