“This should do it.” Eve pressed enter, completing a subprogram for her eyes, and uploaded it into her systems.  Eve selected one of the parts she was looking for from a list she created that used a  3D model as a means of identification and began looking around. As she looked at the mountain of parts, pieces began to glow red and green. Red for bad and green for good.  “Not bad, not bad.” 

Eve began rummaging through everything. She gathered five pieces for each part that looked like they would work and stored them in her inventory. Once, she was done she headed back downstairs. When she saw Lilly sleeping at her computer and Tezz sitting in front of her staring at her, Eve smiled as she walked over and scooped Lilly up, and brought her over to the bed. “I guess I will begin working on it tomorrow.”

As soon as Eve placed Lilly into bed and slipped under the covers herself, Lilly seemed to have sensed her presence and crawled on top of Eve and hugged her, all while still sound asleep. She was directly laying on top of Eve with her head resting on Eve’s collar bone, a blissful smile on her lips. “This silly girl.” Eve brushed Lilly’s hair out of her face before opening her astral desktop again to begin working on another program. 

“Aiu, I was thinking of using my horns to connect to the internet. What do you think? I can possibly send my consciousness into the web and try to find that Todd guy and see if I can find anything out about him. What do you think?” Eve asked.

“I do not see why not as long as you tether yourself to your body. But why go through all the trouble? Can’t you just as easily hack the entire system?” Aiu was confused as to why Eve would go through so much trouble just to hack information.

“Have you never wondered what the net actually looked like? I mean, the interfaces for hacking other A.I. or even the lock on the hatch at the reclamation center all had a 3D space. You can see files one should not see if you know what I mean.” Eve explained as she continued typing away.

“I see, so you are looking for encrypted information that can not be easily accessed even through hacking. Stuff that would need extra work to get if you were to try to hack it manually and search for it.” Aiu was starting to catch on. By sending the consciousness in, you could just see the data in its pure form without needing to try to hack around everything.

“That is exactly what I am talking about. Aiu, you know me well. I mean, think about it. If I am able to see the files of any server I go to and access the server directly without needing to cover my tracks, it will make things less of a hassle. Because I would basically be like a ghost who never accessed the server in the first place, leaving no footprint. To be honest, I never thought such a thing would be possible. But if I am entering the web on my own, I can explore it and look for what I need. Access it and then come back.” Eve was starting to get excited. She actually wondered what the internet was like if you accessed it like this. 

“Just make sure you leave a tether so I can pull you back if needed.” Aiu reminded. She wanted to make sure no matter what that Eve left a connection to her body so she would not get lost and turn into bits of data to wander the internet forever.

“Mm, I will. I am actually hard coding about seven fail-safes into the system now. I will only allow short access to it before I am pulled back. I mean, I will be mainly only connecting to the main server.” Eve continued coding her system, connecting it all to her horns so she could access the internet. Once she had established a connection and had full access to enter the internet itself, she was about to set up the timer when a thought came to mind. “Hey Aiu, isn’t this the same as copying my consciousness into the web? We talked about downloading and uploading consciousness. What if this is the same thing…?”

“I am not sure if this is the same thing since you will be entering the web with a tether locking you to your body. It’s not like you are downloading your consciousness to make a copy to upload elsewhere.”  Aiu knew what Eve was talking about, but to her, it would be the same as if Eve played a virtual reality game where she could control things but her mind never actually left her body. In a sense, Eve was not actually entering the web only extending her visual sense out to explore it and manipulate it. Although she would be using her mind instead of doing things physically, just like she did when hacking the hanger or the destroyer.

“I guess you are right. Alright, I will set my timer for thirty minutes. If I do not come back, use one of the fail-safes I have set up.” Eve closed her eyes and prepared herself. Even she was a little worried. But nothing would be gained if she did not at least try. “Here I go.” 

White, blue, and green streams of lights flashed past Eve’s eyes as she felt like she had just fallen into a void. The streams of lights continued to flash by for a few minutes until finally, she found herself in a strange place. Standing in front of what looked like buildings that had different web pages on them came into view. Around it flying around, were blue lights flashing by like flying cars in the sky. “Now, this is very interesting….” Eve looked around and saw each webpage seemed to have a file system attached to it, giving access to each of the site's folders. “Now then… I can access websites easily enough but what I need to do is access the main computers where data is being uploaded from. Wait, does that idiot even have a computer? I guess I should start with the government sites that are used for internal use.”