Chapter 2
Sammy’s Story
The shrill buzz was muffled under the comforter. She pulled herself further into the dark warmth of her bed, trying to drown out the clock’s alarm with the thickness of the blankets. It wasn’t working.
“Fughhe” she groaned, one slender arm snaking out from the mound of sheets, feeling its way to the nightstand. Slim fingers poked around, feeling her glasses, loose change, a book, before finally resting on the edge of her little plastic Hello Kitty clock and more importantly, the pink snooze button. She mumbled to no one in particular “10 more minutes.”
But that wasn’t going to happen. Just as she pulled her arm back under the covers a new, possibly more annoying, alarm filled the room. No, not an alarm she realized. It was the theme song to Acceleration, her favorite show. She had the same song as her ring tone. Actually, she realized that what she was hearing was her ring tone, coming some where’s from the foot of the bed.
“Hang on, hang on,” she said, throwing the blankets off her, and pushing them from the bed. Her phone was dancing across the mattress to the tune of its own music. She wonders for a moment why she hadn’t felt its little white form vibrating as it rang, but doesn’t focus on it as she brings it to her ear.
“Hello?” She asks, sleep still dulling her voice.
“Miki,” the voice on the other line squeaks, “It’s Sara, I didn’t wake you did I?”
“No, no. I needed to get up anyway.”
“Good, I wasn’t sure if you’d be up yet. I know you usually sleep in real later when there’s no school.”
“What time is it anyway?” Miki asks, turning to look at the little Hello Kitty alarm clock. The little light up Kitty pointed her two arms at the blue glowing numbers.
“10 in the morning, sleepyhead. We still going out for breakfast?”
“Oh yeah, I almost forgot about that. Yeah, I guess should get moving. You want to meat me over here? I’m gonna hop in and take a quick shower. Mom is at work and Dad is still, away. So just come in the back door, I should be out by the time you get here.”
“Alright, sounds good. I’ll be over in a few. I wanna check out that waffle house in the business plaza.”
“Ok, see you in a few.” She said, and hit the end key, dropping the phone onto her bed. She turned the alarm clock off, knowing that the snooze would run out soon and the alarm would ring again.
She stretched, feeling the life flow back into her limbs from their hibernation. She should hurry up and hop in the shower; it would only take Sara a few minutes to get here with how fast she walked.
“Are you there? Hello? Hello?” a voice asked from the corner of her room.
She turned and looked at her computer desk, the soft glow of her monitor fighting with the yellowed sunlight sneaking in from around the blinds. A small window was opened, covering some of her desktop icons. The window was divided into three boxes, one a white field with a flashing text indicator like a messenger program would have, one was a scrolling list of some kind of programming text, looked like Java script Miki though. The third box held the image of a small blue diamond, which spun at a slow pace.
Sammy, Miki though, trying to remember if she shut her computer off or not. She certainly didn’t remember keeping the text-bot open.
Stepping over to her desk she took up the little microphone on its crimson plastic stand, bringing it up to her mouth she looked at the screen.
“Yes, I’m here. But I’m not staying I need to take a shower and go to breakfast with a friend. I must have Forgotten to turn off the computer last night, Have you been running all this time?
“Yes, I have been active user-Miki. I did not want naptime so I data collected. You are active? Will you talk with me again?”
“Yes, but later. After I get breakfast. I’ll be back this afternoon with a friend. I want to show you to her.”
“Acknowledged. I will wait.” The voice cracked softly over the computers speakers.
Miki looked at the window opened on her computer screen. The little blue diamond shape continued to spin at the same pace it had, the program text scrolled at a continued rate. She couldn’t tell if the program was shutting down, on standby or just, waiting. Maybe she should go through the directory, see if it came with a manual or help file. But that would have to wait, she needed a shower and clothes before breakfast, which was starting to look more like it would be a brunch.
The waffle diner was a sliver of a room squeezed between two of the large work hubs of the business plaza. If it weren’t for the little hologram sign projected above the door a person could easily walk right past it without realizing what was there. A person other then Sara that is. She seemed to have a highly developed sensory system when it came to finding food.
The booth they sat in was in the same grey retro-wood design of the diner. It gave the place a kind of warm look until you realized that the “wood” was plastiform. Either way the seat felt hard under Miki’s ass. Either they needed to add padding or she needed to gain some padding.
“So how was your Christmas? Do any thing exciting?” Sara asked in between mouthfuls of
“No, not really. Dad had some sort of business dinner so me and mom just stayed home basically. She made some sort of treat thing I have no idea how to pronounce and called my grandpa back home.” Miki said. 14 years of living here and she still referred to
“Yeah, we just did the family dinner thing. Nothing too exciting there either. I did get a new Ipan though, green with blue sparkles set in it. My dad had a helluva time trying to get it to connect right. Sometimes I wish my dad had a bit more know-how when it came to gadgets, kind of like your dad, you know?”
“Yeah I guess. I though those were suppose to be easy though. Like they could just sync to the Wi-spread right out of the box” Miki said, finishing off the rest of her banana waffles.
“For most the features you can sync right up and check your e-mail and such, but it was setting up the personal aspects, the ID needed to be set and we needed to sync them to my Aug-glasses. If I wanted the AR overlay to work right.”
AR, augmented reality. Sara was a bit of a computer geek, racing home after classes to check up on her Multi User Domains, or MUDS and e-mails. She was more interested in the spacious depths of cyberspace then hanging out most the time. Sometimes Miki thought that Sara was only her friend, only went out and did things with her because of Miki’s father.
“What about you?” Sara asked, wiping strawberry sauce off her cheek with the back of her sleeve. “Get any good gifts?”
“Well, I did get a voucher from Dad for a new companion-bot. It’s supposed to have scripts that allow for more realistic answers and reactions. I downloaded it a few days ago.”
“And?” Sara perked up, almost leaning across the table as she looked at Miki with brightened eyes. “How is it?”
“Its’…different” Miki said, hating herself for sounding so dramatic about it. “When I downloaded it there was a weird kind of burst in the data stream. All of the sudden it grabbed almost a full 3 gigs in like a second. When I first exchanged the vouchers code and signed all the agreement crap, it said the full download size would only be 6 gigs. When it was finished it totaled 9, a full 3 more then I thought it would be. I think it was the 3 grabbed in that one second.”
“Probably an upgrade patch or something. They may have had an upgrade after the original launch of the program that they just worked into the download now. Aside from that how's the program run? Have you set it up to do tasks for you yet? Check your e-mail? Is there speech support or is just a texter.”
“I don’t fully know yet. I just got it started up not to long ago. At first I could only communicate with the program through this little included text window. That’s all it seemed to be, this little text message box on my screen. There’s no basic menu or setup options for it, at least nothing I’ve found yet. There wasn’t even an install for it. “
“What do you mean?” Sara asked from behind her glass of orange juice.
“After the download this little window popped up, the text one I was telling you about. No set up, no intro or anything like that. Just this little message window flashing, ‘Hello, is any body there’. It threw me off a bit at first. I though that might be the set up for it so I typed a reply and next thing I know I was talking to the companion-bot’s AI. It wasn’t asking usual initiation questions though, things like if I wanted it to check e-mails or anything like that. Just who I was, the specs of the computer, where it was (which I though was kind of odd) and things like that. I have to admit it did kind of feel like I was messaging you or someone from a chartroom.”
“Well that’s good, that’s what it’s supposed to be like.”
“Yeah. Turns out I was talking to the thing until 5 in the morning. I told it I was going to bed and asked how to turn it off so I could turn off my PC. It seemed kind of confused for a minute and then said to leave it on, it needed to Data collect. I figured that meant it was going to set itself up on the computer, you know, find out where my e-mail was, what devices I had hooked up. The next morning it seemed to have found the sound system because it started having audio. I seem to be able to give it some voice commands, like opening my web browser and stuff like that, but it still keeps asking about other things, more personal things and nonchalant things. I figured I’d look and see if there was a manual file or something to figure out how to get it working the way I want. I might change the voice; it’s cute but not right for me. Something a little too kawaii for my likeing.”
She noticed the waffles were gone and sometime in their conversation the bill popped up on console set into the wall. Guess Breakfast is over, Miki though to herself.
“Well I could take a look if you want, find the setup program and customize it a bit for you. What’s the program called anyway?”
“Sammy, I think. The voucher was for a Hal-27 Integration Companion-bot, but after I downloaded it and the window popped up it said Sammy.exe in the top left corner. That’s what the program refers to itself as too so I guess that’s what it’s called.”
“Never heard of a Sammy. The Hal-27 is a good program, lots of scripts to give it the appearance to real variety and decision making. Maybe this Sammy.exe thing is an expansion or new patch for it. Either way if you’re al set I say we pay up and go have a look at it” Sara said, giving a smile which caused her rounded, slightly pudgy face to wrinkle up a bit. She took out her Ipan, swiping it in front of the tables console and causing it to emit a beep as it subtracted the total from her credit. Miki had planned on paying for her own meal but it looked like Sara wanted to show off her new toy. Not like Miki was going to pass up on a free meal.
The door swung open as Miki remover her finger from the data lock. The two girls rushed inside to get out of the rain quickly. It cam rather unexpected today, chasing away the bright sunlight to replace it with thick, grey/brown clouds. Miki hadn’t heard any weather reports about rain so she wasn’t sure of it’s PH level. Either way it made slightly tanned skin feel dry and hot a bit. Se though it might even look redder. Sara’s brown hair was soaked and she quickly worked to ring the water out, less the acidity do any damage.
As they took off their shoes and placed them by the front door Miki gave the house a command for lights, casting the dull grey atmosphere to be filled with yellowed egg white light.
“Guess your mom’s still out.” Sara offered, looking around the Minsinji residence.
“Yeah she’s probably at her office working the shop. She won’t be back to much later unless they get another big deal, or the lag kicks up.” Miki’s mother was the manager of an online shop located in the virtual world called the Omnet. The shop had no physical location aside from the small garage sized office that Mrs. Minsinji and her four coworkers worked in. “My pc’s in my room. We can dry our socks up there too.
Sara followed her friend upstairs to Miki’s room. It was easy to pick out which door was her’s as result of the Hello Kitty sign hanging in the middle of it. Miki wouldn’t admit it, but she was a little obsessed with Hello Kitty. It was probably the only really girly thing about her, all the pink Kitty merchandise. Sara didn’t understand how such an old character like that could survive all these years.
“Mind the mess. I uh, didn’t get a chance to clean up yet.” Miki said before opening the door. She knew that Sara wouldn’t mind it. Both their rooms were always messy, though Miki’s was usually a bit more organized then her friends. Either way, one the door was open Sara walked straight to Miki’s little Com-Crane personal computer, without saying much.
“So where do you have the launch file for the companion-bot?” Sara asked, looking over her should at Miki, who was just coming into the room herself, heading over to the bed to make it.
“I’m not sure. I never saw an option for one and I never saw one on my desktop or in my program selection.” Miki said, she felt a little embarrassed but wasn’t sure if it was due to her room’s chaotic state or the lack of knowledge regarding her own computer.
“No problem, it’s probably still in the directory folder. I’ll find it just open it and move the launch to…”
“Who’s there?” Came the soft, almost childlike voice over the speakers. This unexpected burst of sound caused Sara to throw herself backwards in the chair, causing it to tip over. She obviously hadn’t anticipated that the program would still be running.
“Sara are you alright? I forgot to say I had left it on when we left this morning. I didn’t think it would still be up and running. You probably were too close to the microphone when you asked me about the launcher. I did say it has audio capabilities right?” Miki asked, stepping over to her friend. Sara was getting herself up and turning the chair back over.
“I can hear you. You are back, User-Miki?” The speakers sounded. Miki Hadn’t expected it to pick up her voice, having had to get within a foot of the microphone usually. Did the bot turn the sensitivity up?
“Wow.” Sara said, “it scared the hell out of me at first. I didn’t expect your speakers to be up that loud, or the thing to be still on.” She sat back down, eyeing the screen and the now present window which Miki had become all to familiar with.
“I didn’t think I had the speakers or the mic’s sensitivity up so high. I don’t know sometimes it seams like the programs changing the settings around on me at random. I did tell you it just started speaking one day and waiting for replies from the mic right? I never changed an option or anything like that it just started talking.”
“Hello? Whose that User-Miki? I haven’t seen this user before.” The computer said.
“This is the friend I wa… Wait, what did you say?” Miki asked, staring hard at the spinning diamond on the screen. Sara looked at her friend a little confused. “Did you say you’d never seen her? You can see?
“It’s probably just using the expression Miki, grabbing the word from a vocab library. These systems do stuff like that all the time.”
“No.” came the kid voice, “I have established driver connection to my eyes.”
Both girls looked at the machine, puzzled. Before Miki gave out a laugh, edged with just a little bit of anxiety.
“What, what’s so funny?” Sara asked, darting her eyes from Miki, to the computer, back to Miki.
“My Webcam,” Miki offered in between giggles, feeling the slight tensions break away from her, “it means my webcam. It must have found it the same way it did my mic and speakers.”
Sara leans over looking deep into the monitor and the small opened window with Samm.exe in the upper corner. A bland look of confusion lay across her face as she squinted at it. “Found the webcams? Found?”
“Yeah it seems to locate what I have hooked up and connects with them. It’s just picking us up on the cam, right?” Miki said stepping over and looking to see what her friend is looking at.
“No Miki, they don’t work that way. For an AI to just ‘find’ things would require some really hefty scripting. Plus, why would a simple computer companion need to acquire access to your webcam. They don’t do things like that.”
“So,” Miki asked, not sure what the problem was, “It’s a more advanced model like you said.” She had that feeling again, deep down at the pit of her stomach. The same feeling she had when the Sammy program first started speaking over her speakers.
“What I mean is that this is not regular Companion-bot. It’s way to advanced. Something’s wrong here Miki. Something’s off.”
The room was filled with a weird silence as the two girls looked at each other, puzzled expressions played across their faces. Only the sound of the rain on Miki’s window kept complete silence from surrounding them. Then…
“Hello? I see you. Are you there?”
To Be continued…
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