A grim report

"Let's take a look at it," said Specs as he headed toward 6T9 at the other end of the room. "These multi-bot models feature a lot of redundancy which may help." As he approached her, he clicked something on his goggles and they began to emit a scanning beam. Then he proceeded to look over her chassis.

"This is some of the worst damage I've seen! You say this unit was in waste processing when this happened?" You nodded. "I'm surprised it didn't trigger an alarm. We'd better report this immediately." Specs then moved to a nearby panel, activated some kind of communication device and spoke to someone in engineering. However, you were only able to hear Specs' side of the conversation. "I've got a badly damaged bot here that was apparently in waste processing. Was there some kind of explosion or fire?" "No? Are you sure?" "What do you mean the sensors are down?" "We better check it out. Can you get a team down here?" "Yes, the human is with me." "Evac? Alright, but only if we can use one of the labs on the science level." "On our way."

"They're evacuating this level as a precaution. We'll take this unit and the tools needed up to an empty lab on the science level, and we'll see if we can fix it there." He then did a quick assessment of the other machines waiting in line for repair. "We'll take these two units as well. Both should be easy repairs." He then tapped a nearby panel and sets of silvery discs emerged which then floated to the machines, attached and lifted them for transport. "Let's go."

After a short trip to the elevator, up to the fourth level and into the vacant lab, Specs resumed his inspection of 6T9. While he examined her, he occasionally stopped to check details on one of the nearby panels. As he progressed, his face grimaced and he made some low groans. Finally he was done. "It's not good. We might be able to save the unit, but doing so will likely erase whatever data points and internal adaptations had led to it being sentient."

"Isn't there some kind of check-pointing to allow the system to revert to a recent state?" you asked.

"Fundamentally, there is, but it's all internal. The damage to the processing nodes was so severe that the unit went into an emergency shutdown mode waiting for the unit to recover. In that state, the nodes are designed to revert to an original default configuration if they receive a specific reset signal. Due to the extensive damage, one of the nodes began began broadcasting that signal, and as a result all of the functional nodes are now fully reset."

"So her personality is erased? That's terrible!" you exclaimed. "Then there's nothing we can do?"

"Several of the damaged nodes have not reset, either because they were unable to detect that signal, or they were too damaged to perform the reset. It's possible that some of those nodes could have a recent copy of the necessary data to restore it," Spec explained. "Unfortunately, accessing the failing nodes is extremely difficult, and there's also a chance that doing so could either cause those nodes to reset or lose the data in the process. Furthermore, multi-bots don't have a standard diagnostic interface to even allow this type of access."

It seemed hopeless. Maybe it was time to admit that 6T9 was gone. You thought back to your brief but memorable encounter including the fantastic sex and what had led up to it. Then you remembered something. "6T9 was able to enter my mind using some kind of multi-synaptic interface," you replied. "Could that be used or reversed to allow someone to access 6T9's data instead?"

Specs looked at you and then back at 6T9 and paused for several seconds. "That interface is designed for direct brain input and output. It's not intended to access the machine's data nodes or data storage, but the functionality could potentially be augmented to do that. The machine's nodes, pathways and data could be mapped into identifiable constructs. However, it would require someone who is well-trained in navigating and operating within such a machine-based environment."

Specs had just described the basics of a VR simulation. "I just spent the last six months on board the Odyssey training for exactly this type of situation. I'll do it," you declared.