Cecilia grinned mentally at the cornucopia of sights and sounds surrounding her in the net-side of the arcade. Manifesting as a ball of pink light, she zipped about, reading code here, screwing with a program there. Although she was an A.I., not a Net Fairy, she couldn't directly manipulate rendered objects like they could, she managed to put her own skills to use, rigging up methods of beaching into the games' demo modes, providing some rudimentary game play opportunities.
All this brought her back to her life before her change, hell, before her employment with the government . She used to be a run of the mill nerdy girl, scrawny but not particularly unattractive, with a passion for hacking, programming, and all the other pastimes typical of her denomination. Multitasking was a calling card of hers; she remembered she'd sometimes spend nights on the web with five windows running at once, with naught but a t-shirt with a witty internet reference and a few cans of main brand energy drink as company. Downloading this, torrenting that, it was the good life. Then there was the government job.. but that was a whole kettle of fish she didn't want to bother with at the moment.
Then one day she sat by an open window on the day the sun went crazy and BAM, there you go. To be honest with herself, she loved her new body. Not only did it open up the gatweay into a world of information and communication unlike any other, she just felt.. well... sexy. She'd never really felt all that great about her human body, lanky, pock marked, she just kind of stopped caring about it. But this body? She felt fantastic, she LOOKED fantastic, but what she loved about it most of all was how unique it was. It was completely unlike any other synthetic body she'd seen, and she liked it that way. It didn't try to "appear" human like most gynoid bodies, it screamed, "I'm a robot and I'm proud of it!" Which was just how she felt.
She sighed wistfully as she decapitated the sprite of a yellow ninja. She knew plenty of people got the short end of the stuck transformation wise, but hers just felt her. She closed her minds eye, soaking in the "sound" of the digital environment around her, which is when she noticed a bit of hubbub going on in the DDR program
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Hawkins passed through the door to his hotel room, shucking his hat and coat and placing them on their respective receptacles. He had just dropped Cecilia off at her room, where she'd soon "leave", hurtling off into the digital unknown. The concept fascinated him. This change had basically created a new world, a new ecosystem. He knew congress was scrabbling to deal with the sudden new can of worms that was "digital rights", now that a number of people were entirely computerized, and were dropped smack dab into an untamed wilderness. Things were still rather unorganized, and it wasn't clear what one could and couldn't get away with on the net. The only protection of a digital person was found amongst communities of concerned fellow net citizens. Hawkins was reminded of the image of the old west, the lawless frontier where the only law was what you made of it. He then pictured Cecilia riding out like some sheriff bringing order to the west. He chuckled.
She'd probably be something like that. He didn't question why he was partnered up with her, them already being friends back ad D.C., but he had a feeling she was chosen for her specialized skill in net-related matters, and so that they had someone in the field working to prevent some of the inevitable chaos of this new frontier.
Hawkins donned his bed clothes. He may be an.. interesting entity. But he needed sleep sometimes as well. Before he drifted off however, he sat back up, and smacked himself in the head for nearly forgetting.
There was the clink of something being set down on the nightstand. Something pale white.
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Cecilia zipped over to the DDR's program, seeking out the source of the commotion she'd heard. Ah there we are. A couple of net-fairies, kids by the looks of it. They seemed rather unnerved by something. She moved up and insinuated herself as she normally would.
"So do I need to put a quarter up on the screen for nexties or what?"
