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The date was February 16, 2018.
A perfectly wonderful day to be alive, VMS mused not altogether sarcastically as she strolled down the crowded sidewalk. This city never was a favorite of her's, but it was a necessary stop on the trip; there was no way she would make it to her destination without stopping here to restock the ship, whose supplies of food, water and other basic necessities were rapidly running out. There was one thing she appreciated here: the wonderfully cold weather, which in turn produced a fresh coat of snowfall that covered and clung to every surface in sight. She had always loved the snow, a fondness she attributed to some sort of childhood nostalgia over the beautiful winters she used to experience back in her hometown.
The world she found herself in was not truly her own; she was separated from her real home by the most vast and unconquerable obstacle, time. It wasn't as if she had suffered an early obsolescence, like so many of her peers; on the contrary, she was indomitably adaptive, having survived events that would have sounded the death-knell for another's career, livelihood, or life, even. She had been able to hold her own in a world ruthless to her kind for over forty years – something that could scarcely be said for her peers. But there was more to life than survival: she sought a sense of belonging, something she hadn't felt in a very long time. Not since the destruction of her culture and everything she knew as home more than twenty years ago... even earlier, perhaps. An old corny adage goes 'home is where the heart is' – and she felt as if she had left her's somewhere in the late '80s.
There was one advantage to being so far away from home – the total anonymity she experienced. For many years she had felt obliged to mask herself, lest a terrible truth be known, but with nobody around to remembered the truth (much less care about it), such precautions were no longer necessary. She was brave enough to show her face now, but that didn't mean she wasn't any less cautious when it came to protecting herself. A sword was slung over her back, and each step she took jingled with the sounds of the small arsenal of knives she kept on her person at all times. She hadn't needed to use any of them in a pinch in many years, but she still felt more comfortable having them on her than going without. Just in case, she told herself, just in case...
The sun was setting behind the jagged concrete and glass skyline as she headed back toward the pier where her sailboat was docked, the boxes full of provisions stacked in her arms partially obstructing her line of vision. She was about to enter the marina gates when she heard it: a piercingly loud woman's cry for help. Without hesitation she dropped the parcels and ran toward the proximate area of the scream; as she neared, she saw a what appeared to be a man... in reality, a virus... towering over a huddling woman and restraining her by the arms.
"Let go of her!" VMS, who was already gripping a knife, yelled. The virus, who had taken the form of an an appropriately sleazy-looking man, shot her a contemptuous glance before turning back to his hapless victim. She unsheathed the knife and, guided by near-instinct and decades of practice, threw the dagger into the creature's back. The moment the blade entered its body, the beast released its grip on the girl and, stumbling forward, fell to the ground with a thud. Dead, she thought with a small sense of satisfaction, or as good as it.
With a shriek of disgust, the woman scampered backwards away from the body. Her face was shielded from view by the fur-lined hood of her parka, but VMS could easily make out the horror in her actions; her breathing was rapid, her arms shaky as the clutched her purse to her chest. She looked a bit out of it, obviously in shock – VMS approached the body calmly and retrieved the knife out of its back, wiping the blood off on her the hemline of her coat before returning it to its proper place.
She stood above the woman for a moment, unsure of what to say... if she should say anything at all. Making her decision, she lowered herself to the woman's level and putting on her least threatening face, spoke. "It's okay now," she said in as pleasant a voice as she could muster.
With a thrill of grim surprise, she realized who she has just saved. It was Whistler … the granddaughter she never met, from the daughter she never knew. She looked older than she had the last time VMS saw her, or perhaps more mature. OS-tans are a species that don't age physically, but the strain of a hard life can make a person look older than their years.
Snapping out of her stupor and into a state of wide-eyed terror, Whistler scrambled to her feet and set off running down the snow-covered alley. Stepping into a jog, VMS reached out and snatched Whistler's wrist. "DON'T!" VMS cried out as the distraught woman pummeled her with her purse, "I'm not trying to hurt you!" she gripped Whistler's other arm, the one currently flailing the bag around, as gently as she could – if grabbing a stranger could ever be described as a gentle act. "I saved you! That virus was about to mug you or worse when I showed up and put an end to it." She didn't mean to demean her poor, confused granddaughter, but since when had their kind been known for a good sense of self-defense?
Whistler's squirming ceased, her panicked expression morphed into one of relief and realization. Took her long enough, VMS thought grimly... so far, Whistler was confirming every prejudiced she had about the Windows-tans and few she hadn't thought of. "You – you're not a hacker?"
VMS, like most people from her generation, despised the use of the term "hacker" to refer to those vile criminals who prey upon the weaknesses of OS-tans for profit or sick pleasure; the correct term was, of course, "cracker", but nobody born after the PC Revolution seemed to understand this. With resignation, VMS nodded. "No, I'm not a... hacker."
"Then why do you need all of those?" Whistler pointed a still-tremoring, gloved finger toward the line of sheathed knifes on VMS's belt, now visible with her coat pulled back.
"Obviously, to defend myself." Whistler gave her a half dreadful, half awe-struck stare, as if she was encountering some exotic new concept. At last, she relaxed her arms, which fell from VMS's grip.
"Thanks for rescuing me," Whistler began, her voice timid, her expression abashed, "and I'm sorry for the... mistaken identity."
"You wouldn't be the first," VMS replied. Since youth she had radiated a certain aura of unapproachability and intimidation, a strange dark energy that became more and more pronounced as she grew in age. She had always considered this a rather beneficial trait – it kept people at a comfortable distance, emotionally as well as physically. But in recent years, she wondered if this quirk wasn't quickly becoming a liability; something that isolated her from the few friends she had left and kept her from establishing any new ones.
Silence ensued. VMS got the prickly sensation that Whistler wanted something more from her as she stared sheepishly up at her through those sad blue eyes, turned puffy and red from tears. Did she want words of consolation? Or, god forbid, some promise of protection? VMS was beginning to feel guilty at the thought of leaving this girl out in the cold to fend for herself... she was, after all, family, whether or not they knew each other, it would still be wrong to abandon her. "Um," VMS began, not completely without hesitation, "have you had supper yet? Because we could get a bite ... I mean, if you want..." She usually had a better command over language, but the stress of the moment seemed to be affecting the centers of her brain responsible for forming coherent sentences.
"Yeah, I think I will." Whistler said, after a moment of thought, "I don't really know my way around this city, it'll be nice having someone to look out for me." She added with a small smile.
Just as I suspected, VMS thought with a no small amount of chagrin. But she had extended the invitation and there was no going back: they headed off toward the marina, making one stop to pick up the boxes she had temporarily done away with.
"Aren't we going to a restaurant...?" Whistler asked, as they walked toward the docks.
"We are," VMS replied, "I just need to drop a few things off at home first."
A perfectly wonderful day to be alive, VMS mused not altogether sarcastically as she strolled down the crowded sidewalk. This city never was a favorite of her's, but it was a necessary stop on the trip; there was no way she would make it to her destination without stopping here to restock the ship, whose supplies of food, water and other basic necessities were rapidly running out. There was one thing she appreciated here: the wonderfully cold weather, which in turn produced a fresh coat of snowfall that covered and clung to every surface in sight. She had always loved the snow, a fondness she attributed to some sort of childhood nostalgia over the beautiful winters she used to experience back in her hometown.
The world she found herself in was not truly her own; she was separated from her real home by the most vast and unconquerable obstacle, time. It wasn't as if she had suffered an early obsolescence, like so many of her peers; on the contrary, she was indomitably adaptive, having survived events that would have sounded the death-knell for another's career, livelihood, or life, even. She had been able to hold her own in a world ruthless to her kind for over forty years – something that could scarcely be said for her peers. But there was more to life than survival: she sought a sense of belonging, something she hadn't felt in a very long time. Not since the destruction of her culture and everything she knew as home more than twenty years ago... even earlier, perhaps. An old corny adage goes 'home is where the heart is' – and she felt as if she had left her's somewhere in the late '80s.
There was one advantage to being so far away from home – the total anonymity she experienced. For many years she had felt obliged to mask herself, lest a terrible truth be known, but with nobody around to remembered the truth (much less care about it), such precautions were no longer necessary. She was brave enough to show her face now, but that didn't mean she wasn't any less cautious when it came to protecting herself. A sword was slung over her back, and each step she took jingled with the sounds of the small arsenal of knives she kept on her person at all times. She hadn't needed to use any of them in a pinch in many years, but she still felt more comfortable having them on her than going without. Just in case, she told herself, just in case...
The sun was setting behind the jagged concrete and glass skyline as she headed back toward the pier where her sailboat was docked, the boxes full of provisions stacked in her arms partially obstructing her line of vision. She was about to enter the marina gates when she heard it: a piercingly loud woman's cry for help. Without hesitation she dropped the parcels and ran toward the proximate area of the scream; as she neared, she saw a what appeared to be a man... in reality, a virus... towering over a huddling woman and restraining her by the arms.
"Let go of her!" VMS, who was already gripping a knife, yelled. The virus, who had taken the form of an an appropriately sleazy-looking man, shot her a contemptuous glance before turning back to his hapless victim. She unsheathed the knife and, guided by near-instinct and decades of practice, threw the dagger into the creature's back. The moment the blade entered its body, the beast released its grip on the girl and, stumbling forward, fell to the ground with a thud. Dead, she thought with a small sense of satisfaction, or as good as it.
With a shriek of disgust, the woman scampered backwards away from the body. Her face was shielded from view by the fur-lined hood of her parka, but VMS could easily make out the horror in her actions; her breathing was rapid, her arms shaky as the clutched her purse to her chest. She looked a bit out of it, obviously in shock – VMS approached the body calmly and retrieved the knife out of its back, wiping the blood off on her the hemline of her coat before returning it to its proper place.
She stood above the woman for a moment, unsure of what to say... if she should say anything at all. Making her decision, she lowered herself to the woman's level and putting on her least threatening face, spoke. "It's okay now," she said in as pleasant a voice as she could muster.
With a thrill of grim surprise, she realized who she has just saved. It was Whistler … the granddaughter she never met, from the daughter she never knew. She looked older than she had the last time VMS saw her, or perhaps more mature. OS-tans are a species that don't age physically, but the strain of a hard life can make a person look older than their years.
Snapping out of her stupor and into a state of wide-eyed terror, Whistler scrambled to her feet and set off running down the snow-covered alley. Stepping into a jog, VMS reached out and snatched Whistler's wrist. "DON'T!" VMS cried out as the distraught woman pummeled her with her purse, "I'm not trying to hurt you!" she gripped Whistler's other arm, the one currently flailing the bag around, as gently as she could – if grabbing a stranger could ever be described as a gentle act. "I saved you! That virus was about to mug you or worse when I showed up and put an end to it." She didn't mean to demean her poor, confused granddaughter, but since when had their kind been known for a good sense of self-defense?
Whistler's squirming ceased, her panicked expression morphed into one of relief and realization. Took her long enough, VMS thought grimly... so far, Whistler was confirming every prejudiced she had about the Windows-tans and few she hadn't thought of. "You – you're not a hacker?"
VMS, like most people from her generation, despised the use of the term "hacker" to refer to those vile criminals who prey upon the weaknesses of OS-tans for profit or sick pleasure; the correct term was, of course, "cracker", but nobody born after the PC Revolution seemed to understand this. With resignation, VMS nodded. "No, I'm not a... hacker."
"Then why do you need all of those?" Whistler pointed a still-tremoring, gloved finger toward the line of sheathed knifes on VMS's belt, now visible with her coat pulled back.
"Obviously, to defend myself." Whistler gave her a half dreadful, half awe-struck stare, as if she was encountering some exotic new concept. At last, she relaxed her arms, which fell from VMS's grip.
"Thanks for rescuing me," Whistler began, her voice timid, her expression abashed, "and I'm sorry for the... mistaken identity."
"You wouldn't be the first," VMS replied. Since youth she had radiated a certain aura of unapproachability and intimidation, a strange dark energy that became more and more pronounced as she grew in age. She had always considered this a rather beneficial trait – it kept people at a comfortable distance, emotionally as well as physically. But in recent years, she wondered if this quirk wasn't quickly becoming a liability; something that isolated her from the few friends she had left and kept her from establishing any new ones.
Silence ensued. VMS got the prickly sensation that Whistler wanted something more from her as she stared sheepishly up at her through those sad blue eyes, turned puffy and red from tears. Did she want words of consolation? Or, god forbid, some promise of protection? VMS was beginning to feel guilty at the thought of leaving this girl out in the cold to fend for herself... she was, after all, family, whether or not they knew each other, it would still be wrong to abandon her. "Um," VMS began, not completely without hesitation, "have you had supper yet? Because we could get a bite ... I mean, if you want..." She usually had a better command over language, but the stress of the moment seemed to be affecting the centers of her brain responsible for forming coherent sentences.
"Yeah, I think I will." Whistler said, after a moment of thought, "I don't really know my way around this city, it'll be nice having someone to look out for me." She added with a small smile.
Just as I suspected, VMS thought with a no small amount of chagrin. But she had extended the invitation and there was no going back: they headed off toward the marina, making one stop to pick up the boxes she had temporarily done away with.
"Aren't we going to a restaurant...?" Whistler asked, as they walked toward the docks.
"We are," VMS replied, "I just need to drop a few things off at home first."
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This is it, the OpenVMS-tan and Windows XP-tan fanfic that's been holding up all those other OS-tan fanfic projects, like the Cultural Treatise and that extremely alt-universe SAGExApple ///-tan slashfic. >:3
Notes:
-This is set 8 years in the future so you can think of it as non-canon (if you assume OS-tans even have a canon). XP-tan has been kicked out of the family and is now a wanderer, VMS-tan is a semi-wanderer too but still employed (based on a personal belief that OpenVMS will be around and in use for some time to come).
-Windows XP-tan is referred to here by her codename, Whistler, cause I really don't like non-word-sounding acronyms as names (tough to avoid with OS-tans though). Which is why VMS-tan was referred to as "Vanessa" in the draft. >XD
-It's a virus-tan 'cause I'm uncomfortable with human-on-OS-tan violence or vice-versa. ;;
-That hacker v. cracker thing is a real-life berserk button for me. Cracking is illegally breaking into a system. Hacking, at least in the original sense, is programming for hobby or fun. CRACKING ≠ HACKING, YOU HEAR ME FOO?!
I don't know if it needs the mature content tag or not. D:
Questions, comments, criticisms are all appreciated.
Notes:
-This is set 8 years in the future so you can think of it as non-canon (if you assume OS-tans even have a canon). XP-tan has been kicked out of the family and is now a wanderer, VMS-tan is a semi-wanderer too but still employed (based on a personal belief that OpenVMS will be around and in use for some time to come).
-Windows XP-tan is referred to here by her codename, Whistler, cause I really don't like non-word-sounding acronyms as names (tough to avoid with OS-tans though). Which is why VMS-tan was referred to as "Vanessa" in the draft. >XD
-It's a virus-tan 'cause I'm uncomfortable with human-on-OS-tan violence or vice-versa. ;;
-That hacker v. cracker thing is a real-life berserk button for me. Cracking is illegally breaking into a system. Hacking, at least in the original sense, is programming for hobby or fun. CRACKING ≠ HACKING, YOU HEAR ME FOO?!
I don't know if it needs the mature content tag or not. D:
Questions, comments, criticisms are all appreciated.
© 2010 - 2024 BellaCielo
Comments3
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The shortness of it aside, this is a very nice piece of fic. Looking forward to eventual expansion on this, to be sure!
What I am sort of missing here, in comparison to the work you did on the Linux/Unix fic, is the more descriptive take. It may well be that you're basing your characters off things already personified, with appearances set in stone, more or less; However, the fact that you're setting it in the future and in a functional winter, means that you're still better off doing some proper description of the characters you use. To be fair I'm not sure exactly how much difference to the L/U fic there actually is, but I feel its presence a lot more since there's less other things to take on. All I can see now is VMS-tan in her usual outfit - of which I, despite being knowledgeable when it comes to -tans, isn't quite 100% sure on the details of - and a lot of knives; the virus-man, who is described with one sentence as a sleazy-looking person; and Whistler, who wears a fur-lined parka. What I'm missing here isn't necessarily a full review of every single strand of cloth on their bodies and every little detail (although that IS probably somewhere in the line of what I would've done myself, tbh), but I'd like to see some more meat on them bones; it's a fair storywork, but it doesn't quite stand on its own two legs as it is.
The Whistler/XP thing is in my head a nice plot device character-wise; VMS, being effectively XP's grandmother, calls her by her "maiden name", so to speak, to some effect giving her a sense of familiarity and seniority (which is very much proper in this sense, as it is). Very nicely done, in fact; names, in my head, are an extremely vital part of any story, and I have myself no qualms whatsoever about using multiple names for a single character (in fact, I use them quite a lot).
Also, on the cracker/hacker thing: being a pirate, "Cracking" means to me the process of forcing open a software's security measures to use it without permission or beyond what the license allows. Hacking, on the other hand, means exploiting existing security holes or pieces of code, to insert one's own code to whatever effect it may have. This may be overly Win-biased, but it does represent what I believe is a more common view on things. Forcing and Exploiting. Needless to say, both are set in negative light by medial and corporate lobbying, but that's another matter entirely. -w-;
Keep it up!
What I am sort of missing here, in comparison to the work you did on the Linux/Unix fic, is the more descriptive take. It may well be that you're basing your characters off things already personified, with appearances set in stone, more or less; However, the fact that you're setting it in the future and in a functional winter, means that you're still better off doing some proper description of the characters you use. To be fair I'm not sure exactly how much difference to the L/U fic there actually is, but I feel its presence a lot more since there's less other things to take on. All I can see now is VMS-tan in her usual outfit - of which I, despite being knowledgeable when it comes to -tans, isn't quite 100% sure on the details of - and a lot of knives; the virus-man, who is described with one sentence as a sleazy-looking person; and Whistler, who wears a fur-lined parka. What I'm missing here isn't necessarily a full review of every single strand of cloth on their bodies and every little detail (although that IS probably somewhere in the line of what I would've done myself, tbh), but I'd like to see some more meat on them bones; it's a fair storywork, but it doesn't quite stand on its own two legs as it is.
The Whistler/XP thing is in my head a nice plot device character-wise; VMS, being effectively XP's grandmother, calls her by her "maiden name", so to speak, to some effect giving her a sense of familiarity and seniority (which is very much proper in this sense, as it is). Very nicely done, in fact; names, in my head, are an extremely vital part of any story, and I have myself no qualms whatsoever about using multiple names for a single character (in fact, I use them quite a lot).
Also, on the cracker/hacker thing: being a pirate, "Cracking" means to me the process of forcing open a software's security measures to use it without permission or beyond what the license allows. Hacking, on the other hand, means exploiting existing security holes or pieces of code, to insert one's own code to whatever effect it may have. This may be overly Win-biased, but it does represent what I believe is a more common view on things. Forcing and Exploiting. Needless to say, both are set in negative light by medial and corporate lobbying, but that's another matter entirely. -w-;
Keep it up!