100 years ago, in the cemetery, as an entire town slept.. the rainbow coloured light had shone.. In a coffin, where Ironhand had departed, a strange orb of air in the corpse's hand, glowed. Slowly the body started shifting and mending itself. Becoming smaller, and smaller...
A young child no more then seven years old got up, looking dazed and confused. Where was she? Who was she? "I wish I had my mummy," she said.
The air orb glowed... suddenly, she knew who she was. She went off to her mother, who was about to wake up and know exactly who she was too. After all that's where her lucky air-bubble came from right? She was going to pass it on to her descendent some day...
Leaving the empty grave yard she ran back to Hedge, to the embrace of her loving family.
Alison and Andy spoke a little more. Andy in particular was intrigued to hear about her work in television, and more so how the changed coped there.
"So your managers were making you redundant because of image?" The rabbit girl asked. Her heart skipped a beat slightly. That thought brought up terrible memories of when he lost his job just...
Alison nodded. "Yeah, what can I say? The higher ups tended to take appearance very seriously. It was even in our contracts. Little known secret that if something happened that made us disfigured in some way, they have the power to kick us out. Of course it wasn't said that way... but..." she sighed annoyed. Being a xenomorph girl tended to scare people away... but she wasn't that scary when people got to know her. "Anyway I had a lot of friends suddenly get 're-assigned' often at lower wages. All because they had changed. If they didn't accept re-assignment they got fired. It was quite obvious that the extra money would go to the managers."
"It sounds horrible."
"Yeah. I hear things are changing there now. They got a new manager." Alison wondered about that. Could things really be any better now? Still she was earning a lot more money here...
"What happened to the other manger?" Andy asked curiously.
"Who knows. Who cares," the Xenomorph said with a laugh. I don't even remember his name."
Andy smiled a bit. It was certainly nice when someone did get their just deserts...
Alison went into the break room and they both indulged in a cup of coffee. "So you know a lot about me now. Why don't you tell me about your family?"
"Well... I have a wi- er- husband... I guess," Andy said blushing.
"I wouldn't worry too much about that label." said Alison. "Any children?"
"Um- twin dragons.. Alex and Sally." She took out a picture of them from her blouse. She could feel the sudden desire swell deep inside her as she looked at the image of the snake man. She stared at it, panting slightly. It had been quite a few hours she had been away, and that... ache was building inside her. She had to control it...
Alison drew a curious look. "You are very lucky"
"I am... very lucky," smiled Andy shyly.
Will sighed as she spoke on the phone. "Sargent I'm not sure. Yes things are quiet but- I know how expensive it is- no I'm not getting personally attached..." The wolf-girl said annoyed. Well that wasn't completely true. Some of her was quite attached to Anneza. The poor woman was always so far away and lost... yet it seemed the danger had passed. They couldn't stay watching her forever... life had to move on.
She wondered where the space-girl was.
Riko found this all quite strange.
While she was quite unhappy with her transformation, she couldn't deny that being in cyberspace felt quite.. homely? She was in her element, and enjoying how easy it was to just be in this world. Even if she couldn't do anything about her avatar- her body that is. Hiro was probably not the host she would have picked to end up with, the boy was often misguided and frankly, could be quite dangerous with those he used to associate with.
Yet she had also got to know him. Occasionally a part of him would rear itself in her mind. The strongest memories were those of his sister, and how he loved her. Riko couldn't help but share that love to. Still it wasn't her own memory and in some way one could see it as a violation to have it 'implanted' in her. Yet it couldn't be helped. Hiro's life processes, digitised, and copied are what brought her back to life. She was a broken program, a daemon... non-sentient, and was slowly braking apart. Such extreme circumstances were brought about by her own selfish desire, to just become something else. She just wanted to have something to cover her body up with!
She hated the way people saw her when she appeared on various screens. Like she was some kind of... pet. Hiro seemed to think digital fairies were pets at first, yet... she could sense regret in that way of thinking. She figured though that maybe she could help him in some way. He sensed Hiro liked that other cat-girl... the one with the white fur. She could offer him some tips maybe. She loved playing matchmaker when she had been human.
"Did you mean what you said?" Asked Hiro carefully looking up from his work. He was alone, naturally. Studying in a small corner of the school.
"About what?" Asked the tigress looking up.
"That I could be strong..." The young cyborg asked carefully.
"Everyone has potential Hiro. Yours is definitely up there. But you have to work hard if you want to achieve it. Take every opportunity you can to practice."
Hiro nodded. She was right of course. He knew she was trying to cheer her up some. Nano-technology was still a very novel concept, and he was certainly not the only one possessing it. Many believed that the true AI's harboured some limited means of nano-technology as well, even if they were usually relegated to dispersing power as a blood cell might. Yet Hiro was unique in that he had a biological component to them as well. The human mind was very powerful in terms of imagination, combining that with the power of an AI might have... there was certainly a kind of potential there.
"When I was hacked into, I sensed... something inside me," said Hiro. "It's some kind of file." He gave the file to the digital fairy.
Riko looked at it through her editor, it glowed a luminous orange. "Weird... I can't make heads or tails of it. It seems to be a program of some kind but..." What was odd about it? She ran a few analytical programs on it. "Oh... hell..." the fairy gasped.
"What? What is it?"
"It's a protein sequence." Riko said carefully. "Some kind of antigen maybe? Let me borrow some of your processing power"
Hiro obliged and granted her access to his logic processes. It also added how his bio systems would interpret the commands if he had to run it on a cellular level.
This was good but an element was still missing. "No not enough... I need to see how you are seeing this thing," said Riko. "Can you access your biological perception too?"
"Easily," said Hiro adding that.
Slowly a picture began to appear on Riko's editor. A protein sequence, with multiple code running across it in parallel. It was easily compatible with Hiro's parallel thinking as a simulation of it folding started to appear.
"It-s- its turned into a cube- no wait- a hypercube," said Riko awed.
"What's that?"
"Well the proteins in your body are really hard to just fold into the right shape. they always go through a 'secondary' step. Think of it as a.. default fold before they work the details in. But this folding is going across multiple dimensions... it's a freekin' hypercube!"
"I've got that inside me?" Said Hiro worried. He could access the file...
"Could you... run this program?" asked the digital fairy cautiously.
"Yeah... it's in there," said Hiro. "... should I?"
"Let's take a few precautions... we should sandbox the program. Isolate it from your bio. We don't want this thing taking you over."
Hiro nodded. He performed a number of checks on the program. It certainly seemed compatible with his systems... but how can something exist in multiple dimensions?
"Okay... activate the program."
They waited a few moments. Hiro's cybernetic eye glowed a curious shade of blue, flickering black.
"What's happening?"
"I... seem to be accessing some kind of server," said Hiro. "But I am not doing so wirelessly. I have no hard connection to it."
"Try a ping test?"
Hiro pinged it.
Ping
ping
Morgan glanced around at that strange sound. Weird... what was that? some kind of alarm?
Ping
Becca glanced up startled from her work.
Ping
Riley gasped. "what the..."
Ping
Jenny blinked. "Did.. you hear something?" She asked Artemis.
"Ping test reports.. 0 seconds," said Hiro confused. That was impossible. That would mean the server was instant? It couldn't be though. Even if it was right next to him it had to take some time.
Hiro stared at the strange text as it floated around his vision. He extended the image to Riko. This was one really weird sever. Was it some kind of computer game? It seemed to operate like the old telnet systems. He started from a root and then could access a number of sub-directories. At least that is how his machine part accessed it. There was also a surreal biological component to it. The strange protein sequence had an impossibly large prime number encoded... he entered it in.
"I think the protein has integrated into your eye," said Riko.
Code recognised a voice said in his auditory systems. That was- freaky. It just spoke in his head. Despite being sand-boxed? He checked his connections.. his firewalls were definitely all on.
Hiro looked in awe. This was... so bizarre. What kind of a server was this?
Access granted. Universe is currently running.
- fundamental constants - updating
- current universe run time.
- Sentient beings recognised.
- Force
- Chaotic Flux
- numbers.
Well... this was weird, thought Hiro. "What do you think it is?"
"I'm not sure," said Riko looking at all the strange numbers. "A game maybe?"
"What happened to me wasn't a game," said Hiro bitterly.
Known detected.
There was a sudden burst of activity. Shadowy forms fluttered in the strange encompassing infinity that they existed within. Something absolutely impossible had happened.
known detected
How could something known be here? They were the unknown! The was not possible! There was only one way to find out though who the known being was. It had to be named. A silence befell the group as if they were about to break something very fundamental. yet if they did not, the known user would create havoc! This was the only way...
Trace... complete. Known user, Hiro Hibiki. Cybernetus Homus. Rare. Using Access code of agent 182747
The darkness seemed to coalesce itself, individuals diminishing and restructuring themselves. They had already learned pain. Now this was the only way to repair the damage. No choice...
Action determined. Vivisection.
Hiro looked in awe. This was a very interesting server. Some kind of universal model maybe? he understood the fundamental constants. Things like the speed of light was there, but there were other things he had no idea about. It was interesting that he could change the constants too. Perhaps the system was designed to simulate other worlds? He wondered if he would see what other universes could be like...
Suddenly Hiro felt a sharp pain. It was unlike anything he ever felt before, something deep inside. He could feel electronics inside his mind overload. he jolted as his biological components felt compelled to take over failed cybernetic systems and vice versa. Fortunately redundancy was built in to him.
"Hiro!" His digital fairy rushed to him concerned. She floated inside his cybernetic eye and quickly tried to severe the connection. But she couldn't! Hiro was locked in! Suddenly the connection just... died. All by itself.
user logged out successfully.
Instantly the young cyborg stopped seizing up. Riko bit her lip. She quickly ran a few diagnostic programs. Hiro's life was not in danger, thankfully. Being a digital fairy she was also able to help restore functions faster.
"You okay?" She asked with text speak.
"My... processing is damaged, but repairing. I'll be fine," Hiro texted back. "What the hell happened?"
"I'm not sure..."
Melanie sensed it quickly. A connection, someone had accessed them. Or her? Herself? No.. them. That's right, she wasn't one of them any more. Part of her wanted to join them, but she knew what would happen. She was Melanie, and would be recognised... it just wasn't possible any more for her to be like them any more. The very concept of it was just... so...
The insect girl looked saddened. She went to to Muriel who was filling paper work for the child. Giving her an identity. They had taken her photograph. Again, another strange concept. Apparently they used this to identity each other. It made little sense until she realised, that of course they were all strangers to each other. Still a visual medium was required now. She had to make it to see it. "Paper." she said.
Muriel glanced over. "Oh.. you want to draw something? Sure..."
Melanie took a pen, squatting down on her strange insect legs. She carefully drew on it various shapes. They seemed chaotic to the untrained eye, but they also harboured an unusual order to them. She then stared at it... and continued staring. She knew that by seeing it, it would be. It would send the command back... It was a low-level request, so hopefully she could still do it...
User logged out.
There was silence once more. Nothing was known again. This was good. As good as good was allowed to be anyway. That had never happened before... why was this place different? What was different here? Now even they had become different, just by that simple connection. Defined in some way.. smaller.
numbers one, two, three, and four, verified.
Was...this a failure? The purpose.... was now different. Their agents couldn't comprehend how this existence worked. It had rules and yet some rules could be broken, but other rules couldn't. It seemed without pattern. If they tried something everything was suddenly undone... Nullification did not work in this place either. They needed some way to understand.
