David hesitantly entered the councillors office.
"H-hello?" She spoke, her voice gentle despite the nerves.
"Please come in"
David looked at the Gorgon with some trepidation. She wasn't very used to the sight at all. But despite the appearance there seemed to be an aura of kindness and empathy that the angel girl welcomed. Was this a new sense she possessed?
"David, please have a seat" She spoke again, looking at the angel girl. "I am concerned about you, and your group."
Group? Maybe she means the other angel girls? "Have I... done something bad again?"
"No- David, I'm here to help you not punish you. I know you were involved with those other girls, and from what I can tell you regret it terribly."
"We all do," she said honestly. It was true. That lingering regret might have originated from her, but now they were all feeling it just the same.
"I'm sure you do. The others have... declined to come by my office though. Your the only one who seems willing to even want to talk about it. May I ask how are you getting on?"
Good question, David thought. She wasn't even sure if she would exist as an individual as time went by. Would all their feelings one day all join together, homogenise, until they were just one single group mind thinking and feeling the same thing? She wasn't sure, but surly that would have happened by now if that was the case. "I- I'm afraid..." She admitted to the gorgon.
"Its natural to be afraid. Your change is for lack of a better word, highly personal."
The girl nodded meekly. "Y-yes. Everything I do is shared.. everything I touch, or wear. We can't wear anything really rough, otherwise the feeling sort of gets magnified between us all. So we got to wear softer things, like these robes- or slippers." She glanced down at her feet. Though for some reason their bodies were quite adapt at being barefoot. Still she preferred to wear something.. and the slippers worked well. It did make them look strange, but then the angel wings were already making them stand out.
"Have you spoken often to the others? To co-operate... maybe set some ground rules between each other?"
"I don't talk to them any more. I'm not really part of their group. I just look like them now."
"Yes.. I am concerned though. The results of your tests show your incredibly distracted. Even for simple academic questions... do you think you can cope with your situation?"
"I- I don't have a choice. I got to. We're like this forever" She sniffled a bit upset, and that feeling was passing through all the others.
"I can't claim to know the best way to help you David... but listen. If you ever want to talk about anything, I'm here to help you. For now though, I am going to recommend to push back your testings and school work. Use the time to work thinks out. My office is always open to you."
"T-thank you. I... I'll be fine though. Really" she said as she left.
Mikey went to the computer lab. Effie looked excited to see the machines. Various students were working on their assignments. It looked like a few were taken offline to be upgraded. The teachers were going to add voice activation and other peripherals for students lacking the ability to use the keyboard now.
"These are really nice computers." Effie said with a smile. Technology always got her excited. Her new body wasn't going to stop that.
How come you ran windows ME on your computer?
Effie blushed. Oh that question..could she remember the answer? She think she could vaguely. "Er... well... Long story short, it was the only operating system I could get. Also... I kind of enjoyed the challenge of running such a buggy system. I used so many tricks to keep it running." She didn't think she would actually become a living extension- or possibly embodiment of that operating system though. She suspected her own mind probably filled in the 'bugs'. Otherwise she would be 'crashing' every hour or so.
The digital fairy's hair started move in an invisible breeze, and Mikey looked to her curiously again. Her sensors did not detect any wind, but there was clearly 'something' causing it. Ah... Mikey noted there was a router in here. It seems signals and electrical energy acted like a breeze to her digital fairy. She had to laugh a little, it coming out as an actual giggle.
"Is something on my face?" Effie asked
No. I just realised you have pretty hair too
Effie blushed again feeling like she might be getting teased. She smiled in spite of herself though.
Suddenly Mikey froze. Images of text was flashing by her eyes, viable to her digital fairy.
Effie looked at her host somehow sensing something wasn't right.
"Are you oka-" Efie started to feel strange too.
IP requests... I am denying them. But so many She was being bombarded by IP requests. Was someone trying to get inside her head? Her firewall held strong though, but this was getting very annoying. Maybe it was a spam attack?
Effie quickly jumped onto her hosts shoulder wondering if there was anything she could do to help.
Mikey denied each request and blocked the computer they came from, but another sprang up instantly. She blocked it too and even more requests came. What was going on? Who was doing this? She realised quickly there was 'intelligence' in this attack. It wasn't just a normal port scanner. It could only be the work of another AI.
Effie frowned, but knowing what she knew from Emergence Mikey should not be in any real danger.. Even her own program was protected within mikey's subroutines. The wind on her hair was really starting to pick up to be noticeable though. It seemed to be coming from... the router?
The digital fairy hopped off her host. She was about to jump further when she found herself feeling incredibly light, and able to glide on the wind. If she wasn't so worried this would actually be quite a fun realisation. She was gliding on the dense signal of the wifi in the computer labs. She effortlessly stepped onto the desk with the router as if there was very little gravity in the room. Not sure what to do with the offending piece of computer hardware, she decided to just 'reach' into it.
"Who's in there!" She shouted. "If your messing with this kid your messing with me too!"
She made contact with something that felt like flesh to her. She was shocked now but decided to 'pull' it out.
It was another digital fairy!
All of a sudden the spamming stopped.
Mikey saw the new fairy get pulled out, it seemed a bit ghostly, unlike the more substantial Effie to her. It was linked to a silvery chain, that tethered it within the router. The new fairy's form was male, and seemed just a year or so younger then Effie. It wore a shirt with the word DOS printed on it, ending with a command prompt. His hair was short and black, contrasting the unnaturally white skin.
"H-How.. How did you..." the fairy looked just as shocked as they were. It was just pulled into the real world?
"Why are you spamming my host!" Effie looked angrily.
"I- I'm from Freenet. I--I'm supposed to change a few grades in the school computers. Please don't hurt me!"
"We're not going to hurt you," Mikey said very surprised by this turn of events. She was startled by this realisation. A digital fairy, running off an AI, was transmuted via the network. Somehow, Effie is capable of interacting physically with them. However being 'pulled' in this way rendered them as ghostly. This fairy was acting as an extension to her host with its core run time in the AI, its physical 'presence' within the router, and an.. apparition state of some kind to other digital fairies?
Effie let go of the other fairy, and suddenly he fell backwards, being pulled by the silver chord. Mikey also could no longer see him and blinked in surprise. Effie quickly reached out onto him again grabbing his shirt, feeling very awkward about being near someone that felt like flesh and blood to her new form.
Mikey noted that contact was needed for her to be able to see another digital fairy in the real world like this. She suspected this would not be the case in cyberspace, but the real world brought many limitations to these beings.
"I-its my host. Its calling me back. I don't think you can keep me here for long. However your doing this" He said quietly. "I'm sorry.. I had no choice. If I didn't do what it wanted, I wouldn't have any run time."
"Why is your host doing this?"
"Because its-... the digital fairy suddenly got pulled into the router "F-Fun!" he screamed.
Effie tried to reach in again, but he was gone.
Did you change those grades?
A booming voice filled the digital fairies ears. It stood on emptiness. There wasn't any light here, no darkness, there was no comfortable abstract bearings of reality to grab on to. Just pure code. This AI was not bothered to provide any environmental comforts within its server side state.
The male digital fairy tried his best to look composed. Even in this featureless coded world, he still had his own substance. It was incredibly off putting. He was also distracted by images of that other digital fairy.. being touched and held by someone else- a very pretty someone else, was not something he expected to happen. Even though it wasn't done out of affection.
"Y-yes. I changed the grades. Everyone you told me now has a pass. "
Good. If I had done it directly they might have traced my IP. Digital fairies however seem to be almost impossible to track in the real world.
"So... You'll share your run time with me?"
Keep amusing me... and I think we can call it a deal. I'm sure I can find other uses for you too.
