"What?!" Jon squawked, utterly flabbergasted by this turn of events, even if some programming controls kept him from fully freaking out.
"A new character, Program J, do try to keep up," the doctor replied.
"Program J?" Jon parroted.
"Your official designation until we can get your new character put together," Ellis said while scratching his chin. "Hmm, we're rebooting back to the start of the year, so that's a good opportunity to add a new person to the school cast. Probably easier than putting the program in another extra..." The man muttered more to himself than to Jon.
"Why are you going back to the start of the year?" Jon asked, trying to gather more information so he could somehow figure a plan to get out of this.
"Hm?" Ellis turned to him, "Oh, we're going to totally redo Junior year since that's where the ratings really started to go off the cliff. It seemed a lot of people thought we were going to write you out over that break when you almost had that boating accident, but then when you were fine they weren't happy and we lost a good chunk of viewership." Jon remembered that, being out on the Black family's boat and almost getting clipped by Steve Farber on his Jet Ski. Ellis continued, "retroactively we're just giving them what they want, a start to Junior year without Jon Gibson. Of course we're doing it with a retcon rather than a death since that sort of thing would really mess with Karyn's projected character progression. I could complain about what that says about our artistic integrity, but at the end of the day I also want the show to be successful."
Jon turned his head as much as he could, "What do you mean?"
Ellis sighed, "I'm rather fond of you Program J. As head programmer I get a little attached to my characters, and there was something rather interesting about Karyn choosing you after she and Sarah fell out. It's why I let it go through and had you upgraded to secondary character. I always like when my programs develop beyond what we initially wrote for them; you have to keep your hand on the tiller of course, but I like to let the narrative winds flow at least somewhat free."
"If you like me, don't erase me!" Jon protested.
Dr. Ellis frowned at him, "I like you a bit Program J, but I like my job more. Besides, even if it was interesting to have Karyn picked you, I can see we let it go to far. We probably should have phased you out, or at least tried to get Karyn to latch on to Rebecca a bit more. Jon Gibson was always intended as a background character, and even with your improved processing power, you're working from a fairly bland personality matrix. Don't let it get you down, Program J, you're perfectly capable of being a prominent character. It was your identity as Jon Gibson that was weighing you down, like trying to run with a 300 pound backpack."
"So I'm still going to be a, what did you call it, main supporting character?" Jon asked.
"Yes, that's what I've been saying. You're program is on the same level with the other secondary players like Tiffany, Alyssa, Yuki, Amber, and so on so it would be a waste to delegate you to the background now," Ellis said as he pulled up a few more documents to review on one of his screens. "Think of it like this. There are the two main character programs, that's Sarah and Karyn. They're the most complex, with the greatest depth of emotions, intricacy of thoughts and so on. Then just a rung below that is what you were upgraded to be, a secondary character program. You're nearly as complex as the main character's honestly, just with a few little tweaks of programing and a slightly smaller processing engine. After that you have tertiary character programs and that's where you start to see some real reductions in complexity, Jon's sister Zoe for instance."
"What does that mean?" Jon asked for what felt like the thousandth time that strange day.
"Well, when you were upgraded from an extra program to a secondary character program, lesser upgrades needed to be made to your direct associates since Karyn might be interacting with them a fair bit as well. As I was saying, with a tertiary character program like Zoe, they tend to solidify around only one or two character traits and let that dictate their personality. We call them 'Clique Fillers', since they often fill out the social groups. After that the programs continue to diminish, until we reach Extra Programs, which was what you originally were Program J, prior to your upgrade. We had hoped with that you'd become more interesting, and you did, but not enough. Unfortunately even with your better system specs, you were still hampered by the hastily written Jon code in your background and personality."
Jon felt a little insulted but also a little like things were making a certain amount of sense. Thinking back, he recalled that his desire to shake up his life and make it more interesting, which had led to his errant wish, really started around when he and Karyn grew close. Was that his inner life literally becoming more complex as he was upgraded?
