Plugging them in was not a hassle when they were cooperating. Once we turned on the laptop, it was time to execute the program. I was the best one to do minigames. I just happened to be better than Paul at them. Brett was going to defer to me on this for the first run. If I failed, he would take over. When I saw what the first stage was, I smirked. This would be a piece of cake. It was just a series of single digit addition and subtraction problems. That was so incredibly easy. It was probably due to my high level, and the super laptop boosting the effects on hacking. In order to capture all 5 nodes, I needed to get over 80%. That was simple enough. I got a 92%. The AEP units twitched as they could feel the probing of the cheat program. It clearly was not a pleasant experience. Not even the best antivirus countermeasures could defend themselves. The second stage was a matching card minigame. I was a bit slower on this game. I only got 64% accuracy in this. That was enough to have 3 of the nodes still. "We're catching up to you, foolish human! It's only a matter of time." 008 gloated.
The third stage was a "follow the lead" segment. There were 4 colored lights on the screen. There were also 4 colored buttons bellow them. The colors were red, yellow, green and blue. All I needed to do was press the buttons in the order of the flashing lights. There would be 20 cycles to go through. I needed to get 18 or more to capture the 5 nodes. The first 8 or so only had 3 flashes. That was good for me. That was 40% of the last minigame right there. 2 nodes were mine. The next 10 sequences had 6 flashes. The last 2 had 10 flashes to follow. Paul and Brett were "helping" me. They would argue more than they would agree. I finished the minigame with a nice 17 out of 20. That was enough for 4 nodes. 008 and 009 were overheating trying to keep us out of their core systems. It was way too late for that. We could hear internal fans going off from inside their bodies. I was able to see what I wanted to take. Each of the 5 nodes needed 3 keys to open up. I had earned 12. All I really wanted to do was change their allegiance. I turned them into Advocates. I also boosted the AEP organs.
Making them Advocates did not mean they would automatically join up with us. They could choose to join an Advocate clan somewhere. They could go somewhere more peaceful, gather a few stray PEP units and make a totally new clan from scratch. It meant there was a good reason to make a pitch to them. "How about you join up with us. We will take care of you." Paul said. They looked insulted. "How could you even say that to us. You still have your wires in our chest ports!" 008 snapped. "It's not like you have a choice though. Electric Clan is never going to take you back. You lost to us and got hacked by humans." Brett said. 009 narrowed his eyes. "I would never join a clan with someone who killed my comrades." They were both clearly set on not joining us. I sighed and gently pulled the wires out of their chest ports and let them close themselves up. "Listen. It's fine that you still have some doubts. I get it. I wouldn't want to join someone who killed my friends either. How about we set you up with your own clan!? If you go to a location I set up for you, you can lead one as a vassal."
Clan Power Smoothie had a nice ring to it. The road that we made leading to the gas station was 300 feet long and 27 feet wide. The gas station was only 70 feet in. The vassal there was Clan Pump and Dump. We could add a smoothie store further down the road. On the other side of the road for more use of space would make the road look better too. They seemed really pleased with that. No one would be scolding them for failing anymore. "I can accept that plan, human. I don't see a real need to exterminate you all anymore. I might as well get out of this filthy cesspit. Getting culled is not a priority for me." 008 agreed. 009 simply nodded his head. They would be the leaders of it. Brett was the only one of us who could fly. I marked the location of the gas station on the map for them to get to. Paul made the big call to our own clan building. Using his authority, he was able to send 6 idle PEA units with no clan to go to the same location. That was a complete squad. Finding some PEP units would be on them. Those PEPs could be the grunts of their clan. With that, the 3 left the hotel.
