"Mom!" Steve yelped. "Don't! DON'T!"
Her mother turned back to face her - her daughter sounded truly scared by the prospect...
"M-mom," the flower-girl repeated, her lip trembling, "don't..."
Mrs. Daguerre shut the door and embraced her daughter as Steve tumbled into her arms. "It's all right, dear," she said. "If you need to say something, I'll listen..."
"You don't...you don't have to prove anything..." Steve said, dazed from the sudden panic and relief. "Mom...I believe you...please, you don't have to..."
Her mother smiled, gently stroking her hair. "Oh, Steven," she said. "That's not what I meant. I want you to see that I'm sharing your fate, but not because I think you doubt me. I want to be with you, honey. You're my child, and it's still a while before you'll be ready to part with me - or I'll be ready to part with you. And besides, it would free me up from having to live on a night schedule..."
"Please don't," Steve said, "please? I...I don't want you to..."
Her mother gently lifted her chin, looking her in the eye. "Steven," she said, "is it really so important that I be human? Does it mean that much to you?"
The flower-girl thought for a moment, then sighed. "...no, it's just...I don't want you to...not be you..."
The human woman smiled. "I understand, dear. But you know that whatever I would become, I would still be me, just as you're still you..."
Mikey looked down at the sleeping fairies, wondering again about how they worked. She'd thought that if they had families, they could reproduce endlessly at super-speed - but was that really true? The young gynoid remembered back to when she'd first gotten on the Internet, and Emergence had guided her through obtaining development tools and installing proper security software...that had taken a whole afternoon to compile code for her internal architecture.
And that was just ordinary code, lists of instructions in a standard format being converted on a pretty linear basis to machine instructions. Digital fairies, she had gathered, were far more complex - pre-existing code with no source that could re-interpret or re-write itself at any given moment. If two of those programs had to be integrated into a single result - and with less runtime than the near-full amount she'd given to those initial builds - that could take a while.
In fact, wasn't that what happened with a human pregnancy? She'd heard a little about that in class this week. The whole thing was nine months of a tiny, compressed seed of information unpacking and constructing itself into an infinitely more complex entity: a living human being. Nine months!
That got her wondering how she worked. She resembled a human girl down there, she knew, except for the near-perfect symmetry and lack of irregularities common to robots, but she wondered how far the similarities could possibly extend. It couldn't work as an exact analogue - biological life could live in intermediate states during development, while machines had to be functionally complete on a basic level before they could begin to function...
Still, information was information, whether it was a set of chromosomes encoding instructions for building a human baby, or a binary-encoded list of instructions to some kind of internal self-replication facility, and there was no fundamental reason you couldn't turn one into the other, or vice versa. Heck, maybe it would even be possible for robots and humans to have children together? Of course, you'd have to understand both formats to convert between them, but the sun seemed all too happy to provide necessary infrastructure concessions for the people changed by it...
In any case, she was glad this was, for now, strictly academic. From everything she'd heard...eugh.
Hawkins glanced around, looking for any sign of the shadow-dog, then looked back at Tetra. "What, if anything, can we do?" he asked.
The cat-girl frowned. "I don't know what you can do - you were able to knock it around a bit, but I don't think you can do much more than that, and if you try it might attack you."
The strange figure regarded her curiously. "I thought you said it didn't attack its food sources?"
"Not a big source - that'd be killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. But you - you've got some kind of special ability beyond a plain bodily change, so you're probably good food, but not enough to where it would hesitate about making a full meal out of you..."
The catgirl's fur was still a bit raised - who was this guy? What did he think he was doing, butting in on them? What did he know? ...then again, she wasn't doing too great herself...how could this have gone so wrong so fast! It was supposed to be a simple, easy introduction for her pupil! There had to be someone or something in here that was changing the game...
"T-Tetra?" Jenny asked. "If I...if I hit it now, will it get hurt?"
"Not if you do what you were doing," the cat-girl replied. "But, Jenny...it's possible that if we can't send it back, you'll have to kill it."
The girl gasped and blanched. "I-I can't...! I..." How could she do something like that? She wanted to be like Muriel, to help people, not hurt them! But...even Muriel had a gun...did she ever have to shoot people?
I can do it for you. I've...done it lots of times.
Jenny blinked. There was a funny feeling in the back of her head...no, it was nothing, it was gone now. Tetra sighed. "I...I don't want you to have to, Jenny, but if we don't stop it somehow, it might multiply, and then things will be even worse...but let's hope it doesn't come to that."
"The plan is to attack it?" the mysterious man said. Tetra nodded. "We don't have a lot of choice...something is not right here, and this needs to stop now."
He nodded. "If it feeds on people's energy, the food court's busiest now."
The cat-girl gave him an annoyed glance, but nodded, and the three of them set off towards the food court.
Tim had to admit, he was feeling a little under the weather himself. Not nauseous or anything, but he was a bit fatigued and thought he could feel the beginnings of a headache...how could they all come down with this at once?
Jon groaned. Dammit, she thought she'd gotten over this, and now the headache was back! And to top it all off, there was that feeling again...like something was following her... "I...sorry, Karyn," she said, "I just...I gotta sit down for a bit..."
The cecaelia-girl frowned. "Are you sure you're okay, Jon? If you're coming down with something..."
The drow-boy stared at the space around her again...something was bothering him here, though he couldn't quite tell what. "Look," he said, "maybe we should just get her outside? A little fresh air might help..."
The slug-girl nodded. "Yeah...good idea. Let's...let's go out for a bit." She got back up, and they made their way towards the exit. Tim winced a bit as they stepped into full sunlight, but he could deal with the brightness...and at least it felt better out here.
Magical Girl Four and her companions arrived at the food court to see the shadow-dog in the middle of the atrium, heading towards the door. It was indeed changed - it had a heavier build with powerful shoulders, like a lion, and forelegs that looked just a bit like arms. Jenny frowned...it looked like it was following that slug-girl again...why did it like her? She didn't look magic...
The strange man beside her took a deep breath. "I can give it a distraction so it doesn't attack you," he said. "Wait here and make your shot when you have a clear line of fire."
Jenny gasped. "No! You'll get hurt, mister!"
He gave a slight smile. "I'll be alright. But please don't miss." With that, he slipped from pillar to pillar around the main dining area, moving towards the dog-thing. Jenny watched, frightened for him, as he dashed right up to the creature. It began to move toward him...it was plainly hungry now, with a little shake to its movements...she didn't even want to attack the poor thing, but if she didn't do this, Mr. Hawkins might get hurt...
She cringed as she thought of that missed shot. If she hadn't messed that up, this would be over with already...if she could only bring herself to do what needed to be done...but she didn't want to...
Calm down. Arms up...line up your shot. Breathe in, that'll help keep steady.
She raised her strange weapon, holding it with both hands, trying to keep it steady. She pivoted as smoothly as she could, following Hawkins as he led the monster out from the dining area. Her hands were shaking...so much depended on this...
You need to be calm. Let go of everything else and just wait for your moment...stay cool.
The shaking diminished, then stopped, as she kept following the movement of the strange man in the trenchcoat. The monster wasn't far behind him, much too close for comfort, but Jenny felt more collected now...all she had to do was get this right, and everything would be taken care of.
It was out of the dining area completely now, in the less-crowded area by the various mini-restaurants. There was nobody near it, or in between her and her target - this was the moment. She willed her weapon to attack...
The beam of white light sprang forth again, covering the gap in a split-second. It was a direct hit - the shadow-dog was engulfed by light, and when the blast cleared, it was gone.
Jenny let out a far deeper breath than she'd realized she took and sank slowly to her knees. She simply knelt there for a minute, staring at the space where the dog had been. "It...it went home...?" she asked, her voice almost a whisper. Tetra nodded. "It went home. It wasn't hurt."
The white-haired girl burst into tears. She'd...she'd...what if she'd had to...she didn't want to have to...
Agent Hawkins, coming over from where he'd lead the creature, sighed as he looked at the crying little girl. He wasn't all that good with kids, but...she was pretty upset. He crouched down beside her and put a gloved hand on her shoulder. "You did very well, Jenny," he said.
She looked up at the shadowy figure. "I, I was so scared... I..."
He nodded. "But you kept ahold of yourself and didn't let it get in the way. That's a lot more than I expected from a girl your age."
Tetra nodded. "He's right," she said. "You did a good job." She looked up at Hawkins, her ears still laid back a bit. "Um...thanks, I guess..."
