“This One Has Query.” Raven said after a short pause.
“Go ahead.”
“Why Is Adrian Ritter Keeping This One From Speaking Near Others?”
“Oh. Mostly because I don't know how others would react to you doing so. If they'd think you're a sign my phone is being hacked or something.”
“Others Do Not Know About Artificial Intelligence Such As This One?”
“Most people know what an AI is, in concept. As for having interacted with one, like we've been doing, that's different.”
“How Is This One Different?”
“You're an actual AI, not some kind of programmed intelligence that we have many of these days.”
“This One Does Not Know What Programmed Intelligence Means.”
“The way I've heard it described, it's something that has the framework of an AI, but doesn't do anything on it own; it simply waits for a command and then acts as directed. An actual AI like you can do much more, like act without being prompted.”
“What Adrian Ritter Has Described Is A Robot.”
“Yeah, true. The programmed intelligence label is just to make it easier to tell what's real artificial intelligence, and what's just a robot that's mislabeled as an AI.”
Raven didn't respond right away. “Does Adrian Ritter Know Any Who Would React In Favor To This One?”
“Kisho, probably. He's a friend of mine, but he's with his family way north of here until classes resume in January.”
“If Adrian Ritter Learns Of Another, This One Desires To Know”
Though he didn't feel any maliciousness in Raven's statement, a touch of conflict went though Adrian's nerves. Was it a good idea to let it talk to someone else? Maybe if he framed it as he designed the AI, not that it was something that just showed up one day. He stowed the idea away, and for the rest of the night until he went to bed, read some manga on his phone.

December 20th, 2016

The next morning, Adrian found a handful of messages from Raven, as well as a phone battery more drained than he thought. The AI had continued reading after he put the phone down, and had finished what was available for the series. It had noticed several attempts to read data from certain packets within the phone as it was doing so, many blocked by the browser software.
“That sounds like the ad blocker code,” Adrian texted back after reading everything. “Good to know it was helpful.”
“Some Attempts Were Not Stopped. This One Stopped Them.”
“Those were probably whitelisted requests. I've allowed them to do that.”
“This One Was Unsure. Will Confirm With Adrian Ritter Next Time.”
“Thanks, Raven.”
Later that morning, well after breakfast, Adrian noticed a sedan coming up the driveway. His uncle and aunt had arrived, along with his cousin. His father did some immediate catching up with his brother when he was out of the car, his wife doing the same with his mother and grandparents. His cousin Emma meanwhile took her time getting out, greeting Ben first when she did.
“How was the drive over here?” Adrian asked.
“Lot of trees and fields. Lot of snow.” Emma replied.
“In other words, relaxing.”
Emma shook her head. “I was bored.”
“Yeah, because you're young.”
“Can we play that game we played before tonight?”
It took a moment for Adrian to remember what she was referring to. “I think so. We'll see.”
“And can you look at this?” Emma held out her phone. “Dad says you know electronics and stuff the best.”
“What's wrong with it?” Adrian asked.
At that, Emma unlocked it and tried to use one of the apps. Within a second, it crashed. Adrian then took the device from her and tried another app. It also crashed near instantly.
“You might have to do a reinstall of these apps. Have you tried that?”
“That won't load either.”
“Ouh. Yikes. Yeah, I'll give this a look.” Suspecting something Emma loaded into the phone was messing with it, Adrian soon stopped himself and wondered if her device was... No way. He told himself. No way it's another AI. Yet he couldn't dismiss the possibility, unlikely as it felt to him.
Over the next hour, he and the rest of his family helped his uncle and aunt unload the sedan. When he had a moment, he checked to see if Raven had messaged him.
As he suspected, the AI had heard everything, but made no remarks about the potential of another AI. “This One Will Help If Requested.” Raven soon texted.
“I appreciate it.”
Once everything was settled, Adrian spent some time catching up with his uncle and aunt; the incident that Kisho had told him about was also brought up, and this time, his aunt had something to remark about it.
“How did he get away with it for so long? Don't the people who work on those notice something like that?”
“Not really. It was a keylogger, not a virus. Those things work off files as small as a few kilobytes.” Adrian replied.
“Still, that's quite an embarrassment for a university, letting something like that go so long without being noticed.” his uncle said.
“Yeah, true.”
After some more small talk, Emma got Adrian's attention. “When can we look at this?” She then showed her phone.
“How about after lunch?” Adrian asked.
Emma nodded multiple times. “Sure.”
Lunch came sooner than Adrian expected, though once he had Emma's phone, he was quick to find out, unlike his folks and their computer, she wasn't interested in letting him work without eyes on him. “I wanna see. In case it happens again.”
“Well, I don't know what you might have done, so all I can really do it try to fix this.”
“That's okay. I wanna see.”
Alright. Adrian made his way to his room with Emma following, and found the cables he needed to connect the phone. The desktop was still unconnected to the internet, and the anti-virus started up as soon as the connection was detected. “We'll try this first. That doesn't find anything, I'll try side-loading a copy of the store app.”
“Side-loading?”
“That's loading something from another computer. If installing it that way doesn't work, then I've got one more option.”
“What's that?”
“Bit of a secret weapon.” Adrian replied, before picking a new manga to read on his phone. The anti-virus scan eventually came back with negative results. “That's option one. Let's see.” He plugged the Ethernet cable back into his desktop and while it was reconnecting, checked on Raven. “No viruses were found.” he texted.
“Does Adrian Ritter Suspect Another Like This One?”
“I kind of have to, but we'll see.”
Once his desktop was reconnected, Adrian looked up the app data he needed, disconnected the cable, and then loaded the app onto the phone. The screen to confirm the install was next, only for the app to briefly appear before shutting down. “Well, that's not good.” He attempted to install the app again, but got nothing.
“Is it wrong?”
“Can't be. This app hasn't updated in years.” Maybe I need to use admin mode... Once the phone was set to the new mode, Adrian tried again. This time, the app installed and loaded, without any login details active. “There we go, and just to be sure...” He left the app screen and tried one of the apps from before. It attempted to run before crashing once again. “Yep.”
“Yep what?”
“Whatever happened to your phone, it's both an admin issue, like the phone's not letting you run anything, and it's something that broke the apps themselves.”
“What can do that?”
“No idea.” Adrian replied. Internally, his suspicions about it being an AI like Raven had strengthened a bit.
He then took the phone out of admin mode, and tried the store app again. It loaded, and as before, with the login credentials missing. “There we go. Here, Emma. Log yourself in; I'll do the rest.”
Emma held the phone for a moment. “...I can't remember my login.”
Adrian hummed. “And you'd need access to your e-mail to get the reset link. Do you remember any of them?”
“...Kinda.”
At that, Adrian glanced over his desktop's monitor. If Emma didn't know her e-mails...
That was when the IM of his phone sounded. Raven was texting him.
“Can This One Help?”
Adrian wanted to say no...but something was prodding his thoughts. Maybe Raven would have more luck. And if there was an AI somewhere in the web of devices, Raven would know.
“Sure.”
Raven responded first with the happy face icon. “What Is Adrian Ritter Looking For?”
Adrian thought about his answer for a moment. Emma meanwhile was looking at him, as though waiting for him to say something. “Input records. E-mails, passwords, things like that. Anything a keyboard would have logged by keystrokes.”
“I think I know my e-mail. Can we try it?” Emma said after Adrian texted Raven.
“What about your password?”
“...No.”
“That's a problem. We need another e-mail to accept a reset code.”
“I can make one real quick.”
Adrian hummed in response. He didn't want to tell Raven this soon that he didn't want his help.
“This One Is Ready. Will Inform Adrian Ritter As Progress Is Made” Raven texted.
“How about this?” Adrian began to Emma. “We try the option I mentioned before. If that doesn't result in anything, we use the password reset with a new e-mail.”
Adrian then connected his phone to the desktop, to which Raven texted him. “Connection Observed. No Malicious Programs Accessing Port.”
“There should be another device connected to the desktop. I'm looking for data in that device.”
“This One Will Investigate. Will Notify If Found Or If Something Is Suspicious.”
“Thanks.” Adrian then addressed Emma. “There we go. This might take a bit.”
“How long?”
“I don't know. We're not in any rush, though.”
“Aw, but I wanted to watch something. I'm bored.”
“Anime?”
“Yeah. You have any good ones?”
“Depends on your taste. What did you want to watch?” As Emma answered him and he looked through his collection, Adrian waited for any updates from Raven. The AI eventually posted a text file on the desktop. “Many Programs Missing Sections Of Code.” Raven had texted. “Simple Text Program In Similar State.”
That's too familiar... “That's okay. I can fix the programs once I have the right info.”
Raven didn't respond. Emma though remarked, “'Missing sections of code'?”
“Looks like it.” Adrian then redirected to Emma's anime of choice.
They were halfway through the first episode when the text file erased itself and another appeared. “This One Has Found A Log Of Keystrokes.”
Making sure he had the notepad window selected, Adrian replied, “Where was it?”
“Data Packet Related To Keyboard Application.”
“That's good. How far back did it record?”
“07012016 First Recorded Date”
That's the first of July. “Can you copy the records and make a text document with them?”
“This One Will Do So.”
“Thanks.” When his attention returned to Emma, her focus was still on the show. “We might have something.”
“Does that program talk to you?” Emma asked after looking his direction.
Adrian felt a chill at that, though after a moment responded with, “Yeah, it does.”
“What's it called?”
“I call it Raven. It's an AI program.”
“Did you build it?”
Adrian glanced back at the text document. Why's my luck going so sour all of a sudden? “To a degree.” When Emma repeated what he said with a questioning tone, he added, “I've seen small changes in how it talks, so it is learning.”
“But it's not yours?”
“The base code, no. No idea who did make it, but it doesn't matter to me that much.”
Emma hummed in response. “It seems helpful, at least.”
Adrian agreed, and then Raven produced a new text document on the desktop. When he checked, the records took up thousands of characters, though also lost any record of indents, leaving the data to show on one extremely long line. “How was the data organized in the packet?” Adrian texted.
“By Date Of Submission.”
“Emma, what kind of keyboard do you have on this phone?” Adrian asked.
“The one it came with.”
“And how old is this phone?”
“Dad gave it to me. No idea.”
“When was that?”
“August.”
“So, if that's the case...” Adrian ran a search by the date pattern Raven had given him. Emma soon identified her e-mail, and after testing a few odd strings of characters, they found the password. “You're in.” Adrian said after the store app accepted the inputs. “Just reinstall all the apps, and you should be good.”
“Can you do that?” Emma asked, handing her phone to him. “Just in case?”
“Sure, and I'll get you some new apps that don't track you as much.”
“What for?”
“Privacy reasons. And we should write your logins down so you have an offline record of them. Give me a minute.” Adrian then set the phone down and headed for the kitchen to get a pen and some sticky notes. His uncle was there with his father, talking about things going on back home during the last few months.
“How's it going in there?” his uncle asked when he noticed him.
“We got her info recovered.” Adrian said while testing a pen. “Turns out something broke a lot of apps on her phone, and locked her out of making changes.”
“Any idea what?”
Adrian shook his head. “A virus maybe, but the anti-virus check was clean.”
“Well, that's scary.”
“Yeah, but we're making progress. Maybe this will get her to write down her passwords.”
His uncle chuckled. “Oh, indeed, she does need to build that habit.”
“How much longer until you're done?” Adrian's father asked.
“If everything goes smoothly, maybe half an hour.” Once Adrian had what he needed, he headed back to the room. He was near the door when he heard the sound of keyboard keys clicking, and once inside, he found Emma typing something to Raven on the text application.
Initially worried, when Emma didn't immediately say anything, Adrian asked, “What's going on?”
“I was just talking to it.”
“To Raven?” When Emma nodded, and added 'I didn't ask it anything bad', Adrian sat himself down and looked over what she had typed. Several questions had been asked since he'd stepped out of the room, the first being if the program really was an AI. Emma's last question was how often they talked to each other.
“Can I keep talking to it while you work?”
Adrian glanced at Emma, then the monitor. “...So long as you run things by me first.”
Emma agreed to do so.



Now able to speak through Adrian's phone, Raven asks if there are others it may communicate with.

Raven's Voice Lines - https://1drv.ms/f/c/0cc1a5ef5f1d85e.....1X5mQ?e=DjcE6O