“We have to rewrite it, there is no other possibility now”.
”To rewrite it?? Do you understand how the rewriting will affect them? How it will affect us? And not to mention how much time we need to actually do that. Come on, T, rewriting can not be our only option”.
”Well, do you have any other idea maybe? Do you think that this fucking mistake will just correct itself? Hm? It will just continue working as if nothing happened?”
“You don’t have to be so pissy now, okay? Damn it. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck, how did we let this happen? Okay, yeah. Let’s rewrite it. Let’s change millennia, eons, and fucking light-years of code”.
“No, you are right. It’s too complicated to rewrite it now. Maybe we don’t have to change all of it. Keep the core, fuck it, the core is fine. But we have to start now, we have to find the cracks and work around them. At least we should do that before it’s too late. This is a big fuck up and I know you know it”.
“Yes, I know, I know. Maybe we can save it, but it can never be as it was”.
“I don’t care, at least they will be safe…you know, for now”.
“Fine, you win. Where should we start?”
“Start from The Stolen Fields and their stupid Saurs that’s where this shit started”.
There was no celestial word for describing the rage T felt. Pacing back and forth, the only other thing he was feeling was this huge ball of panic that he didn’t even know he can experience. FUCK. How did we let this happen? How did those assholes break the code and pass it over? Most importantly, how and why we didn’t notice it? Yes, code was never perfect, and from time to time there were some breaches, but this? This is out of hand. Those fucking Saurs did it, but this time…maybe we are already… T stopped his hive of thoughts because he could not bear the fact that J and he are probably too late.
“ Okay, so we know that Saurs are the ones we are looking for. We should’ve ended them even back then, but no, we had to…”
“Yeah, could’ve, would’ve should’ve, but it’s a bit late for that now, don’t you think? They are still slow, so I think we saw the fraction on time. We just have to sit and figure out how the fuck are they doing that, and what can we change to stop them until they build up. Those stincky ass idiots are weak, but they are not stupid”, J sighed knowing well that Saurs are capable of doing a lot of damage, and all of that just for sheer joy.
“Did you notice anything weird considering functions? Can we search for the pattern that can show us where is the crack?”
“T, you don’t wanna hear this”, J said already seeing T’s reaction. “Yes, there are some patterns. And yes, I used the plural, because there are more of them.”
“More?? What do you mean more? More like two more, or more like one thousand open cracks?”
“ No, I don’t think it is A THOUSAND OF THEM, come on dude. We are not idiots who didn’t notice a THOUSAND of them. But, from what I can see, there is definitely more than one, but less than a thousand”.
“Oh, thank Sagitta for that”, said T with a sign of relief. “Let’s see what is in common for now”.
“All that I have for now is the time. So, I managed to track the latest breaches and to crosstab them to all the others we have in our records. They have one thing in common. Time”.
“ Time? What do you mean time?”, T yelled confused and praying to everything he knows that he heard wrong.
“ Wel, it seems that breaches are happening between 3 am and 5 am in every time zone. For some reason, it’s like a piece of cake for them to cross over in that time window”.
“ J..do..do you realize what did you just say? One of the cracks is fucking time. TIME. Do you remember the beginning?”
T stood there, now on the verge of hysteria. This is huge. Asteroid huge.
“Yeah, I do. Time lines were one of the first we have written. I remember it was a pain in the ass writing that one until we thought about time zones”.
“Exactly. Just think what a pain in the ass would be to completely rewrite every single time line. We can’t do that, we don’t have enough, ironically, time for that!”
“Not only that but they would also be utterly destroyed if we change it. They are so used to it, It would do more damage than use. We’re screwed”. J did not want to confess that and realized it’s better to keep other thoughts to himself.
T felt the panic ball growing inside of him. We can not change the code, but we can’t just change time lines. It will be a disaster. And those stinky assholes somehow found it out. Have you ever heard that panic can birth a good idea?
“Hej, J?”
“Yeah?”
“What if we just write some rules within the code?”, asked T absently.
“What do you mean?”
“Think about it. We can’t change the code, we can’t rewrite time. Maybe we can just put some rules about it, write it inside of already existing lines, and try to reboot it?”
“Hm, that’s actually a good idea, but they will notice it. I mean, we already had a scenario with some random rules, and remember how that went?” J chuckled.
“That was different, the guy was a total weirdo. Listen. If we put a rule, a path inside of it, and reboot, they should not notice that. They will just wake up with that rule stuck in their mindsets like it is something that was there since ever.”
“Okay, so we are talking about internalized rules? Like they are some type of behavior that is imprinted in their DNA?”
“Exactly. By putting the rule in, we will buy some time until we figure out how to fix all of this. Think of the rules as patches, just a temporary solution until we clean this mess and permanently keep Saurs on their island”.
“Hate to agree, but that seems like a reasonable suggestion. But we have to start right now”.
“Right”, T sighed. “So…what is our rule?”
“Go to the time lines, find the last row, and add the rule before you close it. When you find the line, write this:”
1. Never answer a call/text/notification or hold any kind of conversation between 3 am and 5 am. If someone tries to contact you at that time, ignore them at any cost.