On the opposite side of the country, far from where Emissary 9901 had her embassy and where most of the Gynoids on Earth lived and operated, a small team of men gathered in a rather rundown looking home in the California desert. The home was part of a rather large property that was part of an old mining operation that went bust in the 1920s and what was supposedly mined there was even a mystery to the men when they'd bought the property. They weren't too terribly far from various local towns and Silicone Valley was within easy driving distance, but they were just remote enough to have plenty of privacy.
"So, Leo... we got this old mining property and fixed up the various buildings that they're habitable and hooked up to the grid," one man asked as he pushed up the thick black rimmed glasses, "what now?"
"Now comes the difficult part," a rather overweight man commented, "getting maps on how their computerized brains work and their natural defenses."
The other three men traded glances, more from confusion than opposition to the base idea.
"You still think a computer virus is the best idea?" the man with glasses, a man named Mark Tyre, asked, "Didn't the first one... 9901 say that they'd dealt with computer viruses?"
The overweight man, Leo Yotslot, nodded, "She did make mention of encountering Earth computer viruses, yes, but she also mentioned that dealing with them was "tricky." That has to mean that despite being a race of sentient computers and possibly running into other aliens that had the technological capacity to have computers of their own... that things like computer viruses CAN be a problem for them."
"But she still beat the viruses she encountered," the third man in the room, Yuri Rubnik, pointed out with a heavy Russian accent, "Why try something that we know she can beat? I mean... we managed to hack the Defense Department's files on the issue. The army has some sort of covert plan they're calling: Operation Lights Out... but they apparently only have that in a paper copy or has the electronic copy on another server than the one we hacked..."
"That could mean that they have a virus plan too," said the fourth man in the room, Luigi Rex, commented, "we'd be helping them."
"Given the funding that the Army's given to General Standing and his operations at the base where they took 9901's ship, that's doubtful," Yuri commented, "The actual plan for what Operation Lights Out is is a mystery... but the money, personnel requirements, and even a few supply lists have been online. None of which are all that high tech. More than likely what the army has is a weapon they think can counter the Gynoids."
The others nodded while Yuri remained calm. Much of what he knew of General Standing's operation was from his true employer's interests. Many of the world's leaders were rather hesitant to borderline aggressive with regards 9901's arrival and announcement. Physically there was plenty that the nations of the world could do to stop them, as they had plenty of weapons that could counter them. The American made M2 Browning .50 caliber machine gun could shatter concrete cinder-blocks and still kill an enemy soldier wearing body armor on the other side from reasonable combat ranges. Unless these Gynoids were covered in some liquid metal that was on part with comic book metals like Adamantium or Vibranium in the Marvel Universe that were far lighter than steel but far stronger than even Titanium, Yuri was fairly certain that most military grade weapons could penetrate their bodies and do serious damage to their internal systems. His personal suspicions were confirmed when he'd seen the news reports on the church arson case. The Gynoid in question survived the fire and the heat, but had taken serious damage to her exterior in the process. It was clear that physical attacks could do them harm.
The trouble though, was that 9901 landed in America and since she had made no obviously violent action, the US didn't exercise their power to defeat the "invader." Yuri's employers in the Kremlin figured that the Americans were simply afraid of coming off as the "bad guy" in terms of dealing with the Gynoids. Russian satellites had picked up the activity at the base that General Standing was operating out of, but it seemed clear that whatever Standing's men were up to, they weren't going to use that weapon unless the Gynoids became an actual threat first. Dealing with the Gynoids was one of the main goals, but Yuri's prime mission was to ultimately find out what the US army was doing with 9901's ship. He'd then found this small group of computer hackers who were all rather anti-Gynoid, mostly in fear that these interstellar robot women would make it tougher for them scam people online, which suited Yuri's orders perfectly as it would allow him to kill two birds with one stone.
"If they have a weapon, why haven't they used it?" Leo shot back, "the lead bot came down and flat stated that every human is to be made into a Gynoid and our culture... way of life... and good fortune is to be destroyed or ended... or at least relegated to a relic of history."
And that made sense. The Gynoids had all made the commentary that they would save Earth's cultures by recording them. The trouble was, that recording information about past cultures and civilizations didn't PRESERVE them. The Romans wrote extensively on the Gauls and the Carthaginians, yet BOTH cultures were effectively destroyed. The records the Romans kept on them only let it be known that they existed once. The Spanish wrote on culture, governments, and natures of the Aztec and Inca, and while there were people who could claim Aztec and Inca heritage, their cultures were gone and destroyed. The written records had only assured that people knew that the Aztecs and Incas did exist once as their own countries on Earth. Written or digital records of Earth's present cultures and peoples wouldn't preserve them, they would merely provide a record of what had come before.
"More than likely they don't want to look bad after years of going out of their way to make America the bad guy on the world stage," Yuri commented, "attacking someone with tanks that hasn't attacked you won't look good."
"Then perhaps a virus is a way to help the army out," Leo answered, "we get the Gynoids sick with some kind of virus... the virus makes them go against what they've said they are... cause trouble... and the army puts them down in response."
"And how is this to work?" Yuri asked skeptically.
"It's a multi stage operation," Leo answered, "our present computer viruses likely failed to do 9901 serious harm because they weren't designed to deal with Gynoids or anything beyond our present computing systems. It's sorta like trying to use a virus designed for the Windows operating system against the Mac operating system. The virus isn't designed for the different system and thus has trouble trying to infect it... and if the Mac system has anti-virus software installed, they become even better protected than they were before."
"So... we're to start asking questions on how their systems work?" Luigi asked as he looked to the computer system that was in the room that they were in.
The computer was high tech, brand new, and had the largest amounts of memory and programming ability and on its own server. The group had done the same with the other outbuildings on the property as well. Each was on a different server.
"Yes, we want the questions asked to be friendly and curious," Leo answered, "maybe even ask as though you're curious of joining them and wanting to know how they work and how they interface with our computer systems. Make sure that it's typed, though. It'd make the intent behind the questions more difficult to detect."
"And they'll answer?" Mark wondered.
"They haven't given any sign that they wouldn't give an answer," Leo answered, "though, it will still take a good bit of acting as we don't want to come off as though we're prying for information. We want to come off as curious and interested, not antagonistic or sneaky."
"Basically the opposite of what we normally do," Luigi commented.
"Yes," Leo gave a smile, "but if it works it'll get us the base info to create a virus that is intended to affect their systems and strong enough to render whatever anti-virus software they have weak."