Eli thought about lying on the floor, but the stone tiles didn’t look very comfortable. Still, he didn’t want to be standing or sitting when he did this as he couldn’t be sure what would happen. After all, he’d passed out the last time he screwed around with Guide.

Thinking of that night, he suddenly smiled as he pulled two blue blankets from his DS. He hadn’t used them since he and Dara had made it to Wolf’s Manor, but they’d done an admiral job of cushioning the two of them during the journey. Folding each a few times, he layered one blanket over the other. Laying down on top, he moved around a little as he tried to get comfortable on the floor. Not exactly comfortable even with the padding, he stared at the stone ceiling far overhead, hesitating for a few moments, but finally closed his eyes before chickening out.

Enough stalling. Calm thoughts. Turn around and look at yourself.

Breathing slowly in and out a few times, Eli focused on his mantra and its meaning. He visualized stepping outside his body as if he’d made an invisible copy that somehow stepped away from the original. Viewing himself in the third person, he found a sense of calm while conceptualizing his problems from an outside perspective. There was a distance, even if only in his head, that let him recognize his fear of the unknown and of all the things that could go wrong. He knew he could do this since it was just a simple reboot.

Follow the instructions. Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy.

“Guide, list installed programs,” he said, trying to ignore the tremble in his voice.

Basic Protocols 2.0.1

SpEB.mh3wlBXzqEoS2G6

QIzT8Dbo7y9YO.4tk

SRuCSf.1qq36kQH4XxDVl

IzFDe5575F.6L

He studied the long string of characters, wondering if the number could indicate anything meaningful. It would be nice if there was a simple character replacement scheme, but he didn’t think so since Sahara was serious about its security like most modern tech companies in ultra-competitive markets. He didn’t even know if these were just translations from whatever language Lugh spoke or complete gibberish without the correct security key. At least he recognized the top one since it was Guide’s basic protocols program that served as its emergency backup if something went wrong with the regular OS.

When he had been at work only a couple of weeks ago, Guide had the standard Sahara-approved OS installed. Unfortunately, when Eli woke up in Lugh’s lab, Guide listed an error about not finding the OS and had fallen back on its core programming, installing the basic protocols. The problem was that Guide had been largely lobotomized without the original program. From an artificial intelligence perspective, the personality algorithms, features, and processes it had used to appear near-human were gone. The only messages Eli got now were written responses and notifications, and he hadn’t heard Guide’s voice talking in his head in weeks.

He wondered at the size of the emergency storage’s capacity and whether it was already full. There were plenty of reasons for the engineers to leave extra room, just in case they needed it for future updates. Then again, he also knew how cost-conscious and close to the edge Sahara liked to run their projects. After all, his team had audited quite a few of their subsidiaries over the years.

“Guide, confirm the integrity of Basic Protocols emergency backup.”

Confirmed

Program Basic Protocols 2.0.1 saved to emergency backup

He smiled, relieved that one thing had gone as expected. “Guide, ignore the basic protocols program. For the other four, please list details.”

Information not found

Not deterred, he absently nibbled on a lip while thinking about other directions he could take. “Guide, run an analysis on the programs. Can you identify which of these four are accessed when a new language is installed?”

SpEB.mh3wlBXzqEoS2G6

IzFDe5575F.6L

Phew, that’s half. I can’t do a coin flip, though. The consequences of getting it wrong could be impressively bad, like an aneurysm, stroke, or brain dead kind of bad. One of these is hopefully the language program that Lugh gave me, and I want to keep that one if possible. Life here would get much more challenging without it – hell of an understatement. The other one…I wonder what it could be, though I’m guessing it’s connected to that monster from my nightmares.

Eli paused for a moment as he thought back to the dreams, wondering if there were any clues he’d missed.

He didn’t think the monster had said anything to help narrow his choices, but he knew he’d also shied away from thoughts on the goon since that first agonizing meeting when it had tried to strike a deal. The second night had been even worse, and he shuddered, pulling his thoughts away as images flashed before his mind. The monstrous being had clearly wanted Eli to stop his experiments, but that had been the extent of its demands as far as he could remember.

Finding no help in his gruesome memories, he focused instead on the first, long string of characters, highlighting them with a thought. “Guide, rename the highlighted string locally to ‘Hell if I know.’”

Acknowledged

Okay, that might be good. Hell, or not.

He focused on the second string, highlighting it in his HUD. “Guide, rename highlighted string to ‘Wild guess.’”

Error

An error occurred when attempting to rename the program

Please remove protection and try again

“Guide, remove the protection on program IzFDe5575F.6L,” he said, excitement tightening his voice.

No protections detected

What the hell?

He tried to reword it differently several times, but he kept returning to the same error with Guide. Somehow this program had some sort of protection, but Guide couldn’t or wouldn’t make any changes to it. He was guessing here but thought he’d run up against an edge case outside Guide’s basic protocol programming.

Okay, so we have one file I can rename and another with protections. Hell, it could be doing that if it's running, but wouldn’t that be true of the language program? Is this enough to go on? I guess I can at least take the next step and see where we are at that point.

“Guide, acknowledge that you still have the four original files received prior to their installation,” Eli said, feeling somewhat more confident with his progress since he was pretty sure he’d identified the language program. The other working programs were still unknown, but they’d all get erased soon anyway if his plan worked.

Acknowledged

Original program files received are saved in the temporary programs folder

Would you like to empty this folder?

“No, Guide. Do not delete those files,” he replied, taking another calming breath, keenly aware that he wanted to keep those originals for later. Still, before taking the last step, there was one small test he wanted to try first. It was a good intermediate step, as it was something he’d learned to do when first setting up the system during the Beta weeks ago. “Guide, save User instigated configuration and interface settings to a separate file in the emergency backup storage. Mark this file to run upon startup. Confirm.”

User Configuration Settings Saved

User Interface Edits Saved

User Preferences Saved

File Created: User Settings

User Settings File: Execute On Startup

A pulse of pain erupted at the back of Eli’s skull, and he flinched away, scared that he’d somehow been stabbed. Realizing that thought was stupid while lying on the floor, he still ran a hand over the area but didn’t feel any wounds. A glance at his hand revealed no blood, and he couldn’t help the sigh of relief at his small success, even with the pain it caused since he didn't want to lose all of his settings and changes. Plus, this test proved that he could still save files to the backup storage.

He breathed in and out, slowly and with deliberation, as he felt his heartbeat slow while the pain in his head slowly dissipated. Considering his exact words carefully, he went through the commands in his head a few times to be sure he wasn’t missing something critical. With slow and careful enunciation like the engineers had first taught him, he said, “Guide, make a copy of each of the four original programs. Save each copy in its own subfolder in the emergency backup storage. Access is limited to only User Eli Tal. Rename original file name SpEB.mh3wlBXzqEoS2G6 to ‘Language’ and confirm,” He said, enunciating each character carefully as he read it off the chat window.

Copies Made

Copies Saved

Program file SpEB.mh3wlBXzqEoS2G6 renamed

Warning – emergency storage at capacity

Please contact system administrator

Please contact medical personnel

Error – System error

A feeling that he’d made a horrible mistake crossed his mind just before the pain hit. Even as the air around him closed tight as time slowed, his hands slowly moved towards his head. It felt like his skull was about to explode as pressure built up that was trying to escape, but there was nowhere for it to go. He instinctually rolled onto his side in the fetal position as the taste of iron flooded his mouth, and his heartbeat thumped loudly in his ears. The sudden pain was overwhelming as he felt a warm liquid drool from his mouth while a piece of him seemed to whisper that he could give in to the pain, close his eyes and pass into sweet oblivion. He fought against it, though, as he needed to heal this injury first – concerned that death would follow soon after unconsciousness.

Holding his hands against his chest, he pushed healing energy into his body while imagining his health regeneration pushed to its limits. While his power rushed to contain the pressure, he summoned the small black-framed mirror. Triggering Lifesight, he struggled to steady the mirror as the pain continued to pass through him in hot waves. Giving up and propping the mirror on the floor, he focused on looking inside his head, and the layers peeled back to zero in on where Guide was installed, lower and in the back. An immediate issue presented itself: his brain was swelling. There were also dark, scary-looking striations all over the place. The lines of color localized around Guide’s small, metallic shell, but it looked like the colors were spreading as if something was actively hurting him.

Shit.

Eli imagined his brain healing, of looking like it should. He’d studied it enough over the past few days or so as he’d experimented and was relatively familiar with how things should look, or so he hoped. He imagined what he wanted – a healthy brain. Visualizing how his brain tissue should look, he also thought of how the colored mana interacted with his body’s systems within his cells. Holding tightly to the mental image he constructed of a healthy system and brain, he pushed the power out from his core.

Intention is everything. I know what I want. I will have it. I will not die here.

The white energy in his core pulsed, a shot of his power moving up his mana system, flowing out from his spinal cord and into his brain. As his energy interacted with his brain, the cells slowly changed. He watched the impact as his power, slowed within the time dilation effect, gradually spread into his body and tissues. The angry diseased-looking surface started to change before his eyes in slow motion.

In what could have been an eternity, or only mere moments, the striations slowly disappeared to nothing even as his tissues returned to their healthy color. Panting, he lay on the floor, trying to slow his heartbeat as the pain in his head subsided before fading almost entirely. He wasn’t sure how he’d survived that, with how his brain had looked.

I’m just going to count my blessings. Holy hell, though.

Breathing slowly in and out, he decided to keep going. He wasn’t done and definitely didn’t want to meet the goon again after going through all this since he didn’t think his sanity could survive another meeting. “Guide, erase all active programs and perform a hard reset and restore-from-backup process. Load only Basic Protocols and Language programs from the emergency backup. Confirm that you will not load any other programs without the explicit authorization of User Eli Tal.”

Erase Programs acknowledged

Hard Reset acknowledged

Restore from backup acknowledged

Error: No Primary Operating Program found

Backup limited to Basic Protocols

Please reinstall to remove fundamental parameter limitations

Please confirm authorization and code phrase

“Authorization User Eli Tal confirmed – Code phrase as follows: ‘Buttercup Loves the Dread Pirate Roberts.’ Execute.”

The room exploded in a flash of painful white light.