With his classes over, and Christmas break beginning, Adrian heads to his parent's house in Fort Worth with Raven and his desktop in tow.


December 17th, 2016

As the night wore on, Adrian’s thoughts drifted away from Raven to his family and how the next few weeks would play out. Between his parents, grandparents, cousins and brother, the next three weeks would be full of things to do. At the same time, he couldn’t picture leaving Raven inside the computer for that long.
My old room should be mostly empty; just need one pair of sockets. At the same time, he wondered what would happen if one of his younger cousins got a hold of his phone and started texting random things to Raven. Or another of his family wondered who was talking to. The latter he could easily excuse, aside from the way Raven texted.
Maybe I can give him a few lessons. An AI should be a quick learner. Stowing the idea for the moment, Adrian made himself some dinner, then came back to his computer to get in some gaming time.
‘Raven, I’ll be bringing you with me somewhere else for a while.’ Adrian texted after a time.
‘Where Is This Somewhere Else?’
‘Fort Worth.’
‘How Long?’
‘Two weeks.’
‘This One Assumes This Is Important.’
Adrian reconsidered telling Raven what the reason was. ‘Yeah. I’m leaving tomorrow, and I’ll be bringing this computer as well.’
‘Then This One Should Travel Within The Phone’ Adrian connected his phone at that, and Raven jumped devices, texting Adrian with one of the three images it made before adding that it was ready.

December 18th, 2016

For the remainder of the night, Adrian gathered the important stuff to bring with him, finally settling into bed near midnight. When he awoke, he gave his dorm one more look-over to check for unlocked doors and windows, then freshened up before gathering the last of his important things. Raven had kept quiet throughout the night and morning, only responding when Adrian mentioned he was about to head out.
Once everything was loaded into his car, after locking the door to his dorm, Adrian snapped a picture of the area. A light snowfall had happened overnight, the white powder already disturbed in places.
Raven texted about the new picture as Adrian waited for the engine of his car to warm up. ‘This Is Hood County?’
‘A small part of it. The only college the city has.’
‘Will This One See More Of This Place?’
‘I’ll find more to show on the way.’
As he pulled out of his parking spot and made his way off campus, Adrian mounted his phone to a windshield holder and adjusted the angle to get the clearest views of the roads. “I’m on Highway 377 now,” he said soon after pressing record. “It’ll take almost an hour to get where I’m going, but we’ll pass through Hood County soon.” He continued recording for several minutes, getting a long stretch of the highways, several intersections along the feeder roads, and busy areas once within Fort Worth, offering the occasional commentary about nearby places and locations of note.
When Adrian stopped recording, almost ten minutes had passed and his phone took a short time to finish processing it. Hoping Raven found the video enjoyable, Adrian started a video playlist, the rants and rages of the gaming personality playing over his car’s stereo.
When Arlington was within a mile, Adrian pulled into a gas station to refuel and get some fast food. Halfway through his first slice of pizza, Raven texted him, first with the happy-looking image it had made, and then, ‘This One Appreciates The Greater Look At Adrian Ritter’s Surroundings. Many Previous Feelings Returned During Viewing.’
Once again, Adrian felt a touch of happiness at Raven’s message. ‘Have you figured out how to…describe what you felt yesterday?’
Raven didn’t respond until Adrian finished his first slice of pizza. ‘This One Believes Out-Of-Body Experience Best Describes Feeling.’
Adrian raised an eyebrow at the answer. ‘Huh. You consider the computer, as a whole, a part of you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Interesting.’
‘Relation To Topic. This One Noticed During Previous Day Few Holes In Network Connections On Noted Computer.’
‘I would hope so. Good to know.’ After he replied, Adrian wondered if his anti-virus program was part of the reason Raven seemed so intent on seeking out malicious software.
‘We Are At Destination?’
‘Not yet. Just stopped for a little while.’
‘Should This One Resume Function Of Wireless Connection?’
It was then Adrian noticed Raven had shut the receiver off again. ‘No. Best play it safe, for now.’ He resumed driving once his final slice of pizza was eaten, taking it slow on the side roads and finding that little had changed since summer.
His home street was much the same, though the car belonging to his older brother was already there. He parked in the street nearby, and took a moment to text Raven. ‘We’re at the destination. Once the computer is reconnected?’
‘This One Desires To Test Network Connections And Other Computers.’
‘You can do the former now I think.’
Raven didn’t respond immediately, instead re-enabling the wireless of the phone. ‘Many Connections In This Area,’ it eventually said.
‘Yeah. Only connect to Arvia-0448, though. It’s the only one I have access to.’
Raven again didn’t respond immediately, though as he waited for the AI’s response, someone knocked twice on his window. The noise made him jump, and then look aside. His brother was leaning against the door.
“About time you got here,” Ben said as Adrian opened the door.
“Stopped at the gas station. Wanted some pizza,” Adrian replied as he got out and pocketed his phone. His brother hugged him a second later, which he returned.
“Good thing Mom hasn’t cooked anything yet, then,” Ben said after letting go.
“Yeah. Dad around?”
“He’s working on Mom’s computer.”
“Physical repairs?” Adrian asked as he and his brother stepped away from his car.
“Virus removal, I think. I heard him complaining that something seemed off with the machine. Mom too.”
Right away, Adrian’s thoughts went to Raven. No, he’s an AI, not an anti-virus program. “Hope it’s nothing serious.”
Once inside, Adrian trailed Ben into the kitchen. Little of note had changed since he’d last been home, and it wasn’t long before his mother was coming towards him. Her embrace was returned for several seconds, Adrian saying afterwards that not much had happened since November.
“Aside from a new arcade going up in town, anyway.”
“Really? All the way out there?” his mother asked.
“Yeah. Kisho and I checked it out the other day. It’s a nice place, good mix of old and new games too.”
“What about your finals? How’d they go?” Adrian recounted what happened, leaving Raven out. When he added that it wasn’t a virus, his mother changed the subject. “I think we’ve got one of those on our computer, somehow.”
“How can you tell?”
“We couldn’t start the anti-virus thing. It kept telling us a file was missing or something.”
Adrian hummed. Ben asked, “Dad made any progress with it?”
“Not yet. Hope it doesn’t mean the hard drive’s ruined.”
“Unlikely.” Adrian replied. “A reinstall in Basic Mode could fix it.”
“You think you could help your father with that?”
“Yeah, sure. Good thing I brought my own computer with me.” At that, his mother asked Ben to help get the computer inside and set up. They brought it to the study where their father was watching a screen; it displayed what Adrian knew to be a System Restore window.
“Hey, Dad.” Adrian said, getting him to turn around.
“Hey there, son. I overheard your suggestion; once this finishes, I’ll try reinstalling the program.”
Adrian nodded in response, then headed for his old room to set the tower of his desktop down. Ben followed suit with the monitor and cable box, then left for the kitchen. Adrian then pulled his phone out and checked on Raven, who had texted him minutes earlier.
‘This Connection Is Not As Secure As Previous.’
‘Figures. By the way, Raven?’
‘Yes?’
‘You are an AI, right? Not an anti-virus program?’
‘This One Can Perform Functions Similar To Such Programs.’
‘What about program analysis?’
‘This One Understands Many Things About Programs It Is Allowed To Observe.’
‘In that case, could I ask for your help if something I’m about to try doesn’t work?’
‘Yes. This One Will Help.’
‘Thanks.’ Adrian then set his phone aside and got his desktop back together. As it booted up, he could hear his father say something to himself and leave the study; when he checked, the System Restore hadn’t progressed. On the desktop however were a handful of icons he recognized as an anti-virus suite, and a good one to boot. True to Ben’s claim, when Adrian tested the icons, all of them gave the same error message.
Might be something new. Adrian thought as he ran a database check for his own anti-virus; nothing had been added since yesterday. After grabbing the installer from the web, he saved it to a mostly blank USB drive and checked on the other computer. It still had not finished what it was doing.
“It hasn’t finished yet, has it?” his father asked as Adrian returned to the kitchen.
“Nope. Still going.”
His father sighed. “How did we get a virus on that machine?”
“It could be something new, we don’t know.” his mother replied.
“I don’t think so. My own database didn’t have any updates.” Adrian said. “Though, Dad?”
His father hummed in response.
“I’ve got the installer. Should we stop the restore and try it?”
“Uhh… Let’s let it do its thing. Can’t hurt.”
Adrian shrugged.
“In the meantime, don’t you have more things to get out of your car?” his mother asked.
Deciding to give the computer at least that long to finish up, Adrian returned to his car to empty the trunk. His backpack was halfway on when a thought struck him. Was something similar to Raven in his parents’ computer? Stowing the thought away for the moment, he brought some of his things inside. After the follow-up run for the rest, his father was back in the study, staring at the computer, which still hadn’t progressed.
“Something’s definitely wrong. This shouldn’t take this long.” his father said when he heard him coming.
“Yeah. Should we?”
“Might as well.” His father waited until he returned to stop the restoration process, handing control over afterwards.
“Alright,” Adrian said as he knelt down. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“If you need me for anything, just say so,” his father said as he walked away. Now alone again, Adrian gripped the USB drive, hoping his hunch was wrong. After a boot into Safe Mode, he tried running the anti-virus again, and got the error his mother mentioned. Alright, so it is a bad file. No .txt files appeared when he plugged in the USB drive or started the installer; nothing was in the recycle bin either, though he wondered if Raven could find anything.
‘Starting my plan.’ Adrian texted.
‘Acknowledged. Awaiting Update.’
Adrian refocused on the installer at that, selecting repair from the options available. After confirming it, the installer got to work, reached the halfway point at a decent speed, and then stalled.
Huh? C’mon, really? Adrian said to himself as he opened the window for the USB drive. Seconds later, his mouse could no longer move, and a piercing, awful noise he knew too well sounded from the computer’s speakers before he turned them off.
The sudden noise almost cost him his grip on his phone, and then the monitor went black, coming back on in solid blue with high contrast white letters. Crap, that’s not good.
On instinct, Adrian got his phone’s camera up and snapped a picture before the on-screen timer counted to 100 and the screen went black again. As the booting process began again, his mother’s voice sounded from the room behind him. “What happened?”
“Got a blue screen. Critical failure somewhere.” Adrian got no response from either of his parents.
Raven however was quick to respond. ‘Adrian Ritter's Plan Failed?’
‘For now. I can’t install the software I need.’
‘Is Allowing This One Into Other Computer The Next Step?’
‘No. I need to figure out what this error code means first.’