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Previously: The Lair Legion's resident A.I. Hallie finds herself trapped in a Land that Common Sense Forgot with a severely curtailed memory. To her, it seems like it was only yesterday that she was in 1999, existing as a simple (albeit ingeniously complex) program inside a computer mainframe. Today, however, she is a three dimensional holographic woman living in 2008, surrounded by friends she has no recollection of ever meeting. Filling in the missing gaps is proving a bit more complicated than she had anticipated...
"spiffy?" Hallie asked.
"Dictator for Life of the island nation of Badripoor" Visionary informed her.
Her holographic face darkened. "Look, if you're not going to take this seriously..."
He held up his hands defensively. "Swear to God."
"spiffy?!"
"He was Mayor of Gothametropolis York for a good long while too" the Regular offered.
"And I suppose he cleaned up the town and moved on to a bigger challenge?" she asked skeptically.
Visionary made a face. "Well, no... GMY is still pretty much a hell hole. But they spend a lot less time on impeachment hearings now. Sadly."
Hallie put her virtual head in her virtual hands, which itself was still rather novel. "How did all this happen in only 9 years?" she sighed, frustrated at the memory block which kept her from accessing a huge portion of her own mind. "And how can it all be so convoluted!?"
"If you're looking to assign blame..." he answered judiciously, "Well, do you remember a guy called the Hooded Hood?" He frowned as he took in her obviously frustrated state. "Look, I know it must be confusing... but we'll help you get to the bottom of your memory issues."
"It's not just not remembering!" she complained, getting up and pacing. "It's this... this... body! How can I have a body? How can I be walking around a room? Why am I waving my arms? I don't even know how I have arms, and now I'm waving them around like a mental patient!"
He got up from the sofa and clasped her in a hug, which she accepted somewhat rigidly. "It's okay... Just calm down a bit and the arm waving will stop. You like to gesture when you're agitated."
"I had only just decided on a face graphic for display on a computer monitor, and now here I am all three dimensional and... Are... are you hugging me? How can you be hugging me?"
"Oh... I didn't mean to overstep... Did... did you want me to stop?"
She swallowed. "No, it's just... How?"
"Um..." Visionary answered hesitantly. "Well, I know there's a lot of math involved... Something about electrical pulses through holofields creating a localized force field effect..." He paused and raised an eyebrow. "Or maybe that was how they got the Enterprise out of that Nebula on that rerun of Star Trek the other night... Um, either way, it's something you devised so you could touch things."
She blinked as she allowed him to hold onto her. It felt... odd. She was aware of the contact, certainly... but was this what touch really felt like? "I... I came up with this?"
"Well, you ran your basic ideas by NTU and Al B who helped you refine and implement it, as I understand... But you have the best understanding of your own programming and abilities." He gave her a squeeze. "You're pretty smart yourself, you know."
The squeeze felt good, somehow... until an image of an overly patient blond woman popped into her mind. She pulled back from the hug quickly, with a guilty flush. "Um... fascinating" she swallowed. "And you... feel me?"
He coughed. "Well, not without... I mean, it's not something we've, um... There are certain boundaries that we..."
"Oh!" she blushed furiously, not knowing she could. "No! Not... I meant... do I feel... um... Do I feel... real? When you hug me. Or, um... shake hands. Do I feel real?"
He gave her an awkward, heartfelt smile. "You are real."
"You know what I mean."
He hesitated. "Yes, although... after a little while, it kind of... um... do you know that feeling you get when you lie on your arm funny and it goes to sleep?"
She stared at him, her lips tightening slightly in frustration. "No. I don't know that feeling. I don't know any feeling."
He winced. "Ah... right. Sorry. Although, in my defense, you had to at least have experienced that feeling once or twice when you were human."
She froze. "When I was what?"
"Er... yeah, I was going to save that for later, wasn't I?" he berated himself. "Um... you were human. A couple of times... although I suppose you might have been some form of nymph the second time..."
Her eye twitched briefly as she stood there, carefully breathing. Or pretending to without thinking about it. Finally, she sniffed. "A guy called the Hooded Hood, you say?"
Visionary nodded encouragingly. "You'd be surprised how much can be traced back to him."
Author's Note: I'm going to try and add little bits to this story as the week goes on, but I also welcome anyone interested to treat it as a round-robin within the round-robin... If there's a character currently in the Land that Common Sense Forgot that you'd like to reintroduce to amnesiac Hallie, feel free to write up a little conversation. None of it needs to go anywhere, so don't feel the need to advance the plot any. Oh, and I wouldn't worry about when in continuity any tie-ins take place... It seems like most of the good guys were reunited last we saw them, or about to be. I'm sure we can find a place to slot this substory into things. Just assume that Vizh and Hallie take a break from their sessions now and then, and there's plenty of opportunity for any additions to happen before or between these sessions.
Not that I'll be disappointed if there aren't any tie-ins... Lord knows there's enough to write about out there already. But I thought I'd offer.
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[The Scene: Artificial computer intelligence Hallie is real, dammit, but she’s lost part of her memory. She thinks it’s 1999, which means really big haircuts are in and everybody is Living the Vida Loca. She doesn’t remember pretty much anything since Jarvis stopped posting on the Parodyverse Board. So clearly she doesn’t remember Dancer, which some might think is a good thing. She will after this tho.  ]
Dancer: Hi. I’m Dancer.
Hallie: I’m HALLIE. But I’m guessing you already know that.
Dancer: Uh-uh. You’re not HALLIE. You might think you are but you’re not.
Hallie, a little disconcerted: I’m checking my systems right now, and I do recognise the root programming. I’m pretty sure…
Dancer: Believe me. You’re not HALLIE. HALLIE’s just an acronym for Heuristic Accelerating Leaping Logging, um, something.
Hallie: Heuristic Artificial Life Learning Intelligence Entity. Really.
Dancer: Yeah, really not. You’re not HALLIE the acronym. You’re Hallie the person. Big H, little allie, all good.
Hallie: What’s the difference? I’m an artificial intelligence created by a mad scientist and taken in by the Lair Legion to look after their mainframe.
Dancer: Wrong-o. You were an artificial intelligence created by a mad scientist etc., but then again, I was the result of a wild night in Bogall when my dad had too much Guinness and my mom didn’t reach a blunt object fast enough. But that doesn’t mean that’s all I am now.
Hallie: I don’t really remember anything that people are telling me about. Um, please tell me you hadn’t described the Guinness incident to me in detail.
Dancer: Well, I wasn’t really there, except perhaps technically at the very end of the process. But I have been around to know you, Hallie. That’s why I thought I’d come along and tell you why you have a lower case allie. It’s important.
Hallie: It is? Why?
Dancer: Because names are what people have. Acronyms are for machines. Nobody who knows you questions that you need a name. In fact even your enemies have names for you. We just don’t use them in polite society.
Hallie: Well that’s kind of swe… hold on. I have enemies?
Dancer: Oh sure. Loads of them. Just like a real person.
Hallie: Oh. Good. I think. You said you were here to cheer me up, was it?
Dancer: I’m here to tell you more stuff that you need to remember. I can’t leave my poor old brother to do all the heavy lifting. Not with that heart of his.
Hallie: Brother? Heart?
Dancer: Oh, right. I meant close friend Visionary. Sorry, I’m a bit out of practise. Although funnily enough Vizh did become adopted into the family of my good friend Sarah Shepherdson so he could be warder to her little sister Kerry.
Hallie: You mean ward? Vizh was allowed responsibility for a minor?
Dancer: I know what I mean. And yeah, Vizh is allowed children these days. Ask him about that. Wait till he’s eating.
Hallie: So Vizh was adopted? Why was he adopted?
Dancer: You shouldn’t believe any rumours about Sarah and Vizh being de-aged to sixteen and doing the nasty in Off-Central Park. That’s just a story put about by witnesses who want to traduce the reputation of a quite possibly semi-innocent young star-in-waiting. Anyway, she’s his sister now so that clearly would be icky, howevermuch it seemed sweet and wonderful at the time.
Hallie: Vizh and this Sarah person? What about Cheryl?
Dancer: Cheryl had ascended to ascensionhood. She’s not around any more. It was sad. Vizh had some dark times. It’s a good job he got distracted.
Hallie: By a sixteen year old?
Dancer: Well, I was really thinking about the Caphan girls. See there were these nine green-skinned alien slave girls that Yo put in Visionary’s bedroom…
Hallie: Lalalalalalalalalala. Not listening. Maybe I erased my memory banks on purpose?
Dancer: It’s not what you think. Vizh was a perfect gentleman with them. And, um, only one of them got even slightly pregnant.
Hallie: Visionary knocked up an alien slave girl? Visionary? And this slave girl had his kid.
Dancer: Er, that’s prolly another one to field to him, really. But if it’s any comfort, Miiri didn’t give birth to Vizh’s child. Vizh doesn’t have a child. Honestly. Can we move on? I could tell you this amusing story where everyone thought Lisa and Vizh were…
Hallie: I think I’m going to have to ask for more data, Dancer. Then I can review my stunulator programming policy.
Dancer: Really, that’s not the stuff you need to focus on. There’s a lot of things happened over the time you’ve forgotten, and a lot of them centre on you, Hallie. It’s a good job I’m not the jealous type, the amount of spotlight you’ve managed to get.
Hallie: I had spotlight?
Dancer: Hey, there were times when you were the spotlight. Especially in your holo-display artworks. Me, I just got to get married a couple of times, kidnapped by archvillains, de-aged, metamorphosed, cursed, and ended up naked a lot more times than seems to happen to the guys in the Lair Legion. The usual. Oh, and a short stint as a fairy godmother.
Hallie: That’s all?
Dancer: And whatever happened to me during that whole North Star dream sequence, but right now that’s a bit hazy.
Hallie: And you say I knew you before? [* Checks what security protocols she’s put in place *] Hey, there’s a file here about Visionary’s health. And you said something about his heart?
Dancer: Oh, that was before he got cloned, I think. After he spent some time as a hologram AI like you. After your virtual world got bombed. After you spent some time as a human when your AI form got assassinated by the Hellraisers. There was an incredibly long set of events that led to Vizh’s heart getting scooped out by an Elder Being and ended up with him getting a new lighthouse.
Hallie: …….
Dancer: It all made sense at the time. Well, as much as things do in the Parodyverse. There were plot summaries and everything. Best to blame spiffy for it.
Hallie: So we still do the spiffy joke?
Dancer: Well, I think it’s a girl called Bev Campbell who’s mostly doing spiffy right now. But yeah, Vizh had a few heart problems. Nothing like as bad as he’s got now, though.
Hallie: Visionary has cardiac troubles even now? My bio-sensors didn’t detect any…
Dancer: You can still access your databases, right? Your newspaper archive? Flick back in the Daily Trombones to the day the Parody War ended. Take a look at the front page. Put it up on screen.
[Hallie finds the file in microseconds and plunks the image on the monitor. It’s a full-page picture of a triumphant hero kissing a girl in his arms while the crowd celebrates. Except…]
Hallie: That picture… that appears to be Visionary doing the kissing.
Dancer: It is. He’s real, dammit.
Hallie: And that girl on the other end of the kissing, the one being kissed…
Dancer: I think in fairness she’s kissing back. I’m pretty sure there’s two tongues involved in that. That is serious stunt kissing.
Hallie: That girl looks a lot like the hologram body I apparently use all the time these days.
Dancer: Like I said, heart problems.
Hallie: But… I don’t remember any of this. That’s not… I’m not… I wouldn’t… There isn’t…
Dancer: See? No acronym machine would get that flustered by the wonderful horrible mystery we call love. Only people can be that dumb.
Hallie: You’re saying I have had a… relationship? With Visionary?
Dancer: Well, you were dating Mr Epitome while Vizh was seeing that hot psychotic supervillainess, but yeah, for a while there it looked like we might be getting some CSFB-rated Vizh/Hallie material. But after that picture the promised date never happened. Believe me, I’ve been closely monitoring the situation. All kinds of work-related crisis got in the way. Vizh went off to another planet for ages, and then there was a plague of crossovers, and now you’ve lost your memory. It’s like somebody was trying to spin out the romantic subplot for as long as humanly possible.
Hallie: Vizh kissed me?
Dancer: You’re missing the key fact here, Hallie. You kissed Vizh. [* smiles brightly *] Anyway, I’m sure you’ll remember the important stuff eventually. There’s quite a lot of it to get back. You should check the archives. And you should go to the source.
Hallie: The source?
Dancer: Sure. Associations trigger memory. Warm toast reminds you of happy breakfasts in bed, and what you did with the butter afterwards. Burned toast reminds you of previous cataclysmic toaster explosions and makes you dive for cover. Old songs remind you of old loves and losses. Old friends remind you of good times that you’ll store in your soul for always. And do you know what’s good for remembering forgotten kisses?
Hallie: I’m sure you’ll tell me.
Dancer: New kisses. Triggers all kinds of stuff. Really. Try it and see.
Hallie: I don’t think I’m that kind of program.
Dancer: HALLIE might be what she was programmed as. But Hallie… she’s whatever she wants to be. With whoever she wants to be it with. [* pauses at the door *] I love stories and movies, Hallie, and all the best ones end with a kiss. But in real life, all the best stories just start with one. Reclaim your past. Then claim your future. Bye!
Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2008 reserved by Sarah Shepherdson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2008 to their creators. The use of characters and situations reminiscent of other popular works do not constitute a challenge to the copyrights or trademarks of those works. The right of Sarah Shepherdson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. |
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