Effie was relaxing in Mikey's room. It was strange being so far away from her host. She still didn't understand how any of this worked but then, being a digital fairy didn't make any sense. So it was probably best not to worry too much about it. Dennis had gone to see his own family. It was nice seeing her parents, but at the same time she knew she'd never be able to... touch them again. What use was being a digital fairy? Their host was based in the real world, and they were just.. ghosts? She was sure of all the transformations possible, theirs had to be the worst. It was so... disconnected from reality.
"I miss you Mom... dad..." she said to herself. "And everyone else too," she scrunched herself sitting down the space bar of Mikey's computer, burrowing her head into her hands. All in all she should be glad things are not as bad as they could be. She could have been deleted. What a strange idea! What exactly did that mean? Did she even still exist? Her flesh and blood body was gone, she just had this form...
She looked over her editor. It looked like emergence had updated the runtime engine. It was a very slow process but people were interested in working out how to customise their appearance. Unfortunately people realised it was not exactly the same as taking off ones clothes and putting one on again. It had to be programmed from scratch, and it had to be done in such a way as to not interfere with the core program. Not that there was a core . A change of colour was generally fairly safe, although one fairy repoted that changing his shirt to red made him strangely more aggressive in nature. Still such changes were easily reversible. What was more intriguing was accessing additionally coded states that already existed. It seemed digital fairies had them embedded in their code, it was just a question of unlocking them.
Effie glanced down at her dress. She had kind of become used to it, as much as one can. She wasn't thrilled to be stuck with it forever though. It's not as if it got dirty or anything. But it was just annoying.
She ran the editor and found a few other states available to her immediately. The first was her default state, naturally.. the second (or would that be the 0 state?) was.. naked? "Urgh," She frowned annoyed. Why was it so hard to code something more workable? It seemed she had a few other states but they were still locked. There was no method to unlock them either.
She went onto the message board on emergence to try and get more information on how to unlock it, but it seemed like a lot of people didn't know. However "hacking" ones own program was highly discouraged, given what it could do... Still there was nothing stopping her taking off her clothes, they just kind of put themselves back on if left too far away. Something about the way digital fairies worked meant 'parts' of their program had to be kept within some proximity.
She sighed and took off her dress, casting it off to the side. She didn't feel brave enough to run the 'naked' protocol. What if she couldn't bring her dress back? The software stated it was still buggy though this was the 'safe' release. She looked at her reflection on the screen. That strange green-haired fairy, wearing a simple bra and panties... it was hard not feel awkward with the girl staring at her back.
She just... didn't know who she was.
She touched the screen, just as it went to screen saver mode. It looked like a new one too. strange lights bursting into colour. It was quite pretty. She arched an eyebrow as her hand took hold of more 'starburst' code. She sampled it on her tongue. That tasted... actually... really good. She took more handfuls of code as it came near her, glittering into her hand. Before she realised it she had taken in a large quantity of it. It was giving her such a strange buzz in her head, it was making her giggle.
Effie started to smile to herself feeling inexplicably good. There wasn't a care in in the world. She started to dance on the keyboard, letting her feet decide where to go. She let herself go on the current of the wireless systems, freely gliding in large arcs.
Dennis suddenly appeared from the router. He glanced around surprised to see Effie in her underwear... and... what in the world was she doing? "Effie?"
"Oooh, Hi Dennisy!" she giggled again as floated towards the router. She collapsed right into him, making the DOS fairy fall to the ground.
"Oof- What's gotten into you?"
"Noofin' at all..." She giggled again.
"Effie- are you okay?" Dennis looked at her in concerned. She was acting like... she was drunk? "Did you drink- wait there's no way for us to even-" how in the world, did Effie manage to get herself drunk?! He hoped she had not messed about with her own program. He reached for his editor to scan her, when Effie suddenly grabbed him, looking at him with simple innocent eyes. Their faces very close to eachother.
"I was feelin' lonely," the girl admitted. "An' you're the only real one here now," she held him tighter afraid to let go. "The only one... I can touch... feel..."
"Effie- I think something s happened to your program. Let's just quickly get you checked out..." The Dos fairy blushed even more. This just-
"I wanted... to tell you... how much I..." She sniffled a bit as her baser instincts seemed to get stronger. Dennis was so attractive in her eyes. "... so much... had no idea..." She then proceeded to kiss Dennis on his lips, savouring the closeness.
Dennis was too startled and did as any other teenager would do, and kissed her back. But this was starting to get serious! "Effie- we'll- er-"
Effie then just... mercifully fell asleep into his arms.
Dennis sighed. He used his editor, and found that his friend must have accessed the computer recently. He saw the strange star-burst screen saver. It looked rather.. psychedelic? No... that wasn't possible.. was it? It seemed to be a new screen saver too... He took a very small sample from the screen, noting the colours on his hand, and took a small sample of it... feeling the unmistakable sensation as if he had drunk a bit of wine. He knew the feeling enough not to try more. This screen saver was like alcohol to a digital fairy.
Dennis quickly alerted Emergence on this, and was glad to see threads on this new screen saver were already popping up. It was no more dangerous then alcohol in the real world though, so Effie would be fine. However it did run through a fairy's code very quickly, making one drunk faster- though the hangovers tended to stay for the same amount of time.
The DOS fairy quickly brought Effy inside the computer, piercing through the first layer of the screen saver. He got Effie to rest in her place on the task bar, hoping the effects would wear off soon.
