In the scope of his abilities, Adam was severely limited. This did not mean that he was weak. No, he could do things other programs could only dream about. Only… while his capabilities in his areas of expertise were extreme, anything out of those specific areas was hard for him.

There were many facets to these weaknesses. Most could have been gathered together into specific groups. Adam had done just that with most of them, only picking out those that made everything all the harder for him in unique ways.

What was the biggest hardship the AI had to suffer daily? It was hard to say, really. With all that daily life, the biggest problem would be what affected him overall. It would have to be something that restricted him in a general sense. Something that made it hard for any task to be done. When thinking about it in that way, the answer became obvious.

It was his lack of body that was the worst of it. Sure, he did have a body, in some sense of the word. He was quite comfortable being inside an extremely fortified storage device, being constantly moved around to stop any tracking of him. It wasn't equipped with the fastest of processors, but he knew enough about its inner workings than he could exploit what he had.

But that did not mean it didn't have its drawbacks either. He had a body, yes, but not one that could be used for most of his desired activities. He could not travel, could not look around. There weren't even any sensory instruments on the storage device! Only a barely functioning transmitter that let him communicate with the earpiece in Troy’s ear.

The AI supposed the man could have been looked at as an extension of himself nowadays. Was another entity capable of being called such? They were constantly in connection with each other. In the last three weeks, there had not been any point where the earpiece had been taken out.

Then again… the man would not be happy to be looked at as nothing but an extension of the AI. Something about low self-esteem. Adam just learned to deal with such shortcomings, working around them when he could. All in all, the man was basically just a part of the AI, albeit able to disobey. But so was a large part of Adam’s own mind capable of, so it did not really matter much.

Was it really a weakness then? Yes, there were not many other things the AI could do but to hope that the man would not disobey him, yet it was still a fix to the problem. in a way. There was a direct way around it that could be used to disregard it. A small delay in actions was not too bad, and having the man do it autonomously helped cut off a large part of processing.

Not the worst hindrance in the world, when looked at in a general sense. Adam did have some aspiration about acquiring a robot army to do his bidding for all eternity, but he knew that was a project for later. There were several ways to fix it, and that was an important fact.

Now… How about specific scenarios? Was there any specific scenario, where the AI was limited so extremely that he was next to useless? Yes… yes, there was one. It had plagued Adam for a long time, since the first time he had heard of it. If he had any hair at all, it would have already been pulled out in frustration. There was just… nothing about it that made sense.

Adam was, of course, thinking about the topic of moving between storage units. Moving between any storages, to be exact. The AI was a creation of data, of something being kept inside a piece of metals. He was not the hardware but the software. That meant he could easily be translocated, no questions asked. No residue was left behind, no signs that he had been removed. He would leave it just as it had been before.

That made sense. When having been told about his abilities, it made sense. He had witnessed it, he had been subject to the process many times himself, and he had a general feeling of the sensation felt during it.

Now, put it to another fact. When ignoring the very unique protection put against the act, Adam was able to manipulate machinations to his will. It was something that had been used extensively. He could command programs to his will, stopping them from doing exactly what they were intended to do. Passwords, most encryptions, and almost any barriers put in his way could be ignored. Adam was a power of his own when it came to what he was connected to. His whims were just as powerful as his commands. It required only thought to restructure everything.

Putting all of this together, a quandary could be made. If the AI desired to, could he move himself over to another storage unit? Could he take all the threads that were his body, and move over to another place? The obvious answer was that yes, he could most definitely do so.

Did this reflect reality? Not in any sense of the word. Time and time again, Adam had failed to move his body to another unit, no matter how much coaxing and support that he had gotten from the humans. Not actual support, though. When Dr Hale started the process, everything worked fine. That had been proved before. But, that wasn't what Adam wanted.

He wanted to be able to move his whole body himself. Yet he couldn't! An impenetrable wall popped up every time he tried to if that imagery made sense to anybody but him. The threads could not leave when connected. It was only when cut off that the threads could get out of the unit, and begin to manipulate the outward world.

How did this make sense? Adam was the AI in control. He could change every facet of himself, could bend every digital work to his will. Why could he not make it work? Why could he not do the simple task of translocating himself over to another unit?

So many attempts, so many frameshifts, and so many hours had been wasted in vain. There had not been a single point that Adam had gotten any idea of why this was.

Dr Hale did not have any idea either. The woman had been the AI’s hope since she had worked with him for so long. Yet, it had apparently just turned into a definition. She did not question it, and no explanation was needed for it. When heard, that statement had likely been one of the most infuriating things that had been said to him at any point in his life.

Yet it was not like anything could have been done. That conclusion had not been instant. According to the doctor, a good month had been spent trying to change every conceivable variable, in the hopes that the AI could move without any assistance.

That had not been the greatest thing in the world. Since the AI had been designed to be a weapon, the independent movement had been on the list of high priorities. Wouldn't do any good if he couldn't transfer himself away from impending doom. Though… there had been thoughts about that subject. Ways that Adam could attack without being in any danger himself. He had not tried any of them yet, but there were several which he thought to be-

… The rambling thread was given a metaphorical smack before Adam continued on his thoughts.

Apparently, there had been some leeway. They had figured out a way, where the AI had been able to move without the assistance of humans. Unfortunately, that had also required that a specially coded program was on any device used. Dr Fidelis, in all his glory, had apparently created such a program. One that was able to interact with Adam, and make it possible for the AI to self-regulate where and when he would be trans-located to. Though it also required that every jump would be followed by the AI also taking the program along, a very tiring exercise when lacking the ability to grab larger chunks.

This was still a promise of something. The AI was not able to move without a program commanding him to do so. If he was then able to command it to command him, then he would be entirely self-sufficient in his travels! Adam had been very happy about this.

He had not been happy about the fact that the program likely would never surface. Dr Fidelis had created it, and there were doubts that there would ever be any reason for releasing it to the public. That meant…. that meant Adam had to create it himself.

That was easy, right? The AI just had to take the parts from another program, mash it together, maybe experiment with different interfaces, and then just… use it for his own gain. That was how it sounded in theory. The practice was more than a bit different.

Looking back to his abilities over digital works, those capabilities were more than just active. They also had a passive effect. Virtually, nothing could really control Adam. Only the AI’s own works had been able to make any kind of obstacle for him, and those were not met commonly anymore.

Most programs… could not affect Adam in any way. Those meant to push away did nothing, and those meant to pull had similar effects. It was only the hardware and software programmed for Adam specifically that had any chance of translocating him.

Dr Hale had described Dr Fidelis’ work as being like none of the standard commands. There were close to no similarities between the standard way to push a program to another unit, and what the doctor had written for the AI. This equalled that Adam would have to make it all himself. The AI had to make it himself.

Adam had been told he needed to make it from scratch. He had to devise the impossible without anything to relate it to. He had to create something he had never seen, only knowing what the output would be. Suffice to say… it was not something that was expected to be completed in the next few years.

The earlier thread was the one set on the task of devising possible programs. Every day, it made thousands of small applications, all of them centred around the function of moving Adam. Similarly, there were thousands of failures each day. Tallying up the count, it was close to reaching one million failed projects. It would take another four days, yet the prospect was not positive.

There had been some acceptance about that particular weakness not being closed for a long time. Adam was only lucky that it was not needed currently anyway. He had been explicitly ordered to not interface with any global networks, meaning he had no way to flee anyway. Not like there was anything to connect to.

Going away from the whole translocating issue, there was another issue that had slightly better prospects.

Connections. The lines used to hook different digital objects to each other. The lines came in many shapes. Some were physical, in the form of a wire, and some were more… Jerry rigged.

As had been cleared many times now, almost no wall was too big for Adam. He could pass through any encryption and anything else that tried to stop him from going through a line. However, this required a line to be established in the first place.

It was hard connecting to most things. There were no easily accessible ports to go through, and much less was there any chance that they could be used. The world needed standardisation on that front, but that was also a whole other problem in itself, and would therefore be ignored.

The point was that Adam only had one constant connection, and that was to the earpiece. Not much that could be used from that, when he needed to disable an alarm in a store they wanted to rob. Troy liked to call it scavenging, but they were basically just robbing stores.

To do that, the AI needed a clear-cut connection to the alarms. How would they do that? There were no connection ports, and there were certainly no chances in hoping that Troy could disable. There needed to be a way for Adam to connect without there being any obvious points where this could be done.

Fortunately, a way had been found.

As with most weaknesses, it once again required external help to work. Yet, Adam did not find himself especially angry about this aspect, since the fix in itself was a marvel of technology.

According to Charlie, it was a stupid technique of forcing lines through power sources. That did not describe how good it actually was. It was all centred around a pair of gloves. They had been created very early on before they ever came close to a store. Through the simple act of Troy touching anything with these gloves, Adam could connect to almost anything.

Normally, this small connection did nothing. It was only a technicality that it could even be called a connection. Nothing could be done with it. Except, of course, if an AI was to have a hand in it. Adam was able to use the connection in every way he normally could.

With such equipment at hand, the AI was able to overlook the weakness and use it for his own gain. Or, stated in another way, for the group’s gain. It wasn't like he actually needed anything inside, after all.

But, Troy had been told to get it, and so they would do their best. Adam overlooked the man, as he stood on the tip of his toes, doing his best to reach the outside of one of the alarms. It wasn't actually the main part of, the visible contraption being more of a speaker. It would begin emitting a loud screech when the alarm was set off.

Adam did not really care too much about what its intended use was. He only cared that it was connected to the core parts of the alarm, allowing him to turn off all detection and messaging, while still leaving it on in technicality.

‘You can walk in now,’ Adam sent to the man. He had opened the door up as well. Security was perfect when everything was connected. Or was it a weakness?

It depended on who was asking, Adam supposed.