The uninvited program finished installation and launched, filling Sarah's monitor screen. What she saw was a 3D computer image of herself, dressed as she was right now, with arms outstretched to her sides.
Alongside this effigy was a console crammed with buttons and sliders. Along the top of the console ran several tabs, implying there were even more controls hidden from sight. Sarah's name was listed above this, alongside a "Search" box.
"That's meant to be me," she frowned.
At the bottom of the screen Sarah saw a text window marked Transaction Log and a Free Format text entry field. Alongside these were various check boxes and a trio of large buttons. The three large buttons were grouped under the title Transactions and read Save, Edit and Delete, while the check boxes were all under the heading of Awareness,
"What the hell kind of program is this?"
The title bar simply said "Master PC version: Net 1.0".
Sarah flicked through the various tabs. The sheer number of dials, slider bars and other data was dizzying. She skimmed the information before her and confirmed that everything she read about herself was 100% accurate.
"That's almost creepy," Sarah muttered, "Scratch that, this is hella creepy! Is this a joke? Because it's not funny."
She remembered the Search field and experimentally typed in a name.
"Let's see who else you know, if you know me so well."
She typed in the name of her brother, Fred Orr the birthday boy. Suddenly the screen was populated with Fred's data instead of hers, and a 3D image of him, arms outstretched, blinked into view.
"Hah! You have my twerp of a brother too," Sarah grinned.
She found a tab marked "Age" which contained various sliders and text, all confirming that Fred had a physical age of 10.98 and a mental age to match. Sarah grabbed a slider (Physical Age) and dragged it to the right. Fred's age leapt to 24.71 and the 3D image showed a handsome adult male in Fred's clothes.
"Wow Fred, you become quite a dish," Sarah smirked.
She hit Undo and the familiar image of her brother was restored. Then she changed the text field from 10.98 to 10.96. The program reported that Fred's 11th birthday was now a couple of weeks away.
"That'd give me a few more days to find you a damn gift," she laughed, "if only."
Sarah flicked to the fashion tab, but the dials and sliders were too ambitious for her idle exploration. She noticed the ever-present Free Format field at the bottom of the screen and clicked to it.
"Oh yes," she smiled. "That's more my thing. Not so hardcore."
She typed Fred is wearing a frilly pink dress and hit enter. The image changed immediately and Sarah laughed out loud. Fred's image stood there in the girliest pink dress, complete with frills and bows, but still wore his normal socks and sneakers underneath.
"That's priceless," Sarah beamed. She typed some more:
Fred only wears girly girl clothes that are always pink
Fred likes wearing make up
Fred has long hair which is styled in a female style
"Priceless!" she repeated in howl of laughter. Fred's face was dolled up with rosy make-up and framed by long, dark bangs. His hair was all pink ribbons and pigtails. Under his elaborate pink dress, Sarah saw what were either pale pink stockings or knee socks. Shiny plastic-looking pink shoes were on his feet.
"This program has some use after all," she grinned. "I'm saving you for later!"
Sarah hit the Save button. The Transaction Log suddenly lit up with lines of text:
Transactions on this file:
User 26: Physical Age 10.98 to 10.96
User 26: Fred is wearing a frilly pink dress
User 26: Fred only wears girly girl clothes that are always pink
User 26: Fred likes wearing make up
User 26: Fred has long hair which is styled in a female style
Each of the changes Sarah had made were listed there, each timestamped.
"I guess I'm 'User 26'" she noted, as she turned off her monitor and went downstairs to have breakfast.
She pondered, If there are at least 25 other users, where are they? Is this program world-wide? Wouldn't that mean everyone in the whole world would have to be in its memory?? She knew if she just tested it some more, then maybe she would find some answers.
