Streams of energy curled and twined around Echo, until they found ingress via the same ducts that the silvery ‘liquid’ that encased her used. Like tiny pores in the skin…but open now because she was utilizing that system. Immediately she stiffened and rocked on her feet, then her back arched and her face went slack under the shiny argent sheath that covered her.
[sblock=It's long.]Poor thing, said a voice that wasn’t hers. You’re broken. Don’t worry. I can fix you.
It spun out, unraveled, spread into her. There were things in her like breakers…more complicated of course, crafted of proteins and DNA and reinforced with webs of nanotubes and serviced by countless devices hybridized from organic molecules and infinitesimal machinery…but still basically breakers that could be reset. Connections began to knit together. Neurotransmitters and electrical potentials and wires of polysaccherides and chained carbon atoms.
A wrench. A sudden sense of something wrong.
Echo found herself adrift in an infinite white space. Before her was an orb of silver metal. It looked, she realized, a lot like the glob oozing along at her heels, only bigger. As she watched, it lengthened and took on a more complex shape…becoming a copy of herself.
“Foreign data detected,” the other Echo reported neutrally. “Mediating interface activated. Error: cannot locate primary data. Error: cannot relocate primary data to protected archive.”
Echo stared for a long moment. She felt like she knew this from somewhere, but couldn’t quite put her finger on it. “What are you?” she finally asked. “Where are we?”
“This is a representation of an interface to mediate the interaction of new data with primary data,” the other her said. “You are currently at the following coordinates.” It then rattled off a series of numbers.
“That’s where I was a second ago,” said Echo. “This isn’t a place?”
“This is the representation of your mediating interface.”
Echo looked around. It was all in her head? “I don’t understand. Why…is this happening now? How do I end this?”
There was a pause, and a liquid ripple passed over the features of the other Echo. Then it said, “Three hundred and eighteen milliseconds ago, the firewall isolating sectors flagged as contaminated with foreign data began to deteriorate. Cutoff failsafes did not engage. Normal protocol is to dump primary data to secure location and conduct full reformat. Error: Primary data cannot be located.”
She tilted her head and regarded Echo curiously. “Do you want to proceed with reformat?”
Echo felt a chill. “What…does that mean?”
“All data clusters will be purged, and the system returned to a clean state. Primary data will be reloaded from protected archive.”
“You mean my mind,” said Echo numbly. “You’re talking about my mind.”
The other Echo’s tone didn’t change an iota. “Yes.”
“No!” she exclaimed. “Do not reformat!”
The other didn’t reply, even to nod. It…and she couldn’t think of it as anything but ‘it’ now…just stood and watched. Waiting.
“How do I end this? I need to go back.” Echo grimaced. “I mean, I need to leave the representation.”
“The contamination must be resolved before functions can be restored,” replied the other.
Echo nodded, “All right, what are my options for resolving it?”
“Reformatting is recommended. Alternatives include manual cut-off, or integration.”
With a frown, Echo tried to move, and discovered that she couldn’t. Or rather, ‘movement’ was irrelevant. Wherever she ‘went,’ the other was still there, drifting in white nothingness in front of her. “What is a manual cut-off?”
“You would identify connections being established to contaminated data clusters, and override them, eliminating access to foreign data.”
“And integration?”
“You would attempt to access the foreign data and incorporate it into your existing data clusters. Warning: this course of action is not recommended.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly. “Why not?”
“It is impossible to predict the effects of accessing the foreign data. There is a high probability it originates from a hostile act, or that it would be destructively incompatible with existing data structures.”
Echo ‘paced.’ The Other was always there. “Has this happened before?”
Another pause. Another ripple. “Yes. One point three eight solar years ago, external contact resulted in emergent release of foreign data from template. Records show primary data relocated at that time. Records show failsafe cutoff…incompletely successful.”
The Other looked…not surprised exactly, but there was a reaction then. It seemed to be paying attention to Echo in a way it hadn’t been before. “Data clusters currently contaminated.”
If she could have, Echo would have swayed. She understood now…it made her feel sick.
“What is the primary data?” she asked, barely a whisper. It didn’t matter here, of course.
“All data relating to the mission and its objectives, as well as memories related to or regarding origin point,” replied the Other.
Yes of course, she thought. The only stuff deemed important enough to survive a mindwipe if something not approved got in. The only stuff she was deemed to really need.
“What am I?”
A pause. A ripple. “That information is in primary data. Error: Primary data cannot be located.”
“That doesn’t make sense!” Echo suddenly snapped. “I have memories! They’re…not normal, and…yes there’s issues with them, but there’s not just a void in my head!”
“Data clusters are contaminated,” reported the interface. “Failsafes did not engage in time to prevent contamination. “
Echo put her hands to her temples. Talking to this thing was frustrating. It managed to constantly give answers that were minimally informative. She needed context! And it didn’t help that it kept talking about her mind like it was a jug of fruit juice instead of a person.
“All right…all right. Let me think. You said that this all came from an ‘external contact.’ What was that?”
“Accessing record.”
A rectangle appeared in midair behind the Other. On it was playing a scene…one which Echo knew. It was at a place where the river floated, much like it did where she was now. A town. She heard someone call a name, and the view revolved to show a young man coming at her, grinning. It froze.
She felt as if a cold hand was gripping her heart.
“What did he do to me?”
The Other replied, “Emergent release of data from template began at this moment. Firewall integrity remains stable for seven minutes, thirty-two seconds, then begins to decline. Unauthorized introduction of foreign data occurs at event plus eight minutes. Primary data relocated. Contaminated sectors are isolated.”
“If that’s the case, why am I still…alive?” Echo wanted to know. “Why can I still think and move and…do things?”
Pause. Ripple. “Failsafes incompletely successful. Some data clusters retained contamination. Emergent pattern formation took place using contaminating data as seeds.”
It took Echo a moment to mull that over. “So…most of my mind was…moved somewhere else. To protect it. Most of the rest was locked away in my brain. And I took what was left and used it to…just make up a life for myself?”
Long pause. Two ripples. “Yes.”
Echo tried to advance on the Other, to charge it, to grab it. But it was always the same distance from her. It’s calm, matter-of-fact delivery was steadily more enraging with each moment. “Is the…the contamination…is it ME?” she demanded. “Where is it from?!”
“Foreign data emerged from the template.”
“What does that MEAN?! What template?”
“That information is located in primary data. Error: Primary data…”
“Cannot be located! I know!” Echo tried to turn away, but the Other was always there. She had to close her eyes…though it was strange that that worked. Some kind of voluntary element to the environment, maybe? Food for thought. “I don’t know what to do. Every time I try to find out what I need, there’s another wall in the way.”
“Would you like me to mediate?”
She cracked an eye open. “What?”
The Other put its hands behind its back. “Would you like me to mediate?”
“…isn’t that what you’ve been doing?”
“I have been answering questions about your current status, as best I can.” The Other paused, and added, “It is not my primary function.”
That, Echo thought, explained a fair amount. “What is your primary function?”
“I operate from a protected sector, isolated from the rest of the data clusters. It is my function to access foreign data after it has been isolated and allow it to be assessed for risks with greater security.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Well…why haven’t you DONE THAT yet?!”
“Normally it would be done after full isolation and the reloading of primary data,” explained the Other. “In this case, full isolation was not achieved, and the primary data was never reloaded.”
“But…you’ll do it now? Even though that still hasn’t happened?”
The Other regarded her impassively. “In the absence of primary data, it is your decision. Furthermore, the firewall isolating the contaminating data is currently under attack, and will fail in the next four to eight seconds without intervention. Prior to that, you must decide whether to allow integration, or to actively participate in restoring isolation.”
Four to eight seconds. “Time is different right now, isn’t it?” Echo asked.
“There is no change in the local temporal condition,” said the Other. Then, for a wonder, it seemed to recognize her consternation and went on to say, “But the passage of apparent subjective time takes place at a significant dilation with regards to objective time while accessing your internal network.”
She nodded. “Do it. Mediate.”
There was no acknowledgement…no verbalization, no nod of the head. Echo gave the command, and the Other simply…changed. The difference in its new appearance wasn’t what was shocking though. It was the similarities that were far more haunting.
The Other still looked almost exactly like Echo. Her skin color was a bit pinker, spattered with freckles over her cheeks, and her hair was bright flaming red. It was longer too, and done back in a short bobby ponytail. Her eyes were a bright, clear blue, and looked around quizzically. Her eyebrows lifted and her mouth curved into a bright grin as she put her hands on her skinny hips.
“Now what the heck all’s this?” she asked with a rural drawl. “This some kinda crazy dream?” Those ocean-blue eyes landed on Echo, who was staring as if stabbed on a stake. “Guess it must be. So…you must be my deep unconscious anxieties about my own shortcomings?”
The Other burst into a raucous laugh at that. “Kidding. I don’t have any! Okay, no, now I’m kidding. Not. First time. Seriously though, what’s all this? Cuz I don’t really do that lucid dreaming thing.”
“Who are you?” The words came out in a breathless whisper from Echo’s pale lips.
“Dolores Zane Klatta,” was the Other’s reply. She said the words proudly and held her chin up as she said them, as if honestly expecting them to be recognized and admired. “Folks usually call me…”
“Dee zee,” Echo said helplessly, the words coming on their own. “Because…Terry used to tease me…us…”
Dolores tilted her head with a little puzzled crease appearing on her forehead. Her smile never wavered though. “…about being dizzy from spinning around so much. Hey, have we met or something?”
Echo shook her head, but it took her a second to find her voice. “That’s enough. Stop mediating.”
Deezy cocked her head curiously. “What?”
“I said stop it! Log off or…whatever you do!”
The Other was back, pale and washed out in hue, like Echo herself. “Mediation paused.”
Echo pointed at her. “Was that me? Is she me?”
Another ripple passed over the Other. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand the question.”
“The person you just were…who is she?!”
“I was not a person. I was accessing data.”
If it had been possible, Echo would have attacked it right then and there. Answers be damned. But it wasn’t. “That was a PERSON!” she accused. “I talked to her! She had a name!”
“It was not a person,” the Other explained patiently. “The data taken together is insufficient for that. In a limited interaction it might seem complete, but had you explored the data more fully before pausing mediation you would have discovered any of the many missing or corrupted portions.”
Echo turned that over in her head. “And…the ‘contamination’ you’re talking about…that’s her memories? That’s why I know things about her. Because some of her memories leaked out into my mind before they could be stopped.”
“Yes.”
“What I don’t understand is why they’re in me to begin with,” Echo complained. “And why does she look like me? If the contamination is memories, and the contamination came from a…a template? Does that mean she is a template for something?”
The Other said, “Yes” again, exactly as it had before.
That cold feeling started sliding down Echo’s spine again, but she couldn’t not ask the next thing.
“What is she a template for?”
“You.”
...
The silence lasted until the Other gently prompted, “Two seconds until the firewall fails without intervention. If you wish to maintain isolation, you must take action.”
Echo had her eyes closed…it was the only way to rid herself of the sight of that thing. That thing that looked just like she did. “What will happen if I do?”
“The release of additional data will be avoided, maintaining the status quo.”
“And what will happen if I let it fail?”
“Then the isolated sectors will reintegrate your data clusters, with results that are impossible to predict.”
She rubbed her forehead. How long was two seconds right now? “You have access to it. Is there anything dangerous in it?”
The Other rippled for a moment, then said, “Heuristic and memetic scans show no malignant data structures.”
“So it’s safe.”
“That cannot be predicted.”
Echo opened her eyes irritably. “If there’s nothing dangerous, then…”
“Even a fragment of a personality is a complex form of data,” the interface interrupted. “There are many risk factors associated with forcible integration. Compatibility is not predictable. Success is not predictable. Additionally, restoring primary data will not be possible in that circumstance, save with a complete reformat.”
“If I stop the breach, can I still remove the isolation later if I want?”
“It is not recommended, but yes.”
“All right.” Echo took a deep breath, conscious on some level that it was a purely psychological thing. Something her mind did to prepare itself to make a big decision. That was a human thing. It was reassuring. “Mediate again.”
“There is only…”
“Just do it.”
Once again, the Other became a real girl. She looked around and raised an eyebrow. “What the…this some kind of vision quest thing?”
She didn’t remember. She was like a program…the world was new to it each time it was run.
Echo shook her head at herself. No time. “What’s the last thing you remember?”
Deezy shrugged. “I was headed to someplace called…uh…Wix? Twix? Something like that. S’posed to be an earthquake recently opened up some kind of unnerground vault full of all kinds of stuff. I was…” she trailed off for a moment thoughtfully. “…in a pass, in the mountains. Heard something funny. Above. Behind.” Her surface began to ripple, like the Other’s. Her voice went garbly, and just as fast, the Other appeared again.
“Firewall failure is imminent,” it announced.
Echo decided. She’d seen the girl’s face, just before it had wigged out. Just for an instant.
Terror.
“Show me the firewall,” she said.
...
Broken. Broken girl. Like a clockwork mouse, kicked, parts scattered all around. Face blank and forlorn. But he could help. Fix her. Then she’d keep him safe. Need him. Keep him.
Gold lines wove, spread, wrapped. Cells multiplied, machines rebuilt wires. Such a strange melding. Not mechanical parts embedded in flesh…but a symbiotic union; each cell carrying its own molecular machines as well. Didn’t matter. He could fix it. Fix her. Fix anything.
“Stop.”
The gold light faltered. “Fixing you,” it said.
“I know. Please stop.”
“But you’re broken!”
“I know that too.” Her voice was sad, even here, with no sensory projection to make it ‘sound.’ “But I need to stay broken a little longer. Don’t worry. You’ve helped.”
“But…but…”
“Don’t worry,” Echo repeated. Echoed, you might say. “I’ll help you too.”
Relief.
“Tell me what you need.”[/sblock]
And back in the world of light and dark, of solidity and friends and foes…Echo opened her eyes.
[sblock=It's long.]Poor thing, said a voice that wasn’t hers. You’re broken. Don’t worry. I can fix you.
It spun out, unraveled, spread into her. There were things in her like breakers…more complicated of course, crafted of proteins and DNA and reinforced with webs of nanotubes and serviced by countless devices hybridized from organic molecules and infinitesimal machinery…but still basically breakers that could be reset. Connections began to knit together. Neurotransmitters and electrical potentials and wires of polysaccherides and chained carbon atoms.
A wrench. A sudden sense of something wrong.
Echo found herself adrift in an infinite white space. Before her was an orb of silver metal. It looked, she realized, a lot like the glob oozing along at her heels, only bigger. As she watched, it lengthened and took on a more complex shape…becoming a copy of herself.
“Foreign data detected,” the other Echo reported neutrally. “Mediating interface activated. Error: cannot locate primary data. Error: cannot relocate primary data to protected archive.”
Echo stared for a long moment. She felt like she knew this from somewhere, but couldn’t quite put her finger on it. “What are you?” she finally asked. “Where are we?”
“This is a representation of an interface to mediate the interaction of new data with primary data,” the other her said. “You are currently at the following coordinates.” It then rattled off a series of numbers.
“That’s where I was a second ago,” said Echo. “This isn’t a place?”
“This is the representation of your mediating interface.”
Echo looked around. It was all in her head? “I don’t understand. Why…is this happening now? How do I end this?”
There was a pause, and a liquid ripple passed over the features of the other Echo. Then it said, “Three hundred and eighteen milliseconds ago, the firewall isolating sectors flagged as contaminated with foreign data began to deteriorate. Cutoff failsafes did not engage. Normal protocol is to dump primary data to secure location and conduct full reformat. Error: Primary data cannot be located.”
She tilted her head and regarded Echo curiously. “Do you want to proceed with reformat?”
Echo felt a chill. “What…does that mean?”
“All data clusters will be purged, and the system returned to a clean state. Primary data will be reloaded from protected archive.”
“You mean my mind,” said Echo numbly. “You’re talking about my mind.”
The other Echo’s tone didn’t change an iota. “Yes.”
“No!” she exclaimed. “Do not reformat!”
The other didn’t reply, even to nod. It…and she couldn’t think of it as anything but ‘it’ now…just stood and watched. Waiting.
“How do I end this? I need to go back.” Echo grimaced. “I mean, I need to leave the representation.”
“The contamination must be resolved before functions can be restored,” replied the other.
Echo nodded, “All right, what are my options for resolving it?”
“Reformatting is recommended. Alternatives include manual cut-off, or integration.”
With a frown, Echo tried to move, and discovered that she couldn’t. Or rather, ‘movement’ was irrelevant. Wherever she ‘went,’ the other was still there, drifting in white nothingness in front of her. “What is a manual cut-off?”
“You would identify connections being established to contaminated data clusters, and override them, eliminating access to foreign data.”
“And integration?”
“You would attempt to access the foreign data and incorporate it into your existing data clusters. Warning: this course of action is not recommended.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly. “Why not?”
“It is impossible to predict the effects of accessing the foreign data. There is a high probability it originates from a hostile act, or that it would be destructively incompatible with existing data structures.”
Echo ‘paced.’ The Other was always there. “Has this happened before?”
Another pause. Another ripple. “Yes. One point three eight solar years ago, external contact resulted in emergent release of foreign data from template. Records show primary data relocated at that time. Records show failsafe cutoff…incompletely successful.”
The Other looked…not surprised exactly, but there was a reaction then. It seemed to be paying attention to Echo in a way it hadn’t been before. “Data clusters currently contaminated.”
If she could have, Echo would have swayed. She understood now…it made her feel sick.
“What is the primary data?” she asked, barely a whisper. It didn’t matter here, of course.
“All data relating to the mission and its objectives, as well as memories related to or regarding origin point,” replied the Other.
Yes of course, she thought. The only stuff deemed important enough to survive a mindwipe if something not approved got in. The only stuff she was deemed to really need.
“What am I?”
A pause. A ripple. “That information is in primary data. Error: Primary data cannot be located.”
“That doesn’t make sense!” Echo suddenly snapped. “I have memories! They’re…not normal, and…yes there’s issues with them, but there’s not just a void in my head!”
“Data clusters are contaminated,” reported the interface. “Failsafes did not engage in time to prevent contamination. “
Echo put her hands to her temples. Talking to this thing was frustrating. It managed to constantly give answers that were minimally informative. She needed context! And it didn’t help that it kept talking about her mind like it was a jug of fruit juice instead of a person.
“All right…all right. Let me think. You said that this all came from an ‘external contact.’ What was that?”
“Accessing record.”
A rectangle appeared in midair behind the Other. On it was playing a scene…one which Echo knew. It was at a place where the river floated, much like it did where she was now. A town. She heard someone call a name, and the view revolved to show a young man coming at her, grinning. It froze.
She felt as if a cold hand was gripping her heart.
“What did he do to me?”
The Other replied, “Emergent release of data from template began at this moment. Firewall integrity remains stable for seven minutes, thirty-two seconds, then begins to decline. Unauthorized introduction of foreign data occurs at event plus eight minutes. Primary data relocated. Contaminated sectors are isolated.”
“If that’s the case, why am I still…alive?” Echo wanted to know. “Why can I still think and move and…do things?”
Pause. Ripple. “Failsafes incompletely successful. Some data clusters retained contamination. Emergent pattern formation took place using contaminating data as seeds.”
It took Echo a moment to mull that over. “So…most of my mind was…moved somewhere else. To protect it. Most of the rest was locked away in my brain. And I took what was left and used it to…just make up a life for myself?”
Long pause. Two ripples. “Yes.”
Echo tried to advance on the Other, to charge it, to grab it. But it was always the same distance from her. It’s calm, matter-of-fact delivery was steadily more enraging with each moment. “Is the…the contamination…is it ME?” she demanded. “Where is it from?!”
“Foreign data emerged from the template.”
“What does that MEAN?! What template?”
“That information is located in primary data. Error: Primary data…”
“Cannot be located! I know!” Echo tried to turn away, but the Other was always there. She had to close her eyes…though it was strange that that worked. Some kind of voluntary element to the environment, maybe? Food for thought. “I don’t know what to do. Every time I try to find out what I need, there’s another wall in the way.”
“Would you like me to mediate?”
She cracked an eye open. “What?”
The Other put its hands behind its back. “Would you like me to mediate?”
“…isn’t that what you’ve been doing?”
“I have been answering questions about your current status, as best I can.” The Other paused, and added, “It is not my primary function.”
That, Echo thought, explained a fair amount. “What is your primary function?”
“I operate from a protected sector, isolated from the rest of the data clusters. It is my function to access foreign data after it has been isolated and allow it to be assessed for risks with greater security.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Well…why haven’t you DONE THAT yet?!”
“Normally it would be done after full isolation and the reloading of primary data,” explained the Other. “In this case, full isolation was not achieved, and the primary data was never reloaded.”
“But…you’ll do it now? Even though that still hasn’t happened?”
The Other regarded her impassively. “In the absence of primary data, it is your decision. Furthermore, the firewall isolating the contaminating data is currently under attack, and will fail in the next four to eight seconds without intervention. Prior to that, you must decide whether to allow integration, or to actively participate in restoring isolation.”
Four to eight seconds. “Time is different right now, isn’t it?” Echo asked.
“There is no change in the local temporal condition,” said the Other. Then, for a wonder, it seemed to recognize her consternation and went on to say, “But the passage of apparent subjective time takes place at a significant dilation with regards to objective time while accessing your internal network.”
She nodded. “Do it. Mediate.”
There was no acknowledgement…no verbalization, no nod of the head. Echo gave the command, and the Other simply…changed. The difference in its new appearance wasn’t what was shocking though. It was the similarities that were far more haunting.
The Other still looked almost exactly like Echo. Her skin color was a bit pinker, spattered with freckles over her cheeks, and her hair was bright flaming red. It was longer too, and done back in a short bobby ponytail. Her eyes were a bright, clear blue, and looked around quizzically. Her eyebrows lifted and her mouth curved into a bright grin as she put her hands on her skinny hips.
“Now what the heck all’s this?” she asked with a rural drawl. “This some kinda crazy dream?” Those ocean-blue eyes landed on Echo, who was staring as if stabbed on a stake. “Guess it must be. So…you must be my deep unconscious anxieties about my own shortcomings?”
The Other burst into a raucous laugh at that. “Kidding. I don’t have any! Okay, no, now I’m kidding. Not. First time. Seriously though, what’s all this? Cuz I don’t really do that lucid dreaming thing.”
“Who are you?” The words came out in a breathless whisper from Echo’s pale lips.
“Dolores Zane Klatta,” was the Other’s reply. She said the words proudly and held her chin up as she said them, as if honestly expecting them to be recognized and admired. “Folks usually call me…”
“Dee zee,” Echo said helplessly, the words coming on their own. “Because…Terry used to tease me…us…”
Dolores tilted her head with a little puzzled crease appearing on her forehead. Her smile never wavered though. “…about being dizzy from spinning around so much. Hey, have we met or something?”
Echo shook her head, but it took her a second to find her voice. “That’s enough. Stop mediating.”
Deezy cocked her head curiously. “What?”
“I said stop it! Log off or…whatever you do!”
The Other was back, pale and washed out in hue, like Echo herself. “Mediation paused.”
Echo pointed at her. “Was that me? Is she me?”
Another ripple passed over the Other. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand the question.”
“The person you just were…who is she?!”
“I was not a person. I was accessing data.”
If it had been possible, Echo would have attacked it right then and there. Answers be damned. But it wasn’t. “That was a PERSON!” she accused. “I talked to her! She had a name!”
“It was not a person,” the Other explained patiently. “The data taken together is insufficient for that. In a limited interaction it might seem complete, but had you explored the data more fully before pausing mediation you would have discovered any of the many missing or corrupted portions.”
Echo turned that over in her head. “And…the ‘contamination’ you’re talking about…that’s her memories? That’s why I know things about her. Because some of her memories leaked out into my mind before they could be stopped.”
“Yes.”
“What I don’t understand is why they’re in me to begin with,” Echo complained. “And why does she look like me? If the contamination is memories, and the contamination came from a…a template? Does that mean she is a template for something?”
The Other said, “Yes” again, exactly as it had before.
That cold feeling started sliding down Echo’s spine again, but she couldn’t not ask the next thing.
“What is she a template for?”
“You.”
...
The silence lasted until the Other gently prompted, “Two seconds until the firewall fails without intervention. If you wish to maintain isolation, you must take action.”
Echo had her eyes closed…it was the only way to rid herself of the sight of that thing. That thing that looked just like she did. “What will happen if I do?”
“The release of additional data will be avoided, maintaining the status quo.”
“And what will happen if I let it fail?”
“Then the isolated sectors will reintegrate your data clusters, with results that are impossible to predict.”
She rubbed her forehead. How long was two seconds right now? “You have access to it. Is there anything dangerous in it?”
The Other rippled for a moment, then said, “Heuristic and memetic scans show no malignant data structures.”
“So it’s safe.”
“That cannot be predicted.”
Echo opened her eyes irritably. “If there’s nothing dangerous, then…”
“Even a fragment of a personality is a complex form of data,” the interface interrupted. “There are many risk factors associated with forcible integration. Compatibility is not predictable. Success is not predictable. Additionally, restoring primary data will not be possible in that circumstance, save with a complete reformat.”
“If I stop the breach, can I still remove the isolation later if I want?”
“It is not recommended, but yes.”
“All right.” Echo took a deep breath, conscious on some level that it was a purely psychological thing. Something her mind did to prepare itself to make a big decision. That was a human thing. It was reassuring. “Mediate again.”
“There is only…”
“Just do it.”
Once again, the Other became a real girl. She looked around and raised an eyebrow. “What the…this some kind of vision quest thing?”
She didn’t remember. She was like a program…the world was new to it each time it was run.
Echo shook her head at herself. No time. “What’s the last thing you remember?”
Deezy shrugged. “I was headed to someplace called…uh…Wix? Twix? Something like that. S’posed to be an earthquake recently opened up some kind of unnerground vault full of all kinds of stuff. I was…” she trailed off for a moment thoughtfully. “…in a pass, in the mountains. Heard something funny. Above. Behind.” Her surface began to ripple, like the Other’s. Her voice went garbly, and just as fast, the Other appeared again.
“Firewall failure is imminent,” it announced.
Echo decided. She’d seen the girl’s face, just before it had wigged out. Just for an instant.
Terror.
“Show me the firewall,” she said.
...
Broken. Broken girl. Like a clockwork mouse, kicked, parts scattered all around. Face blank and forlorn. But he could help. Fix her. Then she’d keep him safe. Need him. Keep him.
Gold lines wove, spread, wrapped. Cells multiplied, machines rebuilt wires. Such a strange melding. Not mechanical parts embedded in flesh…but a symbiotic union; each cell carrying its own molecular machines as well. Didn’t matter. He could fix it. Fix her. Fix anything.
“Stop.”
The gold light faltered. “Fixing you,” it said.
“I know. Please stop.”
“But you’re broken!”
“I know that too.” Her voice was sad, even here, with no sensory projection to make it ‘sound.’ “But I need to stay broken a little longer. Don’t worry. You’ve helped.”
“But…but…”
“Don’t worry,” Echo repeated. Echoed, you might say. “I’ll help you too.”
Relief.
“Tell me what you need.”[/sblock]
And back in the world of light and dark, of solidity and friends and foes…Echo opened her eyes.
