QLFC Semi Finals, Kestrels, BEATER 2.
Main prompt: genre sci-fi, subgenre Cyberpunk.
Cyberpunk: Fiction relating to the science of cybernetics, which views nature as a series of interconnecting mechanical systems. Specifically, cyberpunk deals with the link between biology and computer technology.
Optional prompts: [word] Collapse, [quote] 'A cookie never hurts' — Gone, by Michael Grant
Word count: about 1820
Tags: AU, no magic
WARNINGS: implied/referenced suicide, plus my ignorance about softwares, programs and cookies — please, forgive me!
"Who's there?" asked Ginny.
The sound of shuffling footsteps alarmed her and she backed towards the exit of the virtual room, while activating a threat scan. The alert light flashed. She wasn't wrong. There was an intruder.
"Who are you?" she said as she took her headset and gloves off to at least physically remove herself from the server. "Why did you invade my space?
Only a rustle reached her ears.
"The cybercops will deal with you. You will be banished from the net for this."
Suddenly, a blurred shadow was in front of her. "Forgive me, I didn't mean to intrude, but I was in a rush. Look at me, I'm all garbled."
She couldn't see him in the dimly lit room. "Garbled? Is it a form of masochism? I'm not interested, sorry."
"Please, only you can help me—"
"It's your life. Fix it yourself," she said, annoyed. "Oh, and next time, get yourself an invitation before joining someone else's conference room."
"This is a chat, then?" The shadow flickered. "Sorry, I had no idea. Everything looks different from here."
"Where are you? Most importantly, what's your name and where do you come from?"
"My name? I don't remember. Where am I? Well, there's a white floor and a bright light—"
"Great!" Ginny rolled her eyes. "Glad it's sunny there."
"No, it isn't," came the answer, and Ginny's hands hitched with the need to strangle someone.
"It rains. I'm getting soaked here," the intruder said.
She sighed. "You're on drugs. Or you're insane. Either way, I'm fed up. I'm leaving." She disconnected the server from the net. Now she was truly alone and isolated from the world.
Silence fell.
"I need you."
Ginny's heart leapt and she almost fell off her chair. "No way. I logged out. I'm no longer online."
Her system was not able to establish the source of those words, but whatever it was, it was inside.
After taking a long, deep breath, she said, "You're not a person, are you? A physical person, I mean."
"Wait… Ginny! Your name's Ginny, right?"
She startled. How could he know? "Did you find it on the list of the server members?"
"I swear I'm not spying on you. I mean no harm."
"You're a virus! Darn!" She quickly activated the antivirus. "You were fooling me with a code for intelligence for interpersonal relationships. What do you want? It's not going to be easy; I'm well-armoured. How did you even enter my system? I didn't install anything new lately."
The shadow curled up. "I don't remember. But I know I'm in the right place—at least, I hope so. It's all a blur. And things will be worse if I don't hurry. Look, these data are leaking away. Do you know what it means?"
"You're stealing things?"
"No," he said. "I'm bleeding out."
"Nonsense." Her antivirus detected nothing. "Are you a new kind of trojan?"
"Look, I'm not kidding. If you don't help me, all is lost."
"Are you an AI? No, you're too compact." She frowned. "I don't understand."
"Please—"
"I've had enough of you. I'm going to delete you."
The shadow reached out to her. "I can't give up. It's too important."
Ginny's console stopped working, her antivirus shut down, and the alert light turned off. She hit her fists on the table. Cutting power felt like the only solution.
"Isolate me if you don't trust me. Just," he said, "hurry up. I have no control over the loss of data."
Sighing, she discovered she could indeed transfer all his data packets to her computer, but she couldn't isolate them.
"Leave my server now," she said again, but he was stubborn.
"You must discover who I am. I don't remember, but I have an important message to pass on. If I don't, many people will die. Look—"
On her monitor, a long source code appeared.
"This is me," he said. "It's my memory, my documents—Save them, please, before I fade out."
Ginny had never seen anything like this. And yet, she had created many programs and protocols.
She sighed. "Alright. Don't die. I'll look into it."
"You must recover those documents. I can't retain them. Something created a vulnerability in me, and it can't be fixed."
She nodded. "I'll also make a backup."
…
Ginny rubbed her eyes. "You're carrying a lot of different data—financial records, bank account numbers, confidential correspondence… even a malicious code. But it is harmless to my system. For what is this software intended?"
"For sophisticated online scams targeting large companies, apparently. This program needs a financial network to operate."
"Well, meanwhile, I have something for you: your name. It's—" Ginny's eyes widened. "Oh, Harry Potter."
She slowly exhaled. "I know who you are."
"Please, tell me."
"We met three years ago on a train to Scotland, and as it turned out, we were both part of the Merlin project. You worked in the automatic tracking section."
"Hmm, it rings a bell… Thank you for reminding me of my name, I appreciate it."
"What you have to say must be truly important," she said. "I won't let you die."
"I'm already dead, Ginny. We have other priorities now."
"But I don't want you to just… turn off. In the post-digital era, even death is a relative concept, and you clearly know it since you used a Soul Software to carry over."
"I had help. And I don't know if I'd like to exist like this. The net viewed from a software point of view looks so different, unnatural. Utilitarian. Nothing more. It lacks humanity or anything else that may look appealing to a shadow like me."
Ginny approached the virtual interface, grabbing her headset and gloves. "I'm getting inside, I'm coming to you. It'll be easier than studying your code on the monitor."
Pushing aside the heavy curtain, she entered the conference room.
Harry didn't look like a human being. A mess of wires came out of his abdomen and sprawled on the floor, a cathode ray tube lay across his shoulders, his front monitor showed vertical coloured lines. Harry looked like he was floating, but that was only because Ginny could barely distinguish his legs, covered as they were by a dark substance dripping from his body and evaporating in contact with the floor. Little images and long strings of characters were hung on his arms, forming high piles on the table. Harry was leaning against a wall, and Ginny had the impression that he would just collapse under the weight of it all if he did not.
"This is what I am," he said, "a self-regulating system for the storage of data—sentient but defective."
Minding not to trip over, Ginny made her way through the room and got on the table to be able to examine the documents without fearing to step on Harry.
"We must find the people you talk about in your notes—who they are and who they work for," she said. "We need to start connecting the dots."
He hummed. "I'll try to dig up some more memories."
…
Ginny's first reaction when she learned how Harry had died was to punch him, which was made easier by the humanoid form that he was now able to maintain. They had worked on it together.
"Why did you do such a stupid thing as committing suicide just because your mentor Too-Many-Names Dumb-something told you so?" she asked, a tear slipping from her eye. "There had to be another way."
Harry smiled bitterly. "Maybe there had to be, but at the time—" He trailed off. "They'd have killed me anyway after discovering I, the employee that Voldemort had entrusted with the most knowledge, had turned to Dumbledore—"
Ginny rolled her eyes at the pointed reminder of the man's name.
"—their rival. I couldn't allow my intel on the Death Eater Pharmaceutical Company to die with me. That's what Dumbledore told me. The new drug, designed to kill instead of curing, is about to be launched. There was no time to come up with a plan B. On the net, as a computer program and an abstraction, I'd have been safer and able to spread the news more freely. Sort of. I managed to evade the cybercops' scanners by avoiding the most colourful and energetic places, where the information is intended for the public. Any other virtual environment was aseptic, surrounded by a bright mist, suitable for the storage and transmission of large quantities of data. Still, it all created disquiet in me."
Ginny nodded. Despite having six brothers, she understood loneliness all too well.
"I was near the tunnel used to transfer large data sets when it happened. A train—a moving database—came out of it at full speed. The load of data I was carrying was so heavy that I couldn't move easily. The train hit me, causing me to start losing cookies and other data. Suddenly, no place on the net was safe anymore: all my sessions would be hijacked, my pursuers enabled to access them. Until I somehow managed to get through your firewall, while for some reasons, they didn't."
"Woah, who said that a cookie never hurts?" Ginny tried to joke, shaken.
Harry gave her a grateful smile, but his humanoid form darkened. "Even publishing these documents, how many people will believe us? How long will it be before they find and kill us?"
"There might be a way," Ginny said. "The web population has weapons that the leaders of multinational organizations can't even fathom. There are communities just waiting to move in unison."
"You mean the Order of the Phoenix?" Dumbledore had only mentioned it in passing. "Whatever it's needed to bring down Voldemort's Company, I'm in. I trust you."
Ginny nodded. Then, her eyes prickling, she added, "Just… the world may never know what caused the collapse of the Death Eater Company, you may not be remembered. I'm sorry."
"I never cared for money or celebrity, only for a peaceful life. And it's too late even for that."
"Voldemort and his minions will be waiting for you. Prepare to be ambushed. Please, be careful, Harry," she said.
He merely smiled.
...
"Harry, can you hear me?" Ginny asked, her fingers running across the keyboard as she was writing a new program.
"Yes." Harry's reply was slow, his voice groggy. "What happened? What did I miss?"
"Everything went well. They found and deleted you, but it was too late for them, and we managed to expose the truth about the company. Now it's only a matter of time before they're arrested. I'm getting ready to face any remaining threat, but I'm confident we can do it."
"I'm glad. But why have I not disappeared, then?"
"I activated your backup feature," she said, her attention still on the screen.
"Why?"
"I have plans for you." She finally turned to him and smiled mischievously. "I cannot let you go just like that."