(no subject)

[gone_byebye]

The question of physical doors opening and closing means very little when you're a sprite being transported inside a holocomputer. On the other hand, the connection of high-speed cables and the opening of data pathways is quite another story. The jump to Ecto's systems shouldn't take long.

Comments

[mendanddefend_archive]

Once again, Bob finds himself in the vast empty room that is the storage unit, with strange movements of data and energy beyond the walls. But the movements are different this time: less random, more structured. There's something oddly comforting about that.

Is that what it's like in my head?
I don't know. I can't scan your thought patterns like this. I'm too close to the source. My thoughts are your thoughts.
Well, not entirely, if we can still 'talk' like this.
True.

Bob steps out into the space, looking up hesitantly. "Hello?"

[gone_byebye]

There's a momentary sizzle of the 'air' in front of Bob as Ecto rearranges several of the internal data structures to make this particular conversation easier. It's an experiment in image rendering for her, which is why the form that appears to Bob is a simplified version of her 'bot mode- one that actually matches the icon above, instead of the more complicated Bay!former design. Also, the image is to Bob's scale, rather than to the scale she has in the physical world.

"Hi, Bob," says Ecto, waving cheerfully. "Dad said you were coming back."

[mendanddefend_archive]

She's not really here. Well, she's here, but she's not here here. To Glitch's senses it's all too obvious that the form standing before them is a construct, a puppet being manipulated by the mind on the other side of the walls.

Still, it's nice to talk to something other than a disembodied voice.

"Hi, Ecto." Bob waves back. "Nice avatar."

[gone_byebye]

"Thanks," says Ecto. "It's the best I can do without seriously fooling with my processor priorities for the graphics rendering. The detail work's a little complicated. How're you?"

[mendanddefend_archive]

"I'm fine, thanks." He eyes the avatar curiously. "So can you actually see like a sprite through that, or...?"

[gone_byebye]

"Not really," the avatar confesses. "I kinda perceive data at the raw binary level- ones and zeroes. I'm perceiving you all around because of where you are right now. The avatar just makes it look like I'm seeing through the optics and hearing through the auds." She makes a face. "Sorry. I'm not tryign to trick you or anything. That's just how it works."

[mendanddefend_archive]

"Oh." He's not really disappointed, just curious. "So... what do I look like, to you?"

[gone_byebye]

Ecto thinks for a moment, then says, "If I'm not using the form interpreter that sorts the data into units and shapes, it's... I could show you, if you wanted."

She holds up her left hand, palm out, and flexes the fingers. A moment later there's nothing at the end of her arm but an endlessly changing sequence of sparks and darkness, rapid-firing at the speed of all her involved processors.

"It's something kind of like that. The bright spots are the ones, the dark ones are the zeroes. On and off."

[mendanddefend_archive]

"No, I mean, what do I look like? Relative to everything else?"

Would you know a sprite if you saw one again? is what he's really trying to ask, but he's not quite sure how to articulate it.

[gone_byebye]

"Oh. Well-" The hand becomes solid again. "It's not what you look like, it's what your bits act like. A sprite is a pattern of information. You hold together, and you change the stuff around you by your presence, without your information leaking over and melding into the rest of the information supply. You're a standing ripple in the stream, or a, a, a soliton- a self-reinforcing wave that keeps its shape. I'd know one of you guys anywhere."

She should; she's been looking for long enough.

[mendanddefend_archive]

"And there really aren't any sprites out there?" asks Bob, softly.

[gone_byebye]

Ecto's silent for a while.

"I haven't found any," she says at last. "I... found a couple of other sentient systems. But no sprites so far. I find patterns, but they don't have their own intention, and they don't self-reinforce. They're just data packets. If there are sprites out there, they're someplace I haven't been able to reach yet."

"I'm sorry."

[mendanddefend_archive]

"Don't be," says Bob. "It's not your fault. It's just... weird to think about, for me. The whole 'Net and there's no one in it."

[gone_byebye]

Ecto nods. "It's weird," she says, "being the only one of your kind somewhere."

[mendanddefend_archive]

"You said there were other sentient systems, though..."

[gone_byebye]

"They're different," says Ecto. "Sano and Satish and KARR and KITT are sentient systems, but they're really different. Even KARR and KITT, and they're Knights, just this world's Knights instead of the ones from Milliways."

She thinks for a moment, the avatar tapping one forefinger against the spot just under her nose.

"Dad told me all sprites have functions," she eventually says. "And they're really, really fundamental. It's kinda like that for systems. All of them are built for a purpose. It's part of them. They've all got a reason, just like a sprite has a function. I don't. I'm an accident."

[mendanddefend_archive]

Bob knows what it's like to lose your function. To never have had it in the first place...

"Ecto, that's... I'm so sorry."

Illusion or not, Ecto's avatar is getting a big hug from the Guardian.

[gone_byebye]

The avatar doesn't really have tactile sensation so much as basic anti-collision code lifted from a hacked copy of Sims 2 (Ecto went to some peculiar lengths to identify potentially volitional codestream patterns), but it's close enough. "Thank you," she says, and hugs back- carefully, because without sensation algorithms the avatar has no way of making sure that it doesn't do harm other than gauging Bob's responses. It's a tricky thing.

"It's not bad," she says when they disengage, "but when you're the only one without, it's ... strange. Even the Cybertronians were purpose built."

[mendanddefend_archive]

Bob is silent for a long moment.

"This is gonna sound like a weird question, but... how old are you?"

[gone_byebye]

"I was incepted on November the twenty-first of 2005," says Ecto. "So nearly two years old."

[mendanddefend_archive]

"That's... really young, by human standards, isn't it? Sorry, I get the timescales mixed up sometimes..."

[gone_byebye]

"Uh huh," says Ecto. "Dad says that when he was my age, he was mostly crawling and trying to chew on Grandma's rare book collection."

[mendanddefend_archive]

Bob smirks a little at that.

"See, the thing is, most sprites aren't born with the function they're going to have for the rest of their runtime. A young sprite's function is to grow and learn about the world around them, and when they're older and have seen what's out there, they choose what function they want to have as an adult.

"So maybe it's like that for you. You say you weren't built for a purpose, but maybe that just means you haven't decided what your purpose is yet."

[gone_byebye]

"Dad said that a long time ago," says Ecto. "When I was nine days old-"

She pauses, and there's a soft little frrt before the avatar pulls up an old voice file of Ray's. "It's just that if you get to think for yourself, and act for yourself, then you get to make your own decisions and choices. When you're ready, I mean," it says in Ray's voice. "You're still learning yet, so it's best to take that stuff slowly- but if you're going to be a real person, you're going to have to decide all kinds of things for yourself someday."

Then she goes back to her own voice. "I thought that was normal. And then it turned out everybody else like me was programmed from the start. I just 'woke up' instead."

[mendanddefend_archive]

"So, that means you're the first. That's not a bad thing, Ecto."