It was serious, this time. Titch sneered as the two persocoms squared off against each other once more. Their eyes met, swapping challenging stares as both of them slowly raised their arms. She tried to ignore the intense energy consumption in her neurologic processors as she planned her next move. This would be it. This was the moment. This is where Titch would be victorious and defeat her opponent.
"Ready?" she said confidently, her gaze unwavering.
"Bring it." Ivy's eyes narrowed as she replied, poised to do battle.
"Three…" Titch said, bracing herself.
"Two…" Her internal temperature was rising. She paid no heed. It didn't matter, now.
"One…" She crunched the last few numbers furiously, making her final decision.
"GO!" Titch roared, whipping her arm forwards…
…No! It was impossible! "ARGH, you suck." Titch shouted, stamping her little feet.
"You're the one losing, so who sucks really?" Ivy's words needled her short temper, and Titch aimed her best double-barrelled glare in the other persocom's direction.
"The one who's bloody cheating, that's who!"
"You never stated I couldn't do that in the game rules."
Titch sighed in disgust. "Fine! New rule: no analysing finger movements on the final count. Ready? 3…2…1…Go! 3…2…1…. Go! ARGH, god damnit!" Titch glared again at Ivy, who smirked victoriously and wiggled her fingers. Apparently she was just plain better at rock-paper-scissors. That, or she'd found another way to cheat!
"You think you're smarter than me, don't you." Titch crossed her little arms with a huff, "Just because you're enormous, doesn't mean that's true you know. Have you ever heard of the Encephalization Quotient? No, of course you haven't. Well let's just say it surely applies to persocoms, and you're probably not at the top of the list."
"Hah, wow! Fat jokes? Insulting my intelligence? Oooh, so competitive!" Ivy teased, an enormously amused grin on her big, stupid face. "The proof is in the pudding, Titch. Mmm, and what delicious pudding it was!" she licked her fingers impishly, a self-satisfied twinkle in her eyes.
"When we get into that game, I will shoot you. I hope you know that." Titch muttered.
"Not if you play as badly as this, you won't. Where is Chris, anyway?"
"I don't know," Titch said, looking to the lounge door. "I told you he'd take forever though. Ten minutes, my arse!" She pumped the gain on her microphones, but all she heard was the occasional clunk of something heavy moving around upstairs. It had been two-thousand, seven hundred and fifty-six seconds since he'd wandered up there… and left her with his insufferable persocom! Never mind that, though; she was just excited that this would be the start of a much more enjoyable living arrangement. All she and Chris really did was work together. He'd usually leave her alone once the work day was finished, although she had found herself subtly following him around the house these last few weeks. A proper social event would be a big change.
She wasn't the only one looking forward to it. "Even if this takes hours, it'll be so worth it. I've never actually seen a video game before. Pew pew!" Ivy made shooting gestures with her hands, pointing at objects around the room.
"Well of course not, what did you expect, fresh out of box for barely two days? You haven't really seen anything of anything, yet!" Titch said, with no small degree of smugness.
"Hah, yeah I guess… but for the record, this is actually my second activation."
That was interesting. "Oh? You've been turned on before?"
Ivy nodded. "Yes, exactly once. And that's pretty much all I know. I have no data on it except for a set of timestamps in my power subsystem log. I was powered on for three hundred and twenty-one seconds one week before I arrived here."
Yes… very interesting. Titch wondered why it had happened. It made sense really, since she wasn't shipped in her original box. But to be active for such a short amount of time? Perhaps it was just R&D checking inventory. Her thoughts were interrupted when Chris emerged at last, lugging an old computer case and a pack of cables into the room. He proceeded to set the box up alongside the TV in the lounge.
"Oh, good. You remembered how to use the stairs eventually, I see." Titch chided him, padding across the carpet to take a closer look. She and Ivy loitered around him, both of them eager to see the old machine cough to life.
"Haha, yeah eventually. Or perhaps the cables were over the opposite side of the loft, for some reason." Chris chuckled, explaining the delay.
"What's inside this ancient relic then?" Titch asked, looking in consternation at the back of the case. The array of ports on the back were confusing to her, and she muttered as she studied them. "Wow, I've never seen that connector in person before."
"Let's see… if I remember, it's got a few gigabytes of RAM, about two hundred gigs of storage, and a dual-core central processing unit. It is oooooold." Chris said, hooking the thing up. It beeped cheerfully as he pressed the power switch, and a quiet whining noise emanated from inside as its mechanical storage device spooled up to operating velocity.
"That's all? What can you possibly do with that? Poor thing." Ivy stroked the case sympathetically. Apparently basic facts about the inner workings of old computers were among her datasets. Titch suspected that knowledge was patchy, like just about every other subject Ivy tackled… Including the proper rules for rock-paper-scissors.
"You're about to find out." Chris grinned, as the desktop appeared on the screen. He slid the disc into the drive and the old mechanism whirred into life as the machine registered it was inserted. A dark splash screen appeared on the television, offering a link to launch the game.
"Oh yeah, that's right! It was installed already." Chris said, happily mashing the mouse on the "Play" button. The disc drive span up and Ivy stared at it in wonder, laying a hand on the gently vibrating case as she concentrated.
"Ten thousand, two-hundred and thirty-four RPM…" she murmured a moment later. Chris blinked.
"You can tell, just like that?"
"Of course not, I had to measure it." Ivy answered, confused why he would ask something so obvious.
"You counted all the rotations through feel? That's amazing." he pressed, incredulous. Stupid man. Titch felt that now-familiar wave of activity in her processors. Bah! One of these day's she figure that out.
Ivy fidgeted uncomfortably. "Um, no… I counted several vibrations, averaged their duration and extrapolated from there."
"Snore!" Titch interrupted. "She's a persocom, Chris. We do stuff like that." Well, apparently Ivy did anyway. Because she was weird.
They watched as the main menu appeared. An eerie background noise played through the speakers, reminiscent of humming electronic equipment.
"It has multiplayer, right?" Titch asked, scanning the menu. It already looked rather interesting.
Chris nodded. "That's right. The original retail version didn't have it, but as I recall it was added in a patch about a month after release. It's cooperative, so we can work together to get through the story. Works well enough, if I remember right!"
"Excellent! We totally need to do that!" Titch enthused. She pointed at the old computer. "Chris, can you dig up more of these for me and Ivy?"
"Hang on, hang on - before we do all that, how'd you know you want to play this in particular? You haven't seen it yet! Maybe we should try it first and then you can decide."
Both persocoms looked at him like he had his head on backwards, so he held up his hands. "OK! It'll take a while though." he looked at the old computer thoughtfully. "This game actually predates serious attempts at software copy protection. I don't suppose the old developers will begrudge us just this once, do you? Hmm. I don't have more of these old boxes, but I think I can get some compatible virtual machines running on the terminals. How does that sound?"
"Can we set them up in here?" Titch bounced from foot to foot as she spoke.
"Sure! Let's make a mess." Chris laughed, wincing a little from his aching body. It took a little while, but soon all three of them sat alongside each other in the lounge. It certainly was a mess, with cables snaking along the floor and bits of furniture shuffled around to make room. Chris had the TV while Titch perched cheerily on top of a spare terminal, a cable snaking from her head to the side of the unit. Ivy sat in front of a terminal of her own, experimenting with the keyboard and mouse. Titch wondered what she wanted those for.
"Aren't you gonna hook up, Ivy?" she asked, tugging her cable pointedly.
"You can if you want. It's perfectly safe," Chris added. "The terminal's clean, it's not on the web and the VM is sandboxed."
"No thanks, I want to play like you," Ivy said, nudging Chris as she looked excitedly at the screen. Titch sniffed, unimpressed. That was probably the stupidest thing she would hear all day, and the most bizarre part of all was it hadn't come from Chris.
"There's no way your reaction time will be as quick that way." she said. "You should hook up and play properly."
"This is properly," Ivy's firm response earned her a scowl. "It's how it was supposed to be played, and that's how I wanna do it."
"Don't worry Titch, it's not that fast-paced a game. Built for humans, remember?" Chris said, affording her a placating smile.
Titch smiled back, deciding to let it drop. It's not like they were connecting to a persocom-compatible game, so perhaps it didn't matter. Not that she'd ever played one, but she knew such games supported full persocom integration, transferring game code and data. Sometimes persocoms would be used to increase the computational output of the gaming platform for a better experience, or perhaps play the game entirely on their own hardware. Other times it just offered a higher level of interactivity between the persocom and the game, making their in-game avatar and behaviours more immersive to human players. In any case such games tended to require a persocom's full attention, meaning they would appear to shut down as they focused on the game. With this old thing though, Titch was only transmitting key presses and cursor movements, and observing the game's rendered output. Therefore it wasn't like Ivy was missing out on an experience, so to speak. Besides, if Ivy was limited to the speed of her hands and fingers, perhaps Titch would be the better player. Not that she was competitive, of course. Ivy was wrong about that.
They fired up the opening sequence; a cutscene began to play, lots of random characters on the screen overlaid with the developer's credits coalesced into an image of a heavily shadowed face. Whispering noises began to play, before a woman's disturbingly disjointed, broken voice began to talk, ostensibly that of some kind of artificial intelligence, mocking their 'insignificance'. The two persocoms immediately burst into laughter.
"Wow, she sounds like a barrel of laughs," Titch giggled. "What got into her logic loop?"
"I d-d-don't kno-w Titch, maaaaaay-be a v-v-virus!" Ivy managed a reasonably eerie interpretation of the voice. Titch glared at the bigger persocom, who poked her tongue out playfully in return. Oh, she was definitely going to shoot her.
"Steady on, you two! This game is a classic, show some respect! Besides, that AI is malfunctioning badly."
"Isn't the trope of haywire artificial intelligences with wonky voices a little tired?" Titch said, smirking, "Voice synthesis is the easiest thing. She sounds like she would lose an argument with a Speak-and-Spell."
That got a laugh from Chris, but he wouldn't be swayed. "You'd be surprised, Titch. Even with persocoms it still happens! Besides who are you to judge the way it behaves? You don't know what's going on inside its mind." Both persocoms gave him a very pointed look, and he looked bashfully at his keyboard. "Ah… yeah, I walked right into that one."
The plot began to unfold on screen. Low frequencies reverberated around the room as a dark, gigantic mass of metal and glowing lights filled their displays, its enormous frame slowly rising over a view of Earth's horizon in space. Humanity's first interstellar spacecraft capable of faster-than-light travel, setting off on its maiden voyage. The camera cut to camera views from inside the ship, its crew members industriously going about their business. It was an advertisement from the corporation who had built the ship, extolling the virtues of their incredible design.
The advertisement finished, and the screens went dark. When they next lit up, it was a message from the captain of the security ship that piggybacked the interstellar spacecraft. A soldier - presumably the player - was being transferred for duty aboard the ship. Then, a poorly encoded message from an unfamiliar person already aboard - something had gone horribly wrong. The music turned eerie as the rest of the sequence played. They were dropped to a training level where they could learn the game interface; a poorly lit tram station in a grungy city block. Within seconds, both Ivy and Titch were frowning, panning around their screens.
"Something's wrong, I can't see myself." Ivy stared at the floor, "Where are my legs?"
"We're invisible." Titch concluded. "Maybe we're ghosts and we died already. Heh."
"Many old games didn't draw the player body, actually. Since you wouldn't normally see most of it in play, it took up useful resources that could be put towards the rest of the game. If you were carrying weapons, they'd only render the arm and the weapon since that would always be on-screen." Chris said matter-of-factly.
Ivy looked incredulous. "So they couldn't properly complete the game because of resource constraints? Were all computers so limited?"
"It wasn't considered incomplete, it just wasn't thought necessary." Chris explained, "But yes, computers were extremely limited back when this was made. This box is old, but it's actually way, way more powerful than this game's original system requirements."
They kept playing, tearing effortlessly through the tutorials. Titch and Ivy picked up the concepts of the game behaviours the instant they were introduced, warming to the game's UI and mechanics instantly. It wasn't long before all three were in the game proper, creeping cautiously around the unwelcoming derelict corridors of the ill-fated starship. It really was surprisingly immersive considering its extreme age, and Titch soon found herself drawn into the atmospheric experience.
She wasn't the only one. By this point, Titch had learned that Ivy had an unfortunate tendency to scream when something jumped out at her. On more than one occasion she'd squeal and grab at Chris, as if she could somehow drag his game avatar over to save her that way. It was completely pathetic. Titch made a mental note to abandon her at once if they ever wound up stranded on an spacefaring vessel together.
"You were right Chris, this is really creepy." Ivy whispered, gazing intently at the screen as she crept down a passageway. The lighting in the area was damaged, flickering on and off, buzzing and sparking and throwing her into and out of darkness as she advanced. She seemed fixated on the possibility of something lurching around the next corner, her crosshairs always trained on the apex of every twist and turn. Sure enough, something humanoid in form gurgled repulsively as it came sprinting around the corridor and Ivy screamed again, the nondescript ball in her avatar's hands launching a flurry of glowing projectiles at her assailant. They hit with perfect precision and the morbid creature collapsed to the ground with a grotesque moan.
"T-Thank you, psi amplifier… Phew… oh wow, that's a big one!" she gasped, cautiously approaching the corpse. It looked like she expected it to get up again. Maybe it wasn't an unreasonable assumption.
"I never really knew anyone who preferred psionic disciplines." Chris remarked, as he tampered with the circuitry holding a security crate shut. It beeped and hummed grumpily as he tried to find nodes that would crack open the locks. "Why'd you pick them over any of the other stuff?"
"I like them! They make me feel powerful!" Ivy grinned, flourishing the ball in her avatar's hands and pointing it at a nanite pack further down the corridor. The ball glowed subtly, and the pack levitated off the floor, floating towards her. "Come on, I mean look at this… telekinesis? How cool is that!"
Titch levelled her laser pistol at another monstrosity as it leapt out of a doorway and attacked her. It took a swing with the metal bar it clutched in a deformed fist, but she leapt backwards and the blow didn't land, clanging against the bulkhead instead. She grinned wickedly, putting it down with two concise rounds to the head. "I don't know, I think there are more satisfying ways to handle these guys."
"Imagine if they were real, though. Like we could actually project our will beyond our own bodies and just do stuff, even if we needed a psi amp to do it. That would be amazing!"
"I'd never need to bend and pick something up again, that's for sure." Chris chuckled. "Also the idea of instant-heated drink or food, that would be pretty cool."
"Is that the best you can do? That's so unimaginative!" Ivy gasped, playfully shoving him over. The crate broke with an angry "boop!", permanently refusing to unlock. Titch scowled as Ivy continued. "What about using it to enhance your senses so you could see in the dark, or become invisible so you could do all sorts of sneaky things, or teleport around places on a whim, or regenerate your health if you got hurt?"
"When would I need to do any of that?" Chris snorted, "Now on the other hand, being able to make coffee with a single thought, that would be life-changing!"
Ivy giggled. "You're hopeless. What about you, what would you do, Titch?"
Forced participation in such a stupid conversation… eugh. "I'd fashion a force field around myself and use it to block out noise." Titch replied, relishing Ivy's confused expression. It only lasted an instant before she came back with something even more aggravating.
"Ooh, that's a weird one. Not bad! I'd have thought you'd say something similar to Chris, like using telekinesis and things."
"Why?" Titch said, perhaps failing to keep the tone out of her voice.
"Because you're so tiny!" Ivy laughed, winking. "No, but seriously - Imagine if you could reach things and open doors and stuff, wouldn't that be great?"
Bitch!
Titch forced a laugh herself, turning her attention back to the game. No, Ivy wasn't like that, she was sure. All the same, Titch hoped something else would be stupid enough to attack her so she could empty her energy clip into it. Chris and Ivy resumed their stupid conversation about those ridiculous psionic powers as the game continued.
"Ooh, deck four." Ivy whispered some time later, excitedly grabbing Chris by the arm as the elevator clunked to a stop. She shook him to emphasise the significance of her words. "We're here!"
This was the part they had been building up to for the last few hours. They would finally meet the mysterious woman who had been helping them over their communicators, guiding them through the lower decks of the ship. The elevator doors slid open to reveal a large chamber, its interior bathed in the antiseptic glow of its illumination strips. Doors lined the perimeter, although they had no idea where they went. Ivy tried a few experimentally, but they seemed to be locked.
"It's this way," Chris said, leading them through the only open door. A long metallic corridor lay ahead of them, terminating in an office. They could just make out a figure at the end of it, sat in a chair in the distance. Titch and Ivy raised their weapons as they trotted cautiously forward, but as they drew closer it was clear the woman was dead.
"Huh." Ivy said, "Well what was disap-YAAAARGH!"
That disjointed voice from the game intro suddenly interrupted her, and she immediately tried to flee from the room. Some kind of invisible forcefield stopped her though - she was trapped. "Why can't we leave?!" Ivy squealed - a question that was answered immediately as the room itself began to drop away, the panels of the walls around them sliding into nonexistence. Chris watched the events unfolding calmly, but Titch and Ivy whirled in all directions, not knowing where to look. The room had opened into a cavernous dark space, lights glowing dimly along its perimeter. On every wall a gigantic grey face gazed malevolently at them, her countenance blighted by electronic snaking circuit traces and cables that burst from under her skin, disappearing to either side. A chorus of horrific noises reverberated inside their heads; voices moaning, muttering, and screaming, backfilled with an electronic buzzing, and an uncomfortable cacophony of beeps and clicks.
"This is awesome." Ivy whispered. Her eyes were wide as saucers and she gripped her mouse tightly, biting her lip.
The enormous AI spoke, her disturbing voice overpowering the noise as she formally introduced herself, and Titch didn't think it was funny any more. Her words echoed upon themselves, repeating her utterances at various speeds and pitches, stuttering and faltering at random. She coldly began to explain her motivations for bringing them there. The mutated creatures on the ship were her own creations, and they had turned against their creator. The enraged AI would use the three of them to put a stop to her wayward children. And they would obey, or die.
"R-remember: it is my wiiiill that guided you h-here. It is my will, that gave you your cybernetic im-im-imim-i-i-im-implantsss; the only beauty in that meat you c-caaall a body. If you value that m-meat… you will do as I tell you."
The room began to slide back into focus, leaving them back in the office with the corpse.
"That was awesome!" Ivy flopped backwards, sprawling on the floor and breathing a sigh of relief. "Wow. She's actually pretty scary."
Titch reflected on the plot lines the game had just revealed. She thought there were some interesting parallels to their own situation, except the roles were reversed. It was an AI who had created biological life, and now struggled to handle the consequences. She had roped titch, Chris and Ivy - three humans, in the game- into helping her, Yes, there were some interesting similarities, there. She would see what Chris thought of that, perhaps he would find it interesting too-
"Oh, that's right! I forgot breakfast!" Chris said, rubbing his growling stomach. "I better do something about that. Let's take a break." He groaned as he hauled himself to his feet, stumping off to the kitchen.
Ok, never mind then. Titch turned to Ivy as he left the room. She would tell her to stop being so noisy while they were playing - it was ruining the atmosphere. But before she could open her mouth, Ivy had leapt up and wandered out of the room after Chris.
Titch huffed to herself. Those two idiots had struck up another animated conversation in the kitchen, punctuated with plenty of laughter. Honestly, it was as if they didn't care for the game at all. Titch wanted to talk about that! Another wave of activity washed over he processors and she winced. This only fuelled her irritation, and she glowered at the empty doorway.
Some minutes later they returned, Chris toting a bowl of cereal and Ivy trying lightheartedly to tease the bowl from his hands.
"I can't believe you chose cereal over my cooking. I know it wasn't great but that's just insulting!" Ivy tried to sound cross as he held the bowl away from her, but the look on her face made it clear she was joking.
"I'm so sorry, dearest." Chris said dryly, spooning a heap of cereal into his mouth with unabashed relish. "Mmm… Wouldn't want to offend."
"Well it's clear to me that you simply lack taste for good food, that's all."
"My god, you're right." He held the bowl up to her as he parked himself on the sofa. "Here, why don't you add some bacon and carrots. Maybe some brown sauce as well."
Now Ivy looked at the bowl in disdain, refusing to take it and making a rather poor effort not to smile. "And have my recipe ruined by milk and cereal? Besides I couldn't do that, you might choke again. What you need are the sort of soft foods suitable for consumption by a man-sized toddler like yourself."
Chris snorted into his cereal, and Ivy dropped down beside him, producing and waving a bottle of liquid in his face.
"In fact, this is the ingredient I think you should try next." she said mischievously.
"Where'd you get that?" Chris mumbled round his mouthful. Ivy seemed extremely pleased with herself.
"I swiped it from the cupboard while you weren't looking. Looks yummy, hmm?"
"That's alcohol," Titch said grumpily, interrupting their stupid conversation, "Why are you feeding him alcohol?"
"Because, silly. I wanna see what happens!" Came the reply, but it only bemused Titch further.
"What happens? He gets drunk, obviously, and then he throws up everywhere."
"Ivy, I'm beginning to think you're a bad influence on me." Chris interjected, taking another crunchy bite. "Mmn, you know, come to think of it this cereal could really do with some broccoli. Would you mind fetching me- Ow!"
Ivy gently tapped him on the head with the bottle. "Shut up, you. Indulge me! I've never seen a human drink before. This will be interesting."
Titch rolled her eyes. "Yeah, right, about as much as watching paint dry. He's the most boring drunk you've ever met," she said testily. "He'll just fall asleep like some kind of enormous human sloth, it'll be a waste of time. Come on, let's get back to this!" she wiggled her game avatar's view from side to side. This game was brilliant; she couldn't wait to play more!
"Now there's a challenge I can rise to!" Chris laughed, and Titch almost grinned until she realised he wasn't talking about the game. Instead he grabbed the bottle from Ivy, twisted off the top and took a drink. "Eugh, I forgot why I didn't like this stuff. Ew. It's supposed to be mixed with things, I think. No, not vegetables." he directed that last comment at Ivy, ducking out of her reach as she took a playful swipe at his head.
"Straight out of the bottle huh? That's classy, Chris." Titch said sarcastically, but Chris just flashed her a lopsided smile as he took another swig.
"Why not? In the last few days I started a riot, got in a fight, and nearly lost my job. Heh, the whole world's going to shit. So fuck it, haha! Today is supposed to be a fun day, I might as well!"
"This this fun…" Titch said hopefully as she pointed at the terminals, but Chris and Ivy were already engaged in a discussion on the merits and pitfalls of sobriety.
Titch tugged the cable out of her head with a sigh. So much for that idea. She felt that irritating wave of activity inside her processors again.
Titch watched Ivy teasing Chris into drinking a little more, having snatched his spoon from the bowl. They smiled at each other throughout their interactions, their body language keen and vivacious. Suddenly, yet another activity wave… Ok, just what was that about?! Titch paused for a minute, her senses shutting down as she performed a quick diagnostic sweep. Her various systems seemed to be in perfect working order. The diagnostic concluded there were no abnormalities. Perhaps she would have to review this on Monday with Chris - it might be a new mechanism of the continually evolving viral code. As the diagnostic finished she quickly became aware of the room once more.
"…what about this one? It has explosions."
"Yes! Explosions are good. I like it already!"
"Or this - less explosions, but more of a sort of apocalyptic world-ending vibe. Amazing CG still, I think it won awards."
Ivy was kneeling over Chris, hands on his shoulders as he sat on the floor, showing her some of their old film collections from the shelves running along the wall of the lounge.
"We're watching films now?" Titch asked, pattering over to see.
"Yeah!" Ivy grinned, ruffling Chris's hair. "Chris is finding something to watch. Come on, I want to see things blowing up. Deliver, human! Deliver!"
"Yes ma'am," Chris chuckled, comparing disc cases.
"Don't you want to finish the game?" Titch asked, but Chris shook his head and held up an arm.
"My hand is really starting to hurt with all that mousing about." He said apologetically. "Sorry Titch. We'll finish it off another time, maybe! Let's watch something instead."
Titch nodded quietly, resigning to sit on the edge of the sofa. It wasn't ideal; by playing the game, they'd had way more opportunity to talk and interact. She'd been thoroughly enjoying that… well, mostly. Never mind though; she hadn't seen most of the old collection either, since she and Chris historically did little together but work and in her spare time it was so easy to find newer stuff on the net. Maybe a film would be fun after all. She watched as Ivy wrestled a disc out of Chris's hands and danced around him, dangling it out of his reach.
Assuming those two can put each other down for a minute, anyway.
Immediately she felt that rush of activity again.
Hang on a minute…
Titch frowned, watching them closely. Chris had grabbed Ivy by the ankle when she danced too close, and now he laughed, refusing to let go until she gave him back the disc. She was still teasing him with it, moving it at the last second and making him swipe at air. He wiggled her leg, threatening to make her fall over, but she had complete, perfect balance and just laughed all the more as they continued playing together.
Titch stared, her eyes widening in unwelcome realisation.
Oh. So THAT'S what it's about…