This was all very strange to Kyle. She glanced down to her new body, wondering how human her thoughts were now. She had not felt any sense of 'loss' exactly. If anything events had a detached sense about them, as if even her perception of time itself had been warped in some way. That the change in her body didn't make her upset was... very strange. She thought she might have been more put off, but there was something else on her mind.
A job to do?
Something important, more important then the shape she had to carry it out in. While her body did feel a little uncomfortable, it was limited in how many polygons she gave herself. She didn't have to feel the sensations of her body if she was only a sprite, for instance. The lack of feeling was not even that bothersome. There were varying degrees of realness to her form, that she could turn on and off.
This brought with is a quiet realisation... she could access machines that were off. Dead machines, crashed ones, or... anything. Exactly how much influence she could exert on such a place though, was hard to say. Perhaps they would be as the imagined worlds of the dead, or she would be a ghost in them.
The strange time warping intrigued her. She found she could 'step back' from the run time environment, as if she were able to produce her own 'time' within the system. It was probably the same internal 'run time' she had in the real world... although that felt like entirely the wrong way to put it.
Kyle could hear a whisper...
She looked at her pen, as it seemed to just automatically write a name into the strange digital ether that she now existed in.
Ethan Vares
Who was that? Her pen seemed to tug her forward... she calmly walked into the internet... and entered its digital corridors.
She found wondering digital fairies in the system, various AI's passed by... very few acknowledged her. Probably a little more disturbing was her own relative size to the other digital fairies.
She was a 'human' size within this system, even as the digital fairies were fairy sized. She suspected she could change this by varying her polygon count, but it would take time to work out how.
Soon she found the place she was guided to... and recognised it immediately.
The workshop!
She materialised into their server, seeing the Linux fairy Janus, and the AI Virtigo together.
"W-What the!" Janus said looking alarmed at the giant digital construct. "Who.. what.. are... you?"
Kyle looked down at them biting her lip. "I... I'm not sure..."
"Scanning..." AI virigo said calmly. "File Unknown. No File found."
"Unknown?" Janus said alarmed. "She's a giant! Some kind of... huge digital fairy?"
"I can not detect any new process on our system." AI Virtigo said remaining calm, though very intrigued. "She is not a program."
"she must be! She's ... here!"
Kyle watched as the two argued about her presence, as she held out her pen. It was.. pointing itself to the Daemon. "I... I am here for... Ethan Vares?" She said hoping that would make sense.
Janus looked surprised. "H-How could you possibly know his name? We only just figured that out today!" He said glancing at the daemon. "I- I'm trying to repair his programming. He's... He's loosing coherence. I can't work out the error!"
The light of AI virtigo pulsed. "I can not trace the error either... I am dedicating all my run time to it. I am not even mobile in the real world, for the past 5.3 days..."
"Can.. you help him?" Asked Janus looking at the huge being.
Kyle looked with a faraway look again, her pen still pointing to the Daemon. "I... I don't know. But... I can hear him. The real him, inside..."
"W-what is he saying?" Asked Janus.
Kyle looked down. "He's asking me to help him... to let him out."
"Can you?" Asked AI virtigo.
Kyle looked very disturbed. Something about this was not making sense... what aspect of the digital world did she exist in? And if she did bring this digital fairy- or daemon even... what would happen to him? "If... I do... I.. I ... don't think you will see him again. I will.. send him.. away..." she swallowed shivering slightly.
"Away? Who the hell are you!" shouted Janus. "You are not going to take him anywhere!"
"I.." Kyle stammered. "I... don't know." Her voice was shaky now and uncertain. What exactly was her purpose with these digital fairies?
AI viritigo's light pulsed. "What would happen to him, if his program de-constructs?"
Janus glanced to his host. "You know what would happen! He would decompile. He would just stop..."
"What happens to his mind at that point?" Asked Janus carefully.
"I.. I don't know."
Virtigo's light seemed to shift it's way to Kyle. "What would happen to his mind, if you took him?"
Kyle bit her lip. "I... think... the same thing that happens... to all minds, in the real world... when that happens."
There was a pause as they considered this.
"Then it seems we have two choices... we let him die like this, or we let him go... as a human being." virtigo said sadly.
"You can't be serious! It was my fault!" Janus said angrily. "He used my program! I didn't make the program good enough!" The Linux fairy was stomping now incredibly angry at the deal. "I can fix him. I just need time! You keep your death hands off him! Get out of my workshop!"
Kyle blinked hurt. She looked down. "I... I want... to help... I want him to live as well... please... I'm a programmer as well. Let me try..."
Ai Virtigo looked at the being before them quietly. "It seems... she is a digital.. grim reaper?"
Janus looked annoyed. "Yeah... like a game over screen. Sheesh.. just what we needed. I thought we were immortal here."
AI Virtigo's light pulsed again. "Unlikely... but an understandable belief. It makes sense we would need someone to ensure, we do not go into eternal loops when our programming incurs too many errors... What is your name miss?"
Kyle gasped slightly. "I... I don't have one. I don't know..."
"Well.. she's a she..." shrugged Janus.
"Shi..." said virtigo. "That might be... appropriate."
Somewhere... vaguely, Kyle knew the word meant death...
