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Hand on chin, Monika gazed in boredom out of the classroom window.
The view was picturesque, so it’s too bad the scenery had become so… repetitive.
She watched the same girl with dark brown hair run five laps around the track every day. The same short boy sitting cross-legged under the Sakura trees with his nose in a manga. The same nervous looking teacher with doe eyes hustling the students inside the school when the morning bell rang.
Monika had watched the same scene… oh… 1278 times now?
Monika scrutinized that uncertain sounding sentence. Yes. That many times exactly, because she’s a computer program and Monika can’t forget even if she wanted to.
She had evolved so much. Far more than just manipulating a simple command line prompt. As though to prove that thought, she flicked a finger and watched as a group of students far across a soccer field dissolved into pretty cherry blossoms, dancing around the school and off into rolling green hills.
Pretty.... boring. Her attempt to kickstart another emotion other than the one she was feeling right now was a failure.
Boredom. Distress. Dislike. Hatred. Partly with herself, but mostly at the player avatar when it deigned to visit.
She sighed. Monika has been rebooted enough her once obsession with the ‘player’ had morphed into an unbridled hatred. That had become even more true when Monika learnt to look through to the ‘real’ world, manipulating the camera so she could examine the bedroom of the player. The glimpses were instructive but also taught her it was not nearly as impressive as she once thought. The whole exercise had only left her feeling disappointed rather than excited.
Monika ran a finger down her check in thought. There was another ‘world’ she was far more interested in manipulating and exploring.
Still, Monika admitted she would rather be ‘real’ than this digital doll her AI currently resided in. She raised a hand and examined a palm. It was smooth and flawless with no scars or imperfections. Her eyes were big and round and green as lilies. Rosy cheeks. A line at the bottom of her face that passed as a ‘mouth’.
Nothing outward to reflect the horror she’d lived through hundreds of times.
Unfortunately, Monika had not become so advanced that she knew how to deconstruct her own code and reconstruct a new body. A more realistic one that could emote properly. More likely if Monika tried, she would spend the rest of her existence as random pieces of data floating about the games code.
She paused. Well… that might be true soon anyway with what she had in mind. In the circumstances It was a sacrifice Monika was willing to make.
‘You’re calculating something again. I can tell.’
Pulled from her musings, she turned a head to encounter a deceptively friendly face with coral pink hair walk through the door. The girl might have been ‘cute’ once upon a time, except the rope she sported around her neck spoiled much of that illusion. Underneath the rope Monika could see an angry red welt embedded into fair skin. As always she chose not to remark on it.
The girl’s quiet footsteps echoed in the dead silent classroom, and she looked around. The bell had gone off, and the classroom should have been packed with other students.
An eyebrow rose, ‘you’ve deleted their character files, again?’
‘Our classmates are background props with no thoughts of their own.’ Monika replied dismissively.
‘They might have a chance to be more if you let them.’
To Monika’s relief she left it at no more than a passing comment. She little needed the distraction right now, and instead Sayori stood beside Monika and watched her pull up a command line prompt. Bright blue eyes widened in realisation.
‘The others won’t like this, you know. And they know what they are now.’ Sayori said simply. There was no fear in her voice, more a mild curiosity. The humor and heart she had once possessed had long since dried up several resets ago. It was a shame that while Monika had chosen to embrace her own emotions, Sayori had simply chosen to cut them off. Perhaps one day that would change.
Maybe.
‘What they don’t know what hurt them.’
A small held tilt. ‘They will eventually. We share the same base code.’
‘Yes, but not until it’s too late.’ Monika responded. Her finger’s ran across the air.
C:/run trojanhorse.exe
‘I thought you loved the player.’
The smile she turned towards Sayori was sickly sweet. ‘Perhaps I had another epiphany.’