To have a cake and eat it too

"Both have them? How is that possible?" Ellin's eyes widened.

Eve snorted. In her eyes, it was so obvious that she felt like she was explaining things to a kindergartener. In fact, in terms of informational technologies, Ellin wasn't too far away. "Easy. These cores are only valuable because of the data stored in them. And data can be copied as many times as one wants."

"Well, that's true, but if it worked with cores, then they wouldn't be so valuable! And how can you copy data without a computer or anything?"

Eve pointed at her temple. "Each core is a computer itself. Now be quiet, I need to prepare first. It won't take more than a few hours."

"Sure, Doctor Ziffer! It's an honour for dummies like myself to witness your brilliance!" Ellin said in an absolutely serious tone.

Eve threw a suspicious glance at him, but ended up replying nothing. Instead, she took both cores and went to bed. Another person wouldn't have been able to fall asleep in the middle of a day after having a full night of sleep before that, but Eve had a strong feeling that it wasn't a problem for her. She was sure that it was one of the powers her nanites gave her, along with the ability to hear zombie's logs in form of voices and interact with her core's code in her sleep.

Eve wished she really could sleep twenty-four hours a day—she wanted to get to that part of her core as soon as possible! For now, though, she had another task.

'I can call this development environment 'DreamCore'. Or maybe 'DreamscapeEdit'? It sounds more professional… Though I doubt I would ever release it into the market, anyway. No market to release it to,' Eve mused as she navigated the familiar lines of code.

She hadn't read through that part before, but she knew it was there. It was one of the most basic functional libraries, one that wasn't even created by Eve herself. It was something that came from the hands of other nano-roboticists long before Eve even began to work on her first project. Just like any other modern science, modern computer science stood on the fundament made from the past work of many people.

Eve didn't need long to find the part she was looking for. It was the one that allowed to copy data from other computing devices—like actual computers. It didn't take into account something like adaptive programming cores made from nano-machines. As a result, some methods used for data transfer destroyed the controlling program of the core, after which the core itself would soon disperse into separate nanites.

Right now, Eve set to fix and upgrade these methods. She worked quickly, but carefully. It wasn't a complicated work, but if she made a mistake, Eve would know about it only after breaking one of the two zombie cores she got. She and Ellin risked their lives to get them—the cost of being wrong was too high.

In the DreamscapeEdit, Eve didn't need keyboards or even words to enter new lines of code—she only needed a thought. The only limit to her coding speed was her mind, and her mind worked fast; but in DreamscapeEdit she had nowhere to check the time and only her own thoughts to limit what she was looking at. As a result, whenever she would get to sleep in the past, she would get distracted by some other interesting and strange part of the program and only realise it when it was long past the time she should wake up. 'I should come up with a clock for DreamscapeEdit at some point...'

This time, Eve fought against all the temptations and woke up as soon as she was sure that she finished everything she needed. By that time, the sun had already left windows of the apartment she and Ellin were staying at, and the sky darkened to a dark blue of twilight. An appetising aroma of meat was coming from somewhere nearby.

When Eve came out of her room, she found Ellin cooking something on a bonfire that was put right on a tiled floor of a bathroom. He waved at her with a grin.

"You woke up just in time! The dinner is almost ready. I decided to use the cans we found yesterday and make a spam stew. With some salt it's going to be delicious!"

"Weren't these cans suspiciously bloated?" Eve looked at the pot with narrowed eyes.

"Don't worry! Even if some bacteria will survive boiling, nothing will survive our guts! I know, I ate food from bloated cans before."

'He is right, and I know I ate worse things, but... Ugh.' Eve's stomach churned as she remembered all the insects that ended up as her food. She suddenly didn't feel like eating anymore.

"I'm going to copy data from the cores. Eat without me." Eve turned back the way where she came from. She only came there in the first place to check on Ellin, anyway.

Back in what was temporarily her room, Eve looked at the two cores. They lied innocuously in her hand, as if asking to eat them... Eve was going to leave that to Ellin. To copy the data, she only needed to expose the cores to nanites in her body. It mattered little if it was through skin or through stomach's acid. At most, the speed of data transfer was going to suffer. So, Eve put the level three core to the side, grasped the level two one tightly in her fist and gave a command to copy the data.

A sudden feeling of weight on the back of her mind signalled the start of the process. Eve could feel that it would take about an hour to complete. Since the nanite core used neither her body nor her brain in the data transfer, that meant that Eve had an hour to kill. She dearly wished she had her laptop at her side. Then Eve's eyes caught the sight of dusty shelves. On them, alongside the anime figurines and accessories were lying tomes of printed manga. Even in the start of twenty-second century, some people still bought them for their collections.

When a dozen minutes later Ellin went inside the room to bring Eve her portion of the stew, he found her sitting on the bed in a middle of a pile of manga tomes. One of her hand was still clenched around the nanite core, while another was turning the pages on one of the mangas.

"Is it interesting?" Ellin asked, coming up closer. He tried to understand what Eve was reading about, but all that he could catch was a picture of a robot punching another robot.

"I can't stop thinking that there won't ever be a new book in this series... Or in any series." Eve's voice and face were void of any emotion. She turned a page. On the next one, two big-eyed boys were depicted shouting something about friendship at each other.

"That's not true, Eve. We can write new books. Believe in it!" Ellin grinned at her.

A few long second later Eve slowly nodded. 'Yes. The only thing I need to believe in, after all... Is myself!'

"I need an hour to copy the data from the core, and during this time I can't let it out of my hand. Copying the other one would take even longer," Eve said aloud. She put the book she was reading face-down to remember the page and stood up from the bed. "Put the bowl on some table, please."

"Makes sense. After eating them normally, it takes a while to digest them too." Ellin nodded. "Hey, I can even spoon-feed you!" He winked at her.

Eve cringed at that, and Ellin laughed. "Just joking! Don't take it as seriously as science, Doctor Ziffer!"

"I wonder where did your previous respect towards me disappear..."

It took Eve four hours in total to copy data from both of the cores she had, but she could feel the difference almost immediately. Her own nanite core was using the data to improve its computing power with neck-breaking speed; at the same time, it spawned more nanites to strengthen Eve's body. But she knew it would take a couple more days for the changes to settle in completely. It was the same for Ellin, who ate both cores after Eve finished with them.

Afterwards, the two of them continued their search for the medicines requested at Chainsaws Base. Ellin's leg had healed completely thanks to nanites, and nothing was slowing them down anymore. It only took them a day to fill their backpacks to the brim with the useful supplies. Then they moved back towards the base.