I13: Godzilla v. Mechagodzilla!

[Narrator]

John and ASHLIE were on the Case of the Missing IPad.

It was a cold November day, but they quickly reached the outskirts of the bookstore where ASHLIE said the call came from.

[John Hino]

"I'll check that alley first," John said, starting by using a gadget to scan for electronic components. (or something along those lines)

[Narrator]

John's tricorder (Oh, come on, that's what it was) started scanning around.

There were quite a few electronic components in a nearby dumpster, as well as some in an old phone booth, though that might just be, uh, the phone.

[ASHLIE]

"I am detecting no suspicious electronics nearby." Ashlie says, a small array of antennas rising out of her hair where an ear would be.

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>> 18 Wireless systems found
>> WiFi Connections established
>> Accessing Router logs
>> Attempting to triangulate position and trajectory of suspicious equipment

[Narrator]

Whatever device ASHLIE had traced wasn't putting out any sort of signal at the moment, but triangulation of the data from the message put it somewhere along the western wall/alleyway of the bookstore, with a margin of error of plus or minus 7.6 meters.

It had to be around here SOMEwhere.

[ASHLIE]

She feeds her information directly to John's scanner as she follows him into the alley, systematically picking up everything, literally not leaving any stone (or piece of garbage) unturned. It's a slow process.

[John Hino]

"Ugh... I think it might be in the dumpster," John said, wrinkling his nose (snout?) as he raised the metal lid.

[ASHLIE]

"Is that a problem?" she asks.

[John Hino]

"You don't have a sense of smell," he coughed as he fruitlessly waved the smell away, "Hoo! Man that reeks."

[ASHLIE]

"I do have a detector for odorant molecules. I do not have an inherent judgmental process though. Do you want me to search the dumpster?"

[John Hino]

"That would be wonderful, yes. Having a greater than human sense of smell isn't always a good thing for organics."

[ASHLIE]

"Gladly." she says and begins pulling garbage bags out of the dumpster and searching through them.

[Narrator]

ASHLIE probably would be quite happy sorting and searching and organizing. John might want to go get a coffee or something, because ew.

Eventually, though, ASHLIE would find an iPad, mostly intact, but with a cracked and broken screen. This looked like the incriminating device.

[ASHLIE]

She checks to make sure the battery isn't broken and if not, tries to power on the device, pulling a cable out of the back of her skull and plugging it into the device. Who needs screens anyway.

[Narrator]

The battery WASN'T damaged!

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Starting MS-DOC 7.1....

Macrosoft (R) Operating System/6 Version 6.6
(C) Copyright NoneOfYourBusiness Corp. 1066-2014.  All rights reserved.  All wrongs reserved.  Do not take internally.

Detecting drivers....check
Detecting automobiles...check
Detecting Poirots...check

Ah ah ah.  You didn't say the magic word

A stream of malicious ones and zeroes, some of the most cruel and argumentative numbers ever designed, shot themselves through the datalink, aimed at corrupting ASHLIE'S sensory inputs.

That's how computing works.

[ASHLIE]

Two could play at that game though and Ashlie has literal tons of crystalline processors suddenly kick into action at the detection of malicious code, shutting down everything except for two directive. 1. Deleting any new lines of code within the entirety of her programming until 2. The connection to the malicious code is severed.

She reaches up to the back of her skull even more mechanically than usual and pulls out the entire communications module. Her servos lock and the drone goes offline.

After a moment John's wrist-communicator lights up.

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>> "I encountered malicious code and had to initiate emergency procedures."
>> "Please purge the uplink module manually before reinserting it into the Autonomous Unit."

[John Hino]

Luckily for ASHLIE, John knew exactly how to do that. He carefully took the module and initiated the purge function. After it finished he reinserted the module.

[ASHLIE]

"Thank you. That was quite unpleasant. However, I did find the device."

[John Hino]

"You're welcome. Anything on it besides malicious code?"

[ASHLIE]

"I don't know. We should take it back to the school and connect it to an isolated system."

[John Hino]

"Let's go then. I'll update the team on our way."