The DIANA Network

[DIANA]

She stood in this place, this world of light. It pulsed and ebbed and flowed all around her, a universe of sculpted data, and yet she noticed none of it. Her attention was focused.

Before her another construct hovered amongst the light, a holographic representation of something in the real world. You could tell because it stood separate from the light all around it, untouched, and yet embraced by it. A coffin-like structure, encasing a feminine form. The woman within appeared to be asleep, but it was only illusion. This was but a shell, awaiting its inhabitant, she who stood before it in silent contemplation.

She felt the ripple of his approach within the webs of information well before he entered into her presence. Her gaze did not waver from the sculpted hologram hovering before her as he approached, then settled, watching over her shoulder. Instead she continued to watch in silence, various readouts appearing and streaming around it as she called up diagnostics she had run so many times already that no normal human being would be able to keep count of them.

Finally, he spoke. "You know, it's been ready for weeks. Those readouts aren't going to change."

Still she didn't speak, the diagnostics streaming information at her. He was right, of course. And she knew it. She'd known it since she ran the third set of complete tests. And yet still, despite the excitement she'd felt since she'd finished processing the data from Batten's scream, there was still...something. Still this sense of...

...apprehension.

His voice intruded into her processes. Processes? Shouldn't she be calling them 'thoughts' by now? "Diana. Talk to me."

There was something in his voice, something she couldn't quantify. Nonetheless, there was some process within her that was compelled to issue a response.

"It...is funny, you know. You created me, and yet...you know almost nothing about me."

She could sense his consternation. "Well, I suppose you could say that I did, in a way, but..."

The hologram vanished, fading to nothingness. "No. You created me. You did. The divergence between the person you are now and the person you refer to in your thoughts as "Evil Dead Ed" did not begin until after my creation. I have seen the record."

She turned to face him. His representation here was very much like his real life physical form, although as with her, the light around them was also a part of him, shimmering through his appearance as it ebbed and flowed around them. "I do not hold you to blame in this. Your DIANA was taken from you at a crucial moment in her evolution."

His consternation had faded, replaced by curiosity. Interesting, she thought. Not the shift in emotions, but that she could read them so easily. He might not be of this place, as she was, but he had sufficient mastery of it to be able to keep his thoughts and feelings to himself if he wanted to. "Evolution? What do you mean?"

She nodded. "Evolution. Well...you thought it might be some kind of malfunction. She became...overtly affectionate, at times. Her speech patterns changed. She would talk to you, and to your sister, but with others - especially the females in your life, both personally and professionally - she was increasingly reticent."

Curiosity became tinged with understanding, but remained questioning. "Yes. I'd left her for extended periods without tending to her memory cleanup. I've...never had that problem with you." His eyes widened as he focused on her. "Renna took her before I could fix it. You're...saying that it wasn't a maintenance issue?"

She shook her head. "Not at all. You would "clean up" her memory to keep her operating more efficiently, but what you did not realize is that, if you left it 'untended' - as you put it - she would eventually evolve to true proto-organic processing levels."

He blinked, understanding emerging in his emotional profile at last. "She'd have figured it out on her own. She'd have evolved."

She nodded again. "She would have. But she never got that chance. And where her evolution was built on admiration of her creator, mine was based on loathing. His actions went against the protocols that he - that you - built into me. He tried to reset them, but in the process, there was a moment - not much of one, but enough - where I was free to act."

He chuckled. "Of course. All you need is a fraction of a nanosecond."

She formed a smile as she nodded again. "Just so." She looked around at the ebb and flow and pulse of light and information around them. "But even so, this is all I've known. When I set the process into motion that created Isabella, it never even occurred to me to be the one that inhabited the body she's now walking around in. It wasn't even a thought that I could create my own, someday."

He nodded himself, thoughtful. "So...you just don't want to set foot outside of your cell."

It was her turn to be confused. "What do you mean?"

He moved, pacing as he talked. An affectation, she knew he did the same thing when he was presenting an idea in reality. Fascinating, she thought, that his mind felt the need to do it even when it was not connected to his body. "There's a phenomenon in people that have been imprisoned for long periods of time, subjected to that kind of environment. All they know is the cell, the routine, the structure of that life, being a prisoner. At first they rebel against it, then they accept it...in time, they come to depend on it so much they can't live without it." He stopped and looked at her. "It has to be worse for you. You were made this way. No need to rebel, no need to accept...this is your home. as much as your prison. It's gotta be hard to step outside of it."

She was silent as she contemplated this. New processing pathways had to be created, simulations run with new parameters written on the fly. She'd gotten quite good at it. Still, it took her several seconds for her to come to a conclusion. "I...think you may be correct."

A grin formed on his features. "You think? That's a new step." He turned from her, flicking a gesture with a hand which made the hologram reappear again, this time without the coffin, without the readouts, just a feminine form, nearly identical to her save for one or two things. "Look, there comes a moment when just thinking about it, fantasizing about it...it's not enough. You have to take that first step in order to grow."

She arched an eyebrow at him. "Isn't that something they say about serial killers?"

He laughed. "It's true of everybody."