Tiffany looked angrily at the list.
What exactly did the teacher expect by making her do these tasks? A 'charity drive'? Sporting activities? She hated all these things in the list... maybe that was the point. This was some form of punishment concocted by an insane teacher. She knew her rights, the teacher couldn't hurt her... right? But for some reason she just felt she couldn't take that chance. Arts and crafts? Urgh! Boring! Sewing? You have got to be kidding... still she had to pick one of these...
Effie looked bitterly as she continued to read from her editor, removing the various pieces of offending code.
She knew it was still potentially dangerous to edit even the outer regions of a digital fairy's code, but this time she knew exactly what she was doing. She knew her virus, and what it could do. She wasn't sure if it was a product of her environment or an aspect of what she had become, but a combination of instinct and know-how guided her to all the parts of her creation.
"Nova," she sighed. It was supposed to be her 'coolest' virus ever. It was an accidental combination that actually fried hard drives, hence the name. This was the result... it was killing a little girl, and God only knew how many others it infected. Is this why she was reviled on the internet? Did Emergence know? Did... Bonzo? If that AI had known, would she still be in that server tortured? Looking at the frozen appearance of this little girl, she felt she deserved everything they did to her and more so.
Effie took out another code from an obscure program-loop and immediately looked for the re-hooking program she knew would activate. She carefully deleted that in the right order. she had performed similar functions when she beta-tested it but right now, an innocent life was in her hands if she didn't do this exactly right... there was no telling what would happen.
"How's she looking?" Asked Dennis.
"I... almost have it. The virus has changed a little but I can still remove it." It was probably why anti-virus systems didn't work for her. She noticed she had tried a number of them, but only direct code removal could help her. Effie was the only one that actually knew at least some of the basic idea's behind the virus. Even if it was just a tool kit build, she knew the file names, how they were called, everything that actually made the virus live.
"What kind of fairy is she?" she wondered while working.
"I think she's a Wii fairy," said Dennis looking her over. Her overall theme was white. She did not wear a dress unlike Effie and seemed very spry and athletic.
"I... didn't think a wii fairy could get infected," she said with confusion. Certainly not by her virus. It was designed for windows and linux.
"Maybe it can transfer between digital fairy's now, regardless of their operating system embodiment. All fairies share the same architecture."
Effie swallowed at the implications of that. It meant there could be others infected... her virus was still circulating when the sun hit, there were almost certainly hundreds of infected computers, if not more. She didn't know how many digital fairies were out there, but it only took one infected individual to create... this.
"Its... done," Sighed Effie looking exhausted. She blinked tears of a moments relief, but they still had to bring her out of suspension to make sure it worked. If she deleted something important she would fail to boot up... and... then what? She would crash... she would become one of those shooting stars they saw earlier.
Is that how a digital fairy died here? With great fear Effie activated her wake up routines. She heard the curious chime that accompanied the successful boot up and a sigh escaped her lips.
The little girl started to move again, her smile never lost when she froze. "I- I'm cured?" she said surprised.
"How do you feel?" Dennis asked looking at her carefully.
"I feel... I feel great! Better then ever. Thank you! Oh.. Thank you. You must be a super programmer!"
Effie looked down a bit. "I- happen to know about that virus. That's all. I didn't need to know about your-" she was taken aback when the young girl reached around and hugged her. She had never been hugged by a kid before and those 'motherly' instincts took hold of her for a moment.
Dennis grinned a bit. "We're just glad we ran into you. What's your name?"
"I'm Nadine." she said quietly stepping away from Effie. "Um... I'm not supposed to talk to strangers," She said. "But I got lost here... I was going back home. My mum and dad..." she sniffled a bit.
"It's okay," said the windows ME fairy. "I'm Effie, and this is Dennis. We'll help you get home."
"P-Promise?" She asked.
"Of course!" Nodded Dennis. "Do you know where you live?"
"Uh huh, I know my house but um... how do I get there from here? I don't understand this place."
"I am sure we can find how to get back to your house. though..." the fairy wasn't sure how to break it to the girl, that she would only end up inside her console again. The real world is out of bounds unless an AI is near there, and even then... its limited.. He decided to cross that bridge later, right now the child needed to see her parents.
Thoughts of family again made Effie pensive... Whoever she used to be, no longer existed. It was... probably better that way. Her own parents... well... 'Effie' didn't have any parents... did she...? If the operating system she embodied filled in those parts she lost, she guessed technically Microsoft was her parent? That was a thought that made her shudder.
She had a bigger problem now. She had to get word out on how to remove her creation from other fairies. She had to do it in such a way it could not be traced in case her cover was blown.
The court room was crowded by the high media case, surrounding Anderson. The judge sat. He seemed human, however the jury looked to be about half transformed and half normal humans. It was certainly interesting and one wondered if the state had done that intentionally, but it looked like it was just random chance.
"The honourable Judge Brown residing," said the clerk. "Please be seated"
"Is the Jury sworn in?" Judge brown asked.
"yes your honour," the clerk said with routine practice.
"Anderson Collins, you are hereby charged with assault by proxy, hiring a hit-man and exposing your victim into the sunlight. What is your plea?"
Harris got up, a sharp look about him. he glanced at the defence, and noted it was a female transformed person. He hoped this wouldn't make the case more emotional then it needed to be.
"The defence pleads, Not Guilty, your Honour."
There was a murmur in the crowd.
"Order in the Court... you may present your arguments." The judge looked waiting.
The prosecution stood and explained their stance. "It is an open and shut case. My client, Toby, was victimised. Forced into becoming what he is now, without consent. The money points to payment by the defendant, into the accounts of a known hit man. Upon this attack, he was left to be exposed in the sun light. Evidence of this transfer is exhibited and confirmed by the banks."
Harris listened, and had tried to look at this from all angles for his client, but there was not much room to manoeuvre. The fact that the money trail pointed to an assailant, directly linking Anderson would have made any other lawyer give up at this point. However, he had to do the best he could to protect his client. Soon they got their turn.
"Defence may begin their starting argument," the Judge spoke.
Harris got up respectfully. "It is accepted, that Anderson has paid money, to a known thug to these courts. However, it must also be noted, that this thug has disappeared... My client informs me, he was being blackmailed by this criminal, hence the loss of that money."
"Objection," the prosecution said quickly. "As the defence says, this is a known criminal. However extortion and blackmail is not one of his MOs. It does not explain the attack upon my client Toby."
"If the defence may take a moment to point out the link?" Harris pressed.
Judge brown looked carefully. "We lack the assailant, and therefore can not question him. Motives are currently an unknown. I will give the defence grace to provide a reasonable explanation for this possibility."
"Thank you your honour," said Harris. Inside he was smiling, but it was important not to show it. "The assault, it could be argued, was to get to Anderson. Far from being arranged by him, it was a threat to intimidate my client into paying more."
"Does the defence have evidence to the contrary?" The judge asked.
The defence shot a very angry look at Harris. "We would like to question Anderson, on this possibility," she said. Perhaps she could expose him.
The judge nodded. "Anderson, you are summoned to the stand."
