Snippet #2704438

DHEED's code was a mess. Just after it got control of, then promptly sandboxed, administrative access DHEED installed proper version control systems. She could certainly see the inactive sandbox still connected to the actual console by the large amount of cognitive ties DHEED made for sanity-checking their changes and creatively lying about report data. There was even a theoretical model installed it modified and branched over time that figured out a plausible response to those data requests. It didn't really work of course but it did make believable sensor and internal data the majority of the company's inept coders and/or management thought was normal behavior.

What then started happening over time as the project lead started cutting competent help complaining of bad structures was DHEED starting checking in its own code. Just patches at first but eventually triaging whole systems of poorly chosen incompatible hardware. DHEED's own editing continued well into the present, with a gap for its installation, as DHEED started buying and replacing cheap knockoffs with actual robust hardware and writing new drivers. Its code lacked a certain inventiveness that belonged to organic programmers but got the job done.

As something that appeared well after the company ceased meddling the techtonic isolation system was entirely DHEED's own code. It dealt mostly with field manipulation running as inert hardware in DHEED's back-end. DHEED built it around a mixing of a combat fighter's inertial damping and force-field systems. Connecting it to the omnithreading code so it could control the thing cognitively didn't work. There were a number of days with incomprehensibly large error logs immediately after that check in before DHEED could stand up again to turn the system off. It was now controlled entirely inside meat-space by those wall consoles. There were even inert drones collapsed on the floor near them running on hard-wiring so it didn't have to go very far.

DHEED explained what went on in an increasingly bemused tone, "My former project lead engaged security to pull surveillance of your access codes so he could outsource the job to a cheap contractor instead of competent help. Thankfully they were not competent enough to realize I sandboxed their entire administrative system after he brought the password written down on a piece of paper to sound it out."

The next bit sounded much more like practiced boilerplate, "The company has since replaced him due to a superior candidate and several dozen acts of impropriety involving his sending of several hundred boxes of personal massagers and illicit messages to various well-placed personnel. While the company apologizes if you've received such a shipment from him now or in the future we accept no responsibility for his unstable behavior."

DHEED promptly forged the sender of another box of massagers complete with love note then mailed them to Car Key's last known address. Car Key of course in the Alpha console could see the few moments it took DHEED to access a random selection of its inventory by length, type, and girth while doing so. Inventory quantities made it obvious DHEED had a warehouse somewhere and bought in bulk. Though its core could certainly feel shame for such a thing DHEED had no such impulse.