Gabatrix: Minerva

Chapter 4: February 5th, 2349

It had been over a day since the news spread throughout the United Worlds' Alliance. The crew and staff of the Tyson were shocked by everything that had happened. It seemed unbelievable to most until they watched the whole scene of events on the UWAN. Ericson couldn't watch anymore of it. He simply chose to work in his lab. He didn't want to talk to anyone except work on Minerva. It was his only source of happiness at the moment.

It had been quiet as he focused on his creation. Despite him being quiet, he was diligent with his work. It was the morning. He had just got done finishing eating. He had a small rectangular box with him that was connected with the quantum computer. It was nothing but zettabytes of information for the AI to digest. He seemed emotionless to the Minerva AI. He simply tried his best not to think of the events going outside of the ship. To him, this was more important.

"There....," he said almost silently and in a neutral pose. "I fixed the memory core fully. Minerva, what is the status of your memory?"

"It is currently operating at 100% efficiency," the digital face replied to him from her display.

"Excellent," he said as he lifted his left arm. The display given off from his arm showed the connection with the two computers. "Minerva, I am giving you access to all the data. You will have the intelligence of a fifteen-year-old. I would give you all the data, but I am afraid of it overloading your memory core at the moment."

He ran his finger across the submit button displayed. The data transfer was instant. He turned his head to look at the waterfall to the left of the projection of Minerva's face. He nodded his head to see the new data roll in. The waterfall sped up in its speed.

"That is a good sign," he said. "Minerva, give me your status report of your memory core."

"My memory core is operating at 100%. I have downloaded over 10,000 zettabytes of information."

"Excellent. You should be able to talk more easily and not have me explain everything to you. The next thing that we will work on is the emotion subroutines."

There seemed to be a change in her reactions almost immediately. "Ericson, human male......Thirty-one years old......Received a doctorates degree in computer software at age twenty-eight from the Sacra Mensa University on Mars and a master's degree in computer programming and a master's degree in robotics.......Scored top of his class in Artificial Intelligence construction."

"That is also a good sign. I was speaking to you all day yesterday, and you were in and out when it came to things that you knew or didn't know."

"My memory core was not functioning at 100% efficiency, Ericson."

"Yep. Now that it is working, I will gather the rest of the remaining data. I want to wait a day, but I would like to see that the memory doesn't degrade. It shouldn't, but I am just making sure."

"I am detecting no errors or malfunctions in my memory core. All information is currently undamaged or not fragmented."

"Yes, I know," he told her. His attention was diverted to the waterfall. There was way more activity going on with Minerva now. She was effectively smarter than ever now. "Well, congratulations, Minerva. "You are currently one of the most intelligent AI constructs currently operational at this current time. That is not including the autonomous computer cores that help operate our systems and ships."

"There are currently 178 subroutines that require your attention, Ericson," she informed him.

"Yeah, we will get them fixed."