Putting the Damn Thing to Use

Artemis woke up on the couch in his quarters, his head pounding. "Dudes, there is a meeting in the refectory in half an hour. There is a meeting in the refectory in half an hour" Holly announced. "Yeah....got it smeghead" Artemis stumbled off the couch and wandered into the bathroom. He sorted through the medicine cabinet and pulled out a hypospray that he had invented back during his stint with the Guild. Hangoverasol, an over the counter medication to nertz the effects of a hangover. He shot the drug into his neck and suddenly he could think clearly, and he didn't feel so.....horrid. That was when he remembered what he discovered last night.....while partaking in.....an event Artemis didn't want to remember. "The virus!" He shouted, rushing into the living room. Artemis kneeled down beside The Missus, who was slumped over in a corner. "My MS scanner dear, the one from last night! Where is it!" The intoxicated Skutter pointed to the hamper and passed out. Artemis grabbed the device, changed his clothes, and ran off.

In the Refectory

".....The virus must have arrived at some point between now and when all of you had set off to save Jay" Artemis said, trying to recall his discoveries from the previous night. "It was introduced in a small enough size that neither Holly nor any attentive crew member would have been able to notice. It has been doubling in size, so much so that the ship's internal bandwidth is heavily constricted, preventing any conventional solutions" "Basically what Dr. Pritchard is saying is that this virus is taking over our ship" Seymour chimed in.

<snip>

“Yes.” Artemis was saying. “Unfortunately, while partaking of-“ Seymour gave him a look “… a certain, shared subst- er experience, late last night, Jacky and I discovered the virus is quite deeply embedded indeed. Quite nasty.”
“Yeah.” Jacky called from his chair, not bothering to stand up.
“Now," said Artie with a flourish of his hand, "we’ve deduced that the most fun-" Seymour shot him another look “… uh, that is to say the most efficient way of dealing with the problem, is to send a team in to manage it manually…”
<snip/>

Artemis looked around at the others to make sure they were paying attention, noticing that Alex was kind of drifting off. "The virus acts like a digital strain of Systemic Lupus Erythematosus. It makes the Dwarf's own systems attack each other. Cyber Security, the effective computer immune system of our ship, is attacking life support, engineering, and navigation. Within a few hours it will reach Holly, who will be unable to defend himself...and if we lose Holly it's only a matter of time before the ship suffers a total failure and we're forced into space. Now, as I stated, we can manage the virus manually by entering them computer systems. I'm not sure exactly how we'll manage, but I have a theory that may allow us to clip the virus out of the ship systems while preserving the binary code. I'll get to work on it soon" "This is life or death....." Jay started.

<snip>
“... We need to get it before it spreads to Holly.”
“Indeed. So, I’m afraid, before we can recover Ms Jones,” Seymour was saying, addressing the whole group “this problem must be dealt with, and those who I mentioned are going to have to enter the virtual reality world in order to manually deal with the virus with all available haste.” He looked around the room. “Chop chop!” He added.
“Uh!” Jay got to his feet and used his cane to hobble over to Seymour and stand next to him, heading the meeting. “What Seymour means is, if you wouldn’t mind, it would help a lot, and the more of you who enter the AR in order to combat the virus - head to head, hand to hand - the speedier things will progress.” He sighed, and Alex noticed how weary he looked.
“Now, that’s not to put you under pressure,” he told everyone. “… it’s just a fact. Anybody who’d rather not enter, you are of course free to say no.”
“Yes” agreed Artemis “There is a slight chance that things could get dangerous.”

“When is it ever any different?” Alex grumbled, louder than he’d intended.
“What was that, Solvay?” Jay asked, not challenging, but a genuine question as he couldn’t make out Solvay’s back-of-the-room mumble.
Not wanting to draw any unnecessary attention to himself after opening up like an idiot in front of them all last night, he just waved a hand and said “nothing.”

Jay shrugged. “So, I’ll leave you guys to think it over, if we could have your answers by first thing tomorrow though.” He cast his leaderly gaze over the group “… I’d appreciate it.”
<snip/>

"One last thing everyone" Artemis announced, stopping the mass exodus. "As I was saying before Lanky Locks' interruption is that there is a slight chance things could get dangerous. The binary code is heavily damaged at the moment, and until we can repair it, the systems will behave erratically. There's no knowing what the virtual world will look and behave like, so those of you joining the team, be prepared for anything. Okay, if nobody else has anything to add, that is all...."

Jay approached Artemis as the group dissipated. "Doc, what's your plan?" He asked. "Okay, by entering the systems using the AR system we can reverse the damage. However, without a sufficient power source we won't get far. That being said, I propose modifying my fusion core. With the modifications it will be able to interface with us and supercharge our a actions in the AR world, which if used correctly should work to clear the contagion. In the meantime it can also add additional processing power to Holly to stall the degradation, but not for long" Jay remembered the name fusion core from the past, but he couldn't put his finger on it. It didn't matter anyway, if Artemis was right it would help them, immensely. "Okay Doc, make any modifications you need and set it up" "With haste Mr Chrysler!" As Alex passed by, Jay grabbed him by the arm, prompting Artemis to scurry away.

Artemis had hours of hard work ahead of him, at least The Missus could help in the research. Artemis was just happy he was putting the damn fusion core to use after everything he went through to steal it.....

To Be Continued