Private Chat, Part 2

“Isn't that the name of your security bot?” Jet asked.

“Yep. Cover story, so to speak. She fulfills that purpose, too, by design. Dad wanted to make sure she could cover up her presence when the CSO came knocking. He was a paranoid old coot, especially in the last few years.”

Jet was perking up. Maybe some of his old hacker instincts were kicking in. “Okay. So you've got this complex neural network that's meant to investigate the Raids. I assume by now it's collected a whole host of stuff. But from what I hear, the Central Server is under a Raid onslaught like nobody's ever seen. Why aren't you using her to help out?”

I stopped. Turned around. Stared him down with a bemused expression. Then I just smiled and threw my hands in the air. “At some point, I am going to ask you how you knew about that, seeing as the CSO has kept it on lockdown the entire time. It was hard enough for me to find out.”

Jet blushed and shrugged. Okay, moving on.

“It's a good question. Now would be a great time to make a power move. Come in and save the day for the CSO with the ultimate key to cracking the Raids. Hell, it might even be in there somewhere.”

“So what's the problem?”

“Dee has stopped talking to me,” I said as neutrally as I could manage. “Furthermore... I have reason to believe that she's directly involved in this new batch of Raids. Perhaps even running them herself.”