It seemed like the scan took forever to Effie, but without a frame of reference, she had no way of knowing. She was back in an environment without any visible indicators for the passage of time, like the last time she'd been here. If she did learn to program, maybe she could make a watch for herself or something?
In any case, the scan continued. The sensation was strange, like every notional atom of her virtual body was being picked up and examined, but it wasn't invasive or uncomfortable. The only unease she felt was from the thought of someone so closely examining a "body" that she didn't even want to be hers. Finally, the sensation passed. Effie smoothed down her skirt out of habit, then blushed when she realized it had become a habit.
Well, Bonzo said, whatever her deal is, Effie doesn't appear to be fundamentally different from any other digital fairy-type AI. She's more complex in the sense that there's a much tighter integration between her code and data than usual, though - the trace utilities couldn't even tell which was which at a lot of points.
Mikey frowned. So what does that mean? she sent back.
Not really sure it means anything at this point, except that she'd be hell to crack or modify. Well, and that she's somewhat more compact than usual.
Effie was puzzled. "But...what about the people who were after me?" she asked. "They...they were able to do things to me, weren't they?"
I said "crack or modify," Bonzo replied. They tricked you into coming over to their server of your own free will and then chopped bits off you willy-nilly. BIG difference.
"Oh." She sighed. The parts they'd taken from her - what had been in them? Her IRL name, she knew, but was there anything else? Had it, like her name, been filled back in from other sources? Was that why she seemed to be picking up these strange behaviors? And...if she was that difficult to map out, then...
On that note, Bonzo said, Mikey tells me you're not 100% satisfied with your current form. I'm only going to say this once, so listen closely: For the love of God, DO NOT attempt to modify yourself until you TRULY understand how you work. Even for a normal AI, following cookbook directions off the Internet would be like performing brain surgery on yourself at the guidance of someone who once dissected a frog. As obfuscated as your code is, you trying it would be some kind of ultra-singularity of pure Bad Idea. I don't know what all you dislike about your form, but it cannot possibly be worse than a probable self-lobotomy.
Effie winced. That would be exactly what she was afraid of hearing. She had hoped to change to a somewhat more normal form before long, but if it was so perilous, then she couldn't take the risk. But if she had to understand herself first...
"How do I do that?" she asked. "Understand my code, that is?"
Whoa there, Bonzo said. Baby steps here. You barely knew how to put together pre-existing pieces of code before we cleared all that out. You're going to need to learn how to program for real before you'd have so much as an iota of a chance of understanding your own code.
Effie set her jaw and placed her hands on her hips, too caught up in the discussion to notice she was doing it. "Then I will!" she said. "How do I start?"
Mikey giggled. Yeah, she said, how do we get her started?
Heh, well, if you're sure you want a budding hacker living in your head... Bonzo replied. First things first: you'll need to adapt a compiler backend to your machine architecture. That's a bit tedious, but not too difficult; there's threads in the Programming forum for that.
Mikey frowned. -My- machine architecture?
Yep. Machine-based AIs don't have identical CPUs, so executables have to be produced for their native machine language. That's one reason everything on Emergence is in source-code form; it's also a big part of the reason no android/gynoid has been successfully cracked. Hosted AIs like Effie run in a common VM environment, so they unfortunately don't have that inherent protection. That's why we're on such a big push to find hosts for them.
Huh. Intellectually, Mikey knew that she was a machine, but it was still strange to be discussing her internals as something to be understood and worked with. It was like hearing Zoe read snippets from her biology textbook, kind of.
Once you've done that, you'll have to provide Effie with access to an editor; she can't directly perceive and manipulate data the way you do.
Wait, why is that? Mikey said. Does that have anything to do with the way she interacts with computers?
...yes and no. Digital fairies are bound to and adapt to whatever the host environment provides in the way of UI, so on a standard GUI system she is left to interact with programs the way a normal user would, mostly. But she can work with whatever kind of environment you choose to give her. I am, however, at a loss to explain your anecdote about her serving as a bridge into another computer; that's definitely worthy of research.
Huh, Mikey said. Um, let me know if you need to find out more about that.
I will :) Bonzo said. Oh, and one last thing: make sure any processes she spawns run in a protected environment. The first dozen times any programmer tries learn about pointers, their code is pretty much guaranteed to crash horribly.
Mikey smiled. I will, thanks :)
Six lovely young women sat in the back room of the local police station. They were all identical, as though they had been born identical sextuplets, when in fact they had only been that way for a number of hours.
They were somewhere in their mid-teens, with long golden hair, smooth creamy skin, a slender yet sturdy frame with a gently curvy figure, and great soft white-feathered wings sprouting from their backs. They wore simple, voluminous white gowns, and on top of everything else, they had halos; not tangible objects, but actual rings of soft golden light that hung in mid-air just behind and above their heads.
Nor was their similarity limited to their identical appearance. While their conscious minds were separate and unchanged, the girls now shared not only physical sensations, but also their emotional state. Right now, for instance, they were feeling sore from being struck by the police officer Mark had attacked and the subsequent arm-lock, shocked by this turn of events, and, to their surprise, sad that they'd taken over someone's church and attacked someone unprovoked.
They looked up to see one of the officers standing by the door. "Can I get you girls anything?" she asked. "Coffee?"
David, the quiet one of the group, smiled meekly. "Y-yes, please..." she said. The officer left, returned, and looked around confusedly until David raised her hand to indicate that she was the one who'd wanted it.
Mark was puzzled. She'd never liked coffee, but not only couldshetaste David's, she felt the pleasure the taste brought to her new sister, and the pleasant calm it induced. This was so strange...
