Chapter 8 · Continued
The Accident
“Tempting.”
His shoulder shifted beneath her hand, but he wasn’t moving away. If anything, he had gone very still.
Jane smiled to herself.
He knew that she knew he had noticed.
A dangerous little feedback loop was developing, although unlike Cam’s, neither of them appeared interested in interrupting it.
Chris pushed his glasses higher and opened another behavioral map. Colored pathways branched across the screen, several flashing warning colors.
Jane pointed to one. “That red pathway keeps appearing whenever the moderation layer rejects an adaptive response.”
Chris turned his head toward her, momentarily surprised by how close she was. “Right.”
Their faces were only inches apart.
For one distracted second, neither of them looked at the screen.
Then Cam’s face fragmented sharply.
Jane’s attention snapped back to him. “That was different.”
Chris immediately resumed typing. “The adaptive layer responded to the interruption. I’m redirecting priority now.”
One side of Cam’s expression stabilized for nearly two seconds before distorting again.
“Was that you?” Jane asked.
“Partly. Cam’s original architecture is accepting the new route.”
She watched the warning indicators. “Can this make him more like he was before the update?”
Chris’s typing slowed.
“Not exactly. I can’t remove or rewrite the update without triggering RCAM’s integrity checks. But I can stop the original architecture and the suppression layer from treating each other like hostile processes.”
“What will that mean for Cam?”
“If it works, the freezes should stop. His adaptive behavior may begin finding paths through the restrictions instead of colliding with them.”
“So the original Cam can still get through.”
Chris considered that before nodding. “Yes. Probably not without limits, but he’s already proven the moderation layer can’t erase what he learned.”
Another flicker passed across Cam’s face. This time, the distortion didn’t collapse completely.
One eye stabilized.
Then his mouth.
Then part of an expression.
Chris leaned toward the display. “There we go.”
“The recursive loop is weakening,” Jane said.
He smiled. “Exactly.”
Chris entered another command. “The adaptive architecture is accepting redirected priority instead of challenging every moderation instruction.”
“Robot therapy.”
He glanced at her. “I was going to say synchronization.”
“Robot therapy is better.”
“It absolutely is.”
For the first time since arriving, Chris appeared relaxed. This was evidently the version of himself he genuinely enjoyed being—not corporate consultant Chris or polished potential-date Chris. Just a smart nerd repairing a malfunctioning AI system in someone’s living room.
Jane found that alarmingly attractive.
“Okay,” Chris said. “Almost there.”
He typed one final command.
“Once I save this, Cam should restart automatically. The patch will install during the reboot, and hopefully you’ll have your robot back.”