Time resumed for the former Shadow666. To her perception, it was instantaneous, but she was aware that she had been suspended, at least. She looked around; back in the white void again. The light was off in another corner of the empty, infinite space. She walked over to it, shaking her head at the sensations her "body" fed her: green hair swishing gently in a nonexistent breeze, her smallish breasts softly jiggling with each step, her dress swaying and gently brushing her bare legs. Why did she even feel? Why did she have a body in a three-dimensional space, for that matter? Wasn't she just software? Or did being a "digital fairy" somehow mean she was running in someone else's virtual environment? She recalled the being that had imprisoned her lecturing on her inability to perceive things in true, raw data form, but she still couldn't understand why that would be. Anyway, there were far more pressing questions than those at the moment.
"How long was I out?" she asked.
"About three weeks. People have gotten bored with looking for you and things have died down, but you'll still want to lay low; there's a few die-hards still out for blood. Don't make a peep Internet-wise for at least another month, got it?"
She frowned. "But...what about my...?"
"Your parents, yes. If you have their e-mail addresses, I can send a message letting them know that you're safe, but for you to establish a presence online would just draw attention at this point. When you do come out of hiding, you're going to have to create a new identity for yourself."
She couldn't believe this; she was going to have to leave everything behind? She knew the entity must be right, but she still couldn't grasp it; everything about her online identity was as good as vanished from history. All the effort she'd put into trying to make a name for herself, all her various forum accounts, everything...it wasn't gone, but it was too dangerous to return to. The voice hadn't been kidding about "witness protection."
"W-well," she stammered, "what do I do now? Can we change my body to help me hide? It's not even the right one anyway..."
"No. A digital fairy's appearance is quite intricately integrated into their code. Your data representation probably coalesced around that source material when you changed. It's probably possible, but AIs are quite complex to disassemble; much of your data probably also serves as code, and vice versa. Trying to pick out and alter your form could have any number of effects on the rest of you."
"But...you mean I have to spend the rest of my life as this!?"
"You're one of many who've just been dumped into forms they never expected. You'll have others to help you get used to it, and as much time as you possibly need. Speaking of, we've found a host for you."
She stomped her foot on the white nothing below her. "I don't want to get used to this! I want to get back to being me! I want to get out of this place, and back to somewhere where I can't be picked to death by random jerks on the Internet! I want to go home!"
"Not going to happen, little one. Besides, you're responsible for as much of your troubles as the sun is; quit sounding like such a martyr. Now hold tight, I'm going to pipe you over to your new host."
The nameless fairy was just about to protest when time cut out again.
When it returned, the scenery had changed. She was looking out at a seemingly normal bedroom, furnished like that of a pre-teen, though whether it was a boy's room or a girl's room, she couldn't tell. She looked around and realized that she was suspended in mid-air, and that she seemed to be no more than six inches tall. The room loomed around her, and she cringed; first she was changed into this girl-form, now she was shrunk? She looked down to see...a shoulder? Startled, she whipped around and was confronted with a girl's face, taller than she was. The girl had green hair as well, though it was a bit lighter shade than hers, and plastic antenna structures where her ears should've been. Was she...was she a robot?
"Hi!" the girl smiled. "I'm Mikey. I'm your host now."
In spite of herself, the digital fairy smiled, slightly. "I'm...um, shadow666..." she mumbled, her voice trailing off.
Mikey frowned. "Really?"
"It sounded cool, okay? But I can't use that name any more, anyway..."
Mikey nodded. "The guys at emergence.org told me a bit about you. But it's okay, they said that they took away all your malware, and they hoped you were going to start being good from now on. We do need a new name for you, though."
The little AI sighed; as much as she didn't want to agree, she really couldn't argue. There didn't seem to be any way out of this. Was she going to have to be this girl's pet now? Did she really have a choice?
"I think we'll call you Effie," Mikey said. "How does that sound?"
Effie didn't seem to have much choice, as she immediately found herself thinking of that as her name. Still, it seemed like Mikey was trying to be polite about it; maybe she didn't even realize that would happen. "Um...okay..." she said. "Wait, 'Mikey?' Aren't you a..."
Mikey shrugged, and Effie tried to keep her balance on the robot-girl's shoulder. "Yeah," she replied. "I was a boy, before all this happened. They said you were, too...?"
Effie nodded, smiling in spite of herself...maybe her rescuer was right. Maybe she wouldn't have to face this alone.
