Amber Levine was a secondary computer program. But she didn't know that. And perhaps more universes are full of people living their lives, unaware they are actually part of a simulation. But...the problem with Amber was that she was a secondary program that could have easily been a tertiary program with a lot less computing power. While people generally hated Jon, another secondary program that had recently been 'retired', no one really had an opinion on Amber. She just...was there.
And Amber had been happy, until a random comment from a new student had rocked her world, and now her program was in serious crisis. It had somehow gotten caught in a loop, replaying her high school years as she went about her day like a distracted zombie, examining the question. Is Sarah my friend? Amber pondered as she looked back on events...and as she did, it seemed like she was seeing details she hadn't seen before....or hadn't let herself see before. Are any of the cheerleader really my friends?
Meanwhile, in one of the control rooms for the KS Chronicles, an alert flashed on Josephine's tablet. She looked at it, cursed under her breath, and hurried to Elias's office. She burst in, finding Taylor sitting there, going over something with him. "We have a serious malfunction."
He sighed. "What is it now?"
"Amber Levine is malfunctioning."
He raised a brow. "Malfunctioning how?"
"Major teenage meltdown malfunction. She's running her system resources at above normal." She keyed in a few commands and the wall screen lit up. "She interacts with Sarah, so she is capable, but we threw a bunch of supporting cast at Sarah and Karyn...and not everyone stuck...and Amber has faded into the background most of the time."
"Yes, I know that...and we didn't try to push it...no one was complaining about her."
"Your newly improved program, Julia, has a lot of emotional intelligence and pointed out Sarah doesn't exactly pay attention to her...it was one line, but it set Amber off...and..." She showed two side by side images. "This is Amber reexamining a memory file...in her original observation, she was having fun with her friends...but now, reexamining it, she is categorizing details...that they ignore her suggestions, or often her entirely. She's not delusional as in mentally unbalanced...her program just ignored all of these things. I'm not blaming your new program...but we don't know what Amber will do."
"You mean...like hurt someone?" Taylor asked.
"No..." Josephine said. "I don't think violence. But she could go back to deluding herself...and...that's normal for her. Or she could start doing...well...anything. She could dye her hair orange and join the circus for all I know..."
Elias shook his head. "I need you and Roger to pull the original character spec files on Amber and look at any changes that have occurred since then. If she keeps utilizing resources, we may have to do something...but I need options. So much for a few days of rest after the premiere..." He looked at Taylor. "I want you to assist the two of them....but if you modify a single thing without running it by one of us...We'll continue the Zoe Gibson talk later."
