Effie looked back at the daemon, feeling her stomach churn as she saw him now not as a program, but as a sort of walking corpse. He appeared undamaged and seemed to be functioning perfectly, until you knew that he wasn't supposed to be a pure functionary at all...was this what awaited a fairy who attempted to change their self?
Dennis was feeling almost the same. It reminded him of the time he'd watched The Black Hole as a kid, with the zombie crewmen...of course, this creature hadn't been stripped of his will by a tyrannical madman, but he couldn't shake the feeling nonetheless.
They turned to each other, each reading many of their own thoughts in the other's face. "Do you think..." Dennis said, his voice almost a whisper, "do you think he's still in there?"
Effie sighed. "I don't know...digital fairies' redundancy and reconstructive abilities must be pretty good - you saw how easily Nadine recovered after the virus was removed - but...that's not a fail-safe guarantee against permanent data loss." Like my name, she thought.
Dennis nodded. "Still...we should try, shouldn't we?"
She shrugged. "I guess...I don't know what good it'll do, but it's better than not trying..."
Effie turned back towards the daemon, trying to keep her feelings under control. This wasn't a monster, it wasn't a zombie - it was a person, a sick person, maybe one who could be saved. She didn't know that she really believed just talking with him would do much...but she couldn't just stand around and do nothing, not without at least giving it a try.
She and Dennis attempted to engage the daemon in conversation for a while, but while his responses were polite, pleasant, and sometimes tangibly related to what they'd said, there was nothing that indicated real intelligence at work - it was like talking to a more naturally-speaking Eliza program.
Effie sighed and turned away, feeling a terrible sinking feeling in her gut. After the quick recovery Nadine had made, she'd been feeling elated, like maybe all these problems weren't so insurmountable after all, but this...
It was like facing her own mortality. That could have been her, if she hadn't been warned so strongly about trying to modify herself. She remembered the times where she'd thought of doing it anyway, feeling that teenage self-assurance that "that won't be me, I can handle this." What if she had...?
Dennis put a hand on her shoulder. "It's not your fault," he said. "You can't always expect a wound to heal instantly, you know."
She turned to him, feeling a sense of relief just to be looking at a face with true life in it. "But...I couldn't help him," she said. "He's still..."
Dennis shook his head. "We don't know that," he said. "Maybe you couldn't cure him right off, but we don't know that you didn't help in some smaller way. You might have planted the seed of a cure, and it'll just take time."
She sighed and smiled. "Thanks," she said.
Terri found his husb...uh, wife, just getting off the phone with Jay. "I'm taking Monday and Tuesday off," she said, when she'd hung up. "So we'll have the weekend and then another couple of days with A-uh, Riley. My God, that's going to take some getting used to."
Terri nodded. "I'm just glad...from what they...from what she's said, it sounds like neither of them are less 'there' than they were individually. It must be even stranger for them..."
Toby nodded thoughtfully, staring off into the distance. After a moment, her attention returned to Terri. "You got something on your mind, dear?" she asked.
Terri sighed. "It's just...what they were...what Riley was saying, about us changing..."
Toby nodded, scooching over next to her...to her husband. "It is kind of scary, isn't it?" she said. "I honestly hadn't even noticed anything until Jay pointed it out to me this morning...and I don't even know to what degree this is for real."
"Yeah," Terri replied, putting his arm around her. "You haven't seemed very different to me, but just some of those little things, like the dress, and the candy, and your nipples...makes me wonder if there's anything larger that I'm missing, or if that's just paranoia talking."
Toby laughed nervously. "What about my nipples?"
Terri smiled, blushing a little. "They were, uh, they showing when you came in, like you were aroused...are you, uh, wearing a bra?"
Toby frowned a little. "Well of course I was aroused! You're my husband!" She paused, realizing what she'd said, but decided that the implications, if any, weren't something to get worked up about. "I came in and saw you, and I was just thinking about the other night...and, uh, no I'm not. I forgot to put it on this morning, and I was in a bit of a hurry to get to work."
Terri sighed. "Uh, yeah. I'm sorry, it's just...what Riley said about, um, perverts..."
Toby smiled devilishly. "For someone who was copping a feel on me just before we made love, you're being awfully self-conscious, dear. What's perverted about us enjoying each other?"
Terri grinned in spite of himself, feeling his blood pressure mounting. "Mmm...nothing much, I guess. I just don't know what to make of all this, that's all..."
Toby smiled, pressing herself up against him. "I know..." she whispered. "It's confusing, and just when we thought we were done with this. But...you still have me, I still have you..."
"...and we still have Riley, who is currently just downstairs, honey," Terri smiled. "Might want to wait until tonight."
Toby laughed. "Of course...and if it makes you feel better, you look more like love-interest material than pervert material to me."
