Challenge #01527-D066: Virtual Friend

'Sixty-two years old, and you find a kindred spirit in a block of programming,' they thought wryly, shaking their head. -- RecklessPrudence

It hadn't started that way, of course. Her grandchildren had got her into the video games. Things had gone a long way since the Space Invaders. There was no more coin in the slot or press A to start, to begin with. She could play by typing on the keyboard, and the machine code understood her and responded.

Denny assured her that this was an offline program. Just code, and nobody else on the internets out to steal her credit card. Quite a lot of that was happening, these days. Even on trusted sites that everyone used. Especially on the trusted sites that everyone used. It was the trust part, Denny said, that made everyone put their guards down.

She hadn't gone into the video games since the last time she tried Pac Man, and lost. Egregiously. Games had not been her thing. At least, not the computerised ones. She could hold her own in Bridge, which Denny insisted was far more complicated. And this one was easy. It had an adaptive algorithm, whatever that was. The more anyone gave it, the more it learned. And the more it learned, the better it was at understanding the player.

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