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 Posted: Sun Dec 02, 2007 8:10 pm
Sionce stretched his arms above his head as he leaned back against the metal chair he was currently residing, and as he felt and heard a soft pop issue from his sternum he lowered his arms back down and rubbed his shoulders.
The fact that he was outdoors today on the request of someone other than his very few friends made him feel a bit irritated, if not uneasy, yet he swallowed it all down with a gulp of mocha ice brought over by a giggling waitress. As she left him the drink and a comment about how she 'liked his mask', Sionce left her a comment in French explaining how he 'liked how fake her breasts most clearly were'.
"This...whoever, better get here soon. I'm not going to be waiting around this area for much longer with so many people around."
He sort of did have better things to be doing - fixing the servers left behind by Cheshire's wake, talking to Trisste about opening a new system of recovery bots - anything that didn't involve being out in public.
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Posted: Sun Dec 02, 2007 8:57 pm
Sophie Corrigan was just as irritated as Sionce. When the strange image first appeared on her laptop a week ago, the first thought in her 16-year-old head was “A pop-up without a cancel button, ingenious”. But when she closed her web browser the thing still hovered on her desktop. Only then did she think of viruses.
Which really shouldn’t have happened in the first place, as she had two virus protection programs, but whatever. She saved her English essay and shut down the laptop. When she restarted it, the grey oval was still there.
Sophie spent the rest of that day and most of the rest hunched over her computer doing everything she could think of: running virus-scan, searching through the computer’s files, checking her email history to see if she’d unleashed a worm, doing a disk clean, updating and running virus-scan again, swearing at it, trying to glare it into non-existence with her pea-green eyes. She was almost tempted to back up all her homework and uninstall everything – except that the program didn’t do anything. As far as she could tell, it just used some memory to host this egg-like picture.
After school the third day, she went directly to her parents’ computer and Googled “virus, egg, desktop, image”. Sophie managed to get the address and phone number of a shop on the edge of town (?) before her dad realized she’d been on for almost an hour.
She called the .NET Hackers number the next day and arranged an appointment on Saturday.
Which explained why the pale, black-haired, gawky teenager now stood at the café’s counter, carrying case clutched to her chest, asking the counter attendant if there was a “S-Sionce” present.
“There.” A fingerpoint and a grunt. If she wasn’t going to buy a drink, the attendant’s dull face read, she was wasting his time. Sophie hesitated. “The…one with the mask?” Nod. “…thanks.”
She took a deep breath as she headed over. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea…
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Posted: Sun Dec 02, 2007 9:42 pm
Looking up as he thought he may have heard his name being spoken, Sionce felt a drop of annoyance, fear, and sweat roll down his spine as he noted the figure that was being directed towards him from the waiter whom he shorted a tip on earlier.
Please let this be a funny thing of revenge from that a** or let her be going to somewhere where I am most certainly the person she's trying to meet today.
Of course it wasn't meant to be just a joke, and behind his mask Sionce felt a drop of sweat roll down onto his chin as she got closer.
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Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 11:33 am
Sophie kept her harsh face impassive but her eyes flickered around the patio. A grown man with a bunny mask. Perfect. Railing? Check. Doors? Check. Tables, chairs and other obstacles to a speedy exit? Check. Maybe she should have asked her parents about this.
Nah. She could still handle it. This "Sionce" looked human enough. She still had her cellphone. And this was a public place. Lots of witnesses. Nothing to worry about. Just don't leave the primary location.
She stopped in front of his table. Slouched over her black carrying case, dressed in a T-shirt and long brown skirt, wearing heavy boots, she stuck out in this cafe and she knew it.
"You're Sionce, right?" Her voice was as formal as her face, but her eyes and the twitchiness in her fingers betrayed her. "I'm Sophie. The one with the appointment about the laptop...?"
She was probably just as nervous as the programmer, though she didn't realize it.
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Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 7:22 pm
"Ah, yes. I've been expecting you. Please have a seat and go ahead and load your computer up, I'll get mine out in the meanwhile."
His words and directions were short and sweet, as Sionce felt he wanted to take as little time as possible with this young girl. Already more stares were slowly wafting his way after she came in his direction, and Sionce was pretty sure he could hear whispers that involved the word '*****' and 'call the cops'.
Great.
Sionce sighed deeply and reached over onto the ground, moving to lift one of his bags that he'd been carrying with him up onto the table. It carried his newest laptop creation, one that was so small it was the size of a book and weighed about as much as one.
This particular laptop was mainly for his use to aid broken computers, but it also served a purpose to act as a home for Trisste as of late.
"Now then, what seems to be your problem?"
Keep it short and professional.
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Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 7:48 pm
Sophie could do professional. Sophie liked professional. She sat, pulled out her laptop and settled it on the table in one smooth gesture, shutting out the background chatter. "About a week ago, my computer became infected with a...virus." The clunky, silver machine whirred to life. She quickly logged in. "It hasn't submitted to anything I've tried so far." The screen froze for a moment (which it never used to do)and opened onto the emptied desktop. "The virus...you can see for itself." She turned the laptop to face him.
A small grey - egg - slowly revolved along the bottom of the screen, with the pink blades orbiting counterclockwise. She tapped at the image
"Aside from slowing the computer down a bit, it doesn't seem to do anything else. Can you get this off?" She glanced up at him. With that mask and this cafe, he'd better be able to wipe this ridiculous excuse of a program.
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Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 8:57 pm
"....That's not a virus. That's a Hacker egg."
Sionce let out a long sigh and reached behind his mask to rub his temple, a little more than annoyed that the 'problem' he had to fix was actually someone one again misunderstanding what the newcomer on their screen actually was.
"It's an piece of AI data that will slowly grow and evolve to create a companion of sorts for you."
His computer whirled as he clicked the power on, and after a few moments of blue screen a quick desktop covered in carrot wallpaper rabbit folder heads filled the area. A woman nearby snickered as she caught a glimpse of his desktop and Sionce turned his face to look at her, effectively shutting her up and causing her to ask for her check a little early.
"And as for it making your computer slow, the Hacker isn't doing that. You probably do have a virus of another kind on your computer that is causing that reaction or else you have too much on your system at the moment."
He paused and took another sip of his drink, slowly raising his mask up so he could place his lips on the glass rim.
"As an egg a Hacker is pretty defenseless. It can't attack your system in any way. It's when they grow and learn to eat data that you need to watch out for them. Speaking of which, Trisste."
< Yes? >
At the call, the Hacker popped onto Sionce's computer screen, his wings in full flare behind. It was clear he'd been resting somewhere else or perhaps just sitting in one area, as it'd only taken him a moment to appear at the simple call.
< What do you need? >
"I want you to say hello to someone."
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Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2007 6:45 pm
"An..." AI? No. No way. Was this guy serious? Sophie's face went completely blank for a moment. Then her eyes narrowed to slits as she hissed a sharp inhale.
"Somebody waltzed into my computer and...laid this egg program in it." She tried to keep her voice flat. "Somebody bypassed its security to get into MY operating system? To give me this...Hacker to raise?" She failed. Her hands clenched the tablecloth. "Is this a joke? A prank?" Heads swiveled, and the few cafe patrons still near their table decided to discreetly relocate themselves. She didn't care. Who did this guy think he was? This was HER computer! Hers! How dare they invade her system!
She turned to look at the 'Hacker' that appeared on Sionce's desktop, not even noticing the background's rabbit theme. What was it's name? Trisse? Trisste? If it was a sentient AI at all. Maybe it was a friend of this guy at another terminal. "Is this egg yours?" She growled and stabbed a finger at the Hacker elder. "Cause you can just take it back! From now on you stay out of Medusa and host your own programs!"
No doubt having a teenager talk to his computer would help Sionce's future credit at this place.
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Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2007 6:42 pm
Sionce felt his right eye twitch behind his mask as the young girl went off onto a tangent about how her computer was her own property, and that somehow Sionce was at fault for the young Hacker that would soon be born.
It took almost every single ounce of willpower inside his mind and body not to reach over and slap the child off her feet, his brain demanding him to do so in a very strong manner for two very strong reasons. The first? She was bringing for more attention than necessary to the pair, and second she had dared to blame him for something that was a complete and random occurrence.
"Shut. Up. Now."
Sionce's voice held ice as he spoke, and he turned his face fully in the direction of Sophie. The complete and total annoyance at this girl was rising within him, and part of him wished he could just give her a virus on her 'Medusa' with it's 'security' just to show her how truly weak her system really was, but instead his only response was to lift his glass up and take another sip at his mocha ice.
"First of all, don't dare accuse either of us of anything when you're the one who contacted me for help. Second of all, NO ONE invaded your system. Sometimes computers generate random bits of data while running certain programs, and when those data bits manage to converge together they create a Hacker."
He took a deep breath, then another, and did his best to make it sound like he wasn't yelling anymore. Truth be told he wanted to yell his head off as he figured that is what it would take to get through to this stupid, stupid girl.
"To put it simply for you, as you seem to not be able to understand, every computer is capable of getting a Hacker. It's a rare occurrence that only happens when certain conditions are met, and it seems that your system was able to meet them."
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Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 8:50 pm
Random chance. It grew randomly, nobody accessed her computer, it was unviolated. Sophie closed her eyes, took a deep breath. False alarm
...which meant she just acted like an idiot. Great. She released her breath in a long sigh and looked away, her face nothing so much as tired. While she didn't think her alarm was THAT unfounded (after all, movies proved that human regulations can be thrown out the window when it comes to digital life forms), she'd pissed off maybe the one person who knew jack s**t. Once again, human interaction bit her in the a**. Goals: get all the necessary information about this program so she'd never have to see this guy again. She unconsiously smoothed out her skirt.
"...I apologize." Her voice shifted back to formality as she turned her eyes back to this A.I. person. She'd made a mistake, losing her head like that, Back to formal. Cool. Calm. Controlled. "That was disrespectful. It won't happen again." Adults - heck, people in general liked the phrase 'it won't happen again'. Especially when coupled with a serious face. With any luck, this guy won't follow her home and stab her with a carrot in her sleep.
Her mind bristled with questions, but she waited for Sionce to make the next move.
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Posted: Tue Dec 25, 2007 2:44 pm
"It's good as long as you understand."
Sionce's words were soft, not hard like they had been before, and he sipped at his drink once more before he decided it was time to continue on and explain anything else towards the young girl. He'd have to let Trisste get a good look at the egg and make sure nothing was wrong with it, mostly to clear his mind and give him the correct answer to tell the girl the slowness her system faced was not from the Hacker egg.
"Now that you're feeling a bit better from your little rant, would you mind looking at my monitor? The figure you see floating there is a Hacker, the same as your egg, only he's in his final stage, the Elder stage."
Sionce gently touched the screen with his fingertip and smiled behind his mask, something he always did whenever he'd speak about his little partner in crime. Trisste had made him happy, happier than he'd ever felt in a long time, so he merited that smile.
At the touch of the finger against the screen Trisste floated over to its location and moved behind it, his actions a little childish. He liked this game with Sionce, it was sort of a prediction matching game. If he could move every direction that the finger moved without any hesitation than Sionce usually rewarded him with something like new data to fix or something to consume, and even if it sounded like something stupid it passed the time well enough.
< Are we playing, or are you showing me off? >
"A little of both, I think. I believe you and this child here got off on the wrong foot, Trisste, so perhaps you should re-introduce yourself."
Trisste looked up and over at the girl, wondering if she could actually see him. None the less, he smiled ( '=)' in his chat box ) at her and bowed politely.
< Hello, my name is Trisste. I am AI data called a Hacker. >
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