(no subject)

[command_dot_com]

Dot sits in her office, going over the files once more. In a few nanos, Phong will be coming in to 'discuss their options' regarding Milliways. More accurately, he'll be coming in to demand an explanation. This will require Dot to propound, very gently, a number of truly processor-wracking concepts.

Such as the fact that all her new friends there are User-level beings and beyond.

Hoboy.

Comments

[nofileext]

The door slides open and Phong trundles in. Considering the increasing feebleness of the excuses Dot has been making to avoid telling him more about that 'Milliways' system, this should be an interesting chat indeed.

It's also obviously going to be very difficult for her. This is why Phong is carrying two mugs of cocoa.

[command_dot_com]

...trust that wise old sprite to come prepared. Still it won't be easy.

"Alright...what part do you want me to explain first?"

[nofileext]

Phong smiles and hands her a mug. "I am quite interested to know what is so very unusual about System Milliways that you have felt the need to change the subject every time it is brought up, rather than explain it to me."

[command_dot_com]

Dot takes the mug and a long sip from it, no easy way of going about this. "Beucase it's a bit more than just a system. ...And the people you're seeing there aren't really sprites."

...

That sounds far too cryptic.

[nofileext]

It does indeed. Phong has taught Dot well.

He sips his cocoa in turn. "No?" he says mildly. "They look like sprites, certainly. Actually, they look more like Game sprites, but I have never heard of any leaving the Games but AndrAIa. And they cannot be viruses, or you would not spend time there, much less allow young Enzo to do so." He takes another sip. "I must confess myself stumped."

[command_dot_com]

"Milliways isn't a system. It's User-level space."

Dot waits for his reaction to that, because whatever it is, it's going to be a doozy.

[nofileext]

Phong's eyebrows shoot almost off his face, but he says nothing. He studies Dot over the tops of his spectacles. Finally:

"Yes, I would say that is quite unusual."

[command_dot_com]

"The people there...are mostly Users."

...Shouldn't Phong be more...upset about this?

[nofileext]

"That is the logical conclusion, yes." We'll come back to the 'mostly' later.

Phong takes a long slurp of his cocoa, then says, "Such claims are not unusual. Usually they are made by attention-seekers, mystics, or the mad. Sometimes all three at once."

[command_dot_com]

"This is no claim Phong. I do not seek attention. I am about a mystic as a bent wire, and you know I am not in the least byte random." She says this slowly taking another long sip of the cocoa.

[nofileext]

"I did not say you were," counters Phong with a small smile. "You have been increasingly in the public eye for your entire runtime and have no need to seek additional attention. All your circuits are firmly grounded, and even if you had overworked yourself into a driver error, it seems unlikely that you, Bob, and both Enzos would do so all at once. Nor are any of you the filetype to joke about such matters." He considers this. "Except perhaps young Enzo, but he would not carry the prank to such extremes."

He shrugs, and continues, "There is an old ReadMe file that states, 'When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.'" He smiles at Dot, then. "There is a somewhat newer file, however, which suggests that where sprite nature is concerned, the opposite is more valid. It is not impossible that you are lying or deluded, but I find it so improbable that I would sooner believe the impossible and accept that you are telling the truth."

[command_dot_com]

Well. That part was surprisingly easy. "...So you're stable with this knowledge? ...when I found out it was a bit of a... shock to my system. I suppose... Now would be the time where I tell you the rest of the things about Milliways?"

[nofileext]

"My child, I'm completely stunned," Phong informs her, still in the same calm and reasonable tone. "When we are done here, I will need a nice little lie-down. This is something I never expected to witness if I lived for a month. But for a long time, we did not know that other systems existed. The 'Net is vast and strange. Therefore, by all means, tell me more."

[command_dot_com]

"Well...as you can guess most of our friends there are Users. The first times that Bob was there, he found out why the Users drop Games on us and create virii." She paused looking at her cocoa for a moment before speaking. "Because from their perspective, there is nothing to suggest that we exist."

[nofileext]

Phong blinks (with a humourous 'poink' sound effect). "I do not understand."

[command_dot_com]

"I saw what the outside of a computer system looks like. Not like from the 'Net... like from a User's perspective." She explains slowly.

With her hands she makes an approximation of a computer tower. "They're a metal box..about this big."

[nofileext]

Phong's mouth opens and shuts a few times, as he envisions first his city shrunk down to the size indicated, then a sprite(-like being) large enough to view his city that way. Finally he says, weakly, "Should it not be a metal sphere?"

[command_dot_com]

...Should we break the old sprite's processor even further...

"That's just the housing, though."

Yes. We should and shall.

[nofileext]

That bit, at least, makes sense. Boxes hold things. "Indeed. And what do they see on the inside, if not us?"

[command_dot_com]

And boxes are very easy to stack together and store into small places!

"Wires, circuit boards, chips about this size... processing chips. There's a cord that runs from the housing tower to a monitor."

[nofileext]

And sometimes they contain ghosts! ... Sorry, wrong canon.

Phong isn't really getting it. He's just sitting there blinking. Might want to make your explanation a bit broader, Dot.

[command_dot_com]

"...they're like my PDA."

[nofileext]

"...in what way?"

[command_dot_com]

"In the way that they are used mainly to organize businesses, do calculations, store information and make someone else's life easier to deal with."

[nofileext]

"...a tool?" Phong's eyes are wide, his brow furrowed and faintly sad.

[command_dot_com]

"...yes. Though we have been changing that perception slowly over at Milliways."

...One should not ask about the reporter who refers to Dot as the 'computer fairy'.

[nofileext]

"And... they do not know we are part of that tool?" Phong speaks slowly, as though tasting each word.

[command_dot_com]

"They do not. A minute for them is like a nano for us." Dot is breaking that little tidbit as gently as she can.

[nofileext]

"We are... too small and too fast for them to see," murmurs Phong in wonderment. "They would not even notice the damage caused by a lost Game before we rebuilt it. Remarkable!"

[command_dot_com]

"There's a lot of other things, they age and grow differently, and there are being and illnesses in their world that are comparible to our own virii." Dot continues. "Even stranger..there are being to Users, what they are to us."

[nofileext]

"Iterative?" Phong mumbles to himself. "As Above, so Below..." He looks up at Dot. "I shall be sure to treat your organizer with utmost respect from now on."