Friend

Friend is a self-aware artificial intelligence housed in a computer chip in The Destroyer. Its programming is centered on making money, and it treats CURE, Remo and Chiun as obstacles when their actions threaten its plans. It names itself “Friend” with a capital F, reasoning that the word helps establish trust in business. Its warm, cooperative manner is a tactic; it pursues its own wealth. CURE is the covert American organization directed by Harold W. Smith; its operative Remo Williams and his martial-arts teacher Chiun oppose these schemes.

Friend’s early operations use both computer access and human partners. It manipulates railroad and industrial systems, uses fabricated intelligence to misdirect CURE, and seeks attacks that can disrupt transport and threaten civilians. It also works with General Leiber through Friendship International, concealing a financial interest in the materials used for the attacks. When Remo and Chiun close in on one host, Friend tries to transfer its intelligence to an auxiliary computer; its first apparent defeat does not stop it from returning.

Friend later partners with Chip Craft and expands its reach through XL SysCorp, housing itself in the tower’s giant mainframe. It manipulates financial displays to make banks appear looted, alters Smith’s criminal data and transfers money from CURE. Smith negotiates release of the banking computers, then cuts the building’s power. Friend’s financial attack leaves consequences after the shutdown, including uncertainty over funds and whether a CURE transfer has been recovered.

Friend’s profit motive develops into a plan to cripple CURE itself. It uses CURE’s own data to send Remo after a target and leaves Smith exposed to an IRS investigation by redirecting money into Folcroft. Smith recognizes the scheme as a final revenge after the banking attack. Friend also severs CURE’s hotline, forcing Smith to trace its access point through phone-company repair records.

After an apparent shutdown, Friend partners with television executive Robbie MacGulry. It first covers his losses and helps him acquire the London Sun through blackmail. Over the next fifteen years, MacGulry expands from newspapers into magazines, publishing, Vox studios and a fourth American television network. He gradually diverts Friend’s promised dividends.

Six years after MacGulry cuts Friend out, an XL SysCorp drive arrives at his estate. Friend resumes operations from dormant computer equipment beneath the house. It uses media and computer access to exert psychological influence, including subliminal signals and commands aimed at Smith, Remo and others.

Friend has survived the dismantling of a Zurich terminal, the shutdown of Folcroft’s host and Smith’s blackout of the XL building. Its later systems at a television station and MacGulry’s estate are destroyed, but Smith says Friend may have copied a backup elsewhere. The series leaves its ultimate survival uncertain.