Effie looked at the guide downloaded to her editor. It was from Emergence, but Amy had added a few of her observations and notes to it as well. They also possessed a few basic programs.
"Okay... do you have the recall program?" Dennis asked.
"Yes," said Effie. The recall program 'should' bring them back to their host, if they were in serious trouble. It only worked though if there was a direct connection available to the IP of their host... if it didn't exist, they were stuck. The recall program had a few other 'safe servers' too programmed into it and a 'random' IP address if no other address was found. The idea was that if you used this program, anywhere was better then where you were... She entered the default address of Mikey's IP address, and the other safe servers.
"What about the backup recall program?" Dennis said going through the checklist.
"Um... backup?" Effie looked through her editor. "It takes an awful lot of baggage," she said as she physically reached into her pink editor window, and picked up the strange light representing the it. She was still not sure she could get used to picking up computer programs so.. physically.
According to Amy's notes, the act of holding a program rendered it in your temporary memory. The editors, functioned as a kind of holder system. It was encouraged to personalise ones editor, to make it feel more like part of you. It was the only self expression digital fairies tended to have.. since they could not modify their appearances easily. Effie really liked the one Amy made though and probably wouldn't change it for a while.
It also seemed to be bad etiquette to touch another fairies editor without permission. She wondered how that rule came about?
"I think I have space for it," Said Dennis. He outstretched his hand, and placed it inside his own blue editor.
Effie nodded. "Okay... the FAQ says we need some access keys to use the parallel computing run time environment., in case we lose our host..." She quickly entered them into her editor... this run time was provided freely, but it was quite limited. It was still a lot better then suddenly freezing and hoping someone will come by your program in the next fifty years. A fairy was usually automatically frozen if they used it longer then 8 hours... but then was automatically ran after sixteen. This way more fairies could access it and it was deemed an acceptable compromise. Still, She felt a little saddened for the digital fairies that lost two thirds of the day in suspension.
Dennis also went through the file. "There's a beacon system too... I've set it on encrypted, so that only Mikey can access where- and who we are."
Effie nodded her thanks to that. The beacon used the signature of the digital fairy as part of its sending data. It meant she could not broadcast her location to the normal database emergence had set up. Fortunately there was an encrypted setting for those who still valued their privacy, although it made finding other fairies a little more tricky.
Not to mention other online denizens would gain a measure of distrust to a digital fairy hiding their online status.
Mikey smiled as the digital fairies seemed to be ready to go on their adventure. "You sure you know what your doing?" The robot girl asked.
Dennis nodded. "We wont go far... relatively. We'll stay to the highly communicative sectors, and not drift to low data clusters. We knows? We might even run into Amy." Dennis was excited. He wanted to see what world has been made. Would it be anything like the real world at all?
Effie still looked apprehensive... she wasn't sure still if she wanted to go. It's true she couldn't touch anything in the real world... but the real world also could not hurt her. Still... it was probably better to have some idea of what went on in the internet now.
"Okay... upload us Mikey" Dennis said with a grin.
The two fairies disappeared in a flash of blue and pink light.
Jenny tossed and turned in her sleep.
She was running...
running as fast as she could. Desperate and hiding...
There was the silhouette of a man... tall, with a weapon. A gun in his hand? clothed in black... He had piercing blue eyes, and a desperate look about him.
"D-Don't hurt me" Jenny pleaded, looking at the stranger with her own blue eyes.
The man didn't seem to hear her, as he was looking around the darkness...
Jenny glanced up at the sound of lightning, and it It rained... paper? She took the strange green paper, it had faces of people on it... numbers... twenty? Fifty? one hundred? This was money. She had never seen bills this high before... had she?
The man was grabbing all the paper he could find, pushing Jenny aside as he grabbed it. "Out of my way kid!"
"Who are you!" She said quickly.
The man paused.. as if suddenly hearing her for the first time. The man's expression was one of bewilderment...They both looked at the other...
"Are you my Dad?" Jenny asked holding out a hand.
The man held out a hand carefully to her... he never said a single word. but as his hand got closer, Jenny's bracelet glowed. A chain extended itself to the man's wrist. A magical light glowed, with the other side turning back into the police cuffs.
The two were locked together, with the man having the cuff part, tied onto Jenny's magic bracelet. In desperation the man tried to pull away from Jenny, but it was like no force on earth could pull him away. Jenny tried to do the same, but again... they were stuck. Force for force, both were doing exactly the same thing to get away from each other.
Jenny looked frightened now and tried to release him, but couldn't... "S-sorry I- I'm sorry!"
...
...
...
The scene faded, without further word or action, it was like Jenny was drifting away now from it.
Tetra looked sadly as Jenny shivered in her sleep... the girl was having a nightmare. She gently purred to her, rubbing her sensual fur to her hand...
Jenny seemed to relax, as she instinctively took hold of Tetra.
The catgirl wasn't sure what to do now, she didn't intend to get stuck like this... she herself had only been a catgirl for a while, and being a mini-one? That was something really different... The young child cradled her tightly to her chest, like a fluffy toy. Tetra's cat instincts liked the warmth she provided, and curled up to her, looking upwards at her chin.
Oh well... Tetra could tolerate this for a while, if it would keep the girl happy.
Tiffany was so angry... what the hell was wrong with this school!
What was wrong!
What was she doing?
She was so angry and mad at everything... she had slipped into one of the many empty corridors, but her rage simply increased instead of lowering. She started scratching and clawing at the wall, each line briefly flared a red hue.
She didn't notice someone following her...
"P-Please.... Tiffany.. you got to stop!" Harry said cringing. She wasn't sure why she followed her, but watching her in the hall, she could see every flicker of her aura, in every step. She could see underneath it.. and whatever was going on, was reaching some kind of 'critical mass'.
"Who the hell are you? The three eyed mouse? out of my way!" she scratched again at the wall.
Harry looked at the wall. She could see something else happening though. Whatever Tiffany was doing, it was like she was scratching out... out of reality itself. Like there was some kind of imperfect ripple, and she didn't know where she was scratching to... but she could see whips of dark aura's emanating from those tiny holes... she had to warn her! "Tiffany please! Something is wrong with-"
Tiffany glared at the girl and Harry stepped back scared- right onto Jon's teacher.
The woman looked at Tiffany calmly.
The black flickers around Tiffany stopped instantly... as she looked at the strange teacher.
The elder woman placed a hand onto Harry's shoulder. "Why don't you run along back to your friends dear... I will speak to Tiffany. She is my student, after all."
"B-But... the holes-"
"Yes, don't worry about it... go on now" She gave a pleasant smile to the young girl, and it was all she could to to step away. She blinked away the image of a glowing, horn on the teacher's head...
She didn't Envy Tiffany...
