Anneza sighed as she kept going. Another sheet, another seam sewn, and more excited noises from the people working the equipment. It wasn't that she disliked this work; it was repetitive, but in a way that she could kind of get lost in, and she did kind of enjoy the feeling of bringing order into the structures on such a minute, delicate level. But...was it really wasn't what she wanted to be doing for a living? She had worked until now in a job centered on organization and communication...this had a little of the one and nothing at all of the other.
Still, money was money...she wondered idly if they might pay her enough to stay in the house. If only she could talk to them, she was sure she could talk them into a decent wage. After all, her ability must be worth something, if they were this excited about it. But without being able to speak their language...well, she could rely on Ellen to translate, and math was math even if she was still just getting the hang of reading this number system again, but she wasn't really certain how far she'd get without being able to negotiate in her own words.
But that really didn't bode well for her prospects in the kind of job she'd rather have, which meant that, at least for now, it was probably this or sweeping up at...that hamburger place that nobody wanted to work at. She just wished that she could be known and valued for more than just her ability to make this stuff...she sighed.
A couple minutes passed, when she heard the door open. She turned to look, and saw the little wolf-cop re-enter the tailor's shop. The wolf-girl was carrying both a takeout bag and Ellen, and set them both down on an empty corner of the work table Anneza was floating just above. Sorry to leave, Ellen signed. Thought you would be hungry.
Anneza nodded; now that Ellen mentioned it, she was kind of hungry. She'd had a late breakfast, but she'd also been out and about quite a bit this morning. And she'd noticed that it seemed to take more energy to keep a slower pace with her companions than to simply go places at her own speed; maybe it had to do with having less momentum and needing to work to keep up movement? She didn't know. In any case, she could use something to eat. Thank you, she signed; that was an easy one to remember.
The doll-woman smiled. We had to guess what to get from the things you make. Anneza thought she could smell some familiar scents, and waited as Will pulled out a bundle from the bag and unwrapped the foil paper, revealing some kind of hot sandwich. She breathed deeply and smiled; maybe not exactly what she'd have ordered, but a pretty good guess. What had she been thinking, about having people who knew and valued her? Maybe she did after all. She sighed happily and grabbed the sandwich.
Adam sighed as she dialed the phone with one claw. She was really going to need to get a hands-free headset now...she took a breath and tried to steady her nerves as she heard the phone pick up on the other end. "Hello?" said a voice.
"H-hello," she said. "This is Adam. Is Rick there?"
"Adam?" the woman on the other end said. "Yai! Hang on, I'll get him for you."
A brief pause, then a man's voice. "Hello?" he said.
"Hi," the harpy said. "This is Adam Avery...I'm really sorry for not coming in yesterday or today, but I've been kind of stuck dealing with the aftermath of...well, I changed. I would've called, but it's a bit difficult for me to work a phone now..."
"Mm." The store owner was a man of few words, but this was one of his good noncommittal grunts, at least. "Tell me about this change."
"Well, uh, I'm a harpy now," she said. "And a girl, if you couldn't tell by the voice. As far as how that'll impact things...I don't know. I don't have hands anymore; I do have talons, but I'm not used to them, so I don't know how much I can do with the till or with shelf stock..."
"Hmm," her boss replied. "Come on in when you get a chance; we'll see what we can figure out."
She nodded; it was fortunate the store environment was so easy-going...still, she had to wonder, what would the future hold for her? Could she keep doing her job? Or would she have to find something that required no hands at all?
The two digital fairies sat in silence in the emptiness of the school intranet for what felt like a long time. Effie wished she knew what he was thinking...did he think she was crazy? Depressive? What if...what if he thought she was...even worse than she had been, to be so eager to sever ties with her old life...but she wasn't eager, it was just that...that...she wasn't that person anymore! Was she? She didn't know! She just...he was sitting there now, he was probably watching her lose it...was she visibly upset? What did he...?
"L-look!" she said, huffing. She didn't mean for it to burst out of her like that, but it did anyway. "I...I just...it's not like I don't want to talk to them or anything, it's...I'm not the person they knew anymore...I'm just...made from the pieces...I don't want to show them the ghost of their son..."
Dennis's eyes widened, and Effie nearly choked as she realized that she'd never actually told him. She watched him intently, dreading the inevitable look of revulsion that would come with this revelation...but instead, he scooted over next to her and put his arm around her shoulder. "Effie," he said, "there's more to it than that, isn't there?"
She hesitated, then nodded. She couldn't lie to him, not...not the way he treated her. Here she was, having already told him that she was responsible for the virus that had nearly killed poor Nadine...and now that she wasn't even a real girl...and yet he treated her just the same as he had since they'd met...she couldn't tell him anything but the truth. "I-I don't w-want to be that person any more," she said. "Everything that I did, just to make myself feel cool...and now it's more than just data. There are people here, Dennis! Real people, who can get hurt or killed by something I didn't even think twice about unleashing! I deserve this! I deserve wo-"
She was cut short as Dennis clapped a hand over her mouth. She stared at the DOS fairy, seeing a fire in his eyes she'd never noticed before. "Don't you ever say that!" he said, somehow sounding hurt, like her own self-loathing caused him pain. "You talk like you're just some random collection of garbage data, but you're not! You're not a ghost, you're a person, Effie! You're as real a person as anyone here! You matter! Your parents still care about you, or they wouldn't have been interested in contacting you, and they deserve the truth, because they care about you! I care about you!"
His hand fell away from her mouth, and she stared at him, lip trembling. "D-Dennis," she said, "I...I..." She felt tears begin to roll down her cheek, splashing onto the tops of her breasts through the virtual material of her blouse. He stared her right in the eye.
"You're a good person, Effie," he said, gently lifting her chin up so that she was looking into his eyes. "I keep saying that, I want you to listen. I want you to believe that, 'cause it's true. I know you've made mistakes. I'm not just some lovestruck teenager blind to all flaws. I just know that you're a good person anyway, because I've seen that in you. And I don't want you thinking you're worthless just because you're only ever thinking of your mistakes...you're so much more than that."
She didn't know what to feel at that moment. She was sad, she was comforted, she was lonely, she was afraid, she was hopeful...it wasn't even a conscious thought so much as an instinctive impulse, at first, when she leaned over and kissed him. But he kissed back, and she decided that...maybe he was right. Maybe "Effie" did matter.
