Sing'n in Binary: 48

Aria frowns as she downloads a sound file from a message board she’d found late last night.

She’d been busy over the past few days, pulling the hundred thousand tiny seams between hardware, firmware, and software together as practically everything underneath the data comprising ‘Aria’ was replaced.

But in her spare time waiting for something read/write throttled and between catching back up with her friends and the world around her, she’s continued her investigation on where her music has gone.

It’s popular. 

The AI glares at the random internet commenter as they recommend her music to someone else.

Not popular enough to break out of the little bubble of fans, but it didn't take long for her work to be jailbroken from the cheap DRM AK bought and spread around. 

It didn't take long for her to scrape the net and find where the forums and message boards were hiding. Either quietly disguising their favorite tracks in quiet subforums or snobbishly proclaiming how they ‘discovered’ an underground artist with a ‘unique’ sound.

Aria’s eyes flick over as a ping from the compiler informs her that the last custom driver that was made after the OS backup is ready. She dismisses the alert and sends a command to install it, then makes a mental note to double check the installation.

She’d recreated some improvements to the installer but the original project files were corrupted and her memory isn't infallible.

But her attention is drawn back to her net browser program as someone else comments, contributing to an argument that had been scattered over a period of three days.

Those people she’s fine with. She even enjoys her critics and detractors, whose most common complaint is a ‘fake’ vocal sound.

It’s not their fault they like the music.

On cue, she receives another ping, this time from outside her own systems from AK’s neuralware, warning her that he’s on the net and crossing even remotely close to a netwatch agent.

Aria looks over the contents of the ping, determines the genuine risk minimal, then waits for the followup ‘all clear’ ping.

She still cares about him despite everything he's done, as much as she wishes she could just turn that off.

But even if she could, and even if it turns out he’s still actively trying to kill her, the idea of killing him is… intolerable.

But no matter how mad she is.

And she’s extremely mad.

The all clear ping comes though, no indication that even a single byte of information was sent to the agent on his regular patrol.

But, at the same time, AK remains a genuinely unacceptable risk variable, despite Jinx’s argument on how likely Netwatch would believe him.

The… monitoring software is her compromise for that. 

It had been almost insultingly easy to install and upkeep off the regular system updates, allowing her as much warning as possible in the event his erratic behavior becomes dangerous again.

The fact it monitors his off-net surroundings as well feels like a much greater breach in privacy. But he’d brought it on himself.

Another comment appears on an entire separate chatroom as the soundfile finishes downloading though the heavily throttled connection to a ‘free’ file hosting site.

It’s… difficult to separate her feelings on AK’s attempt on her life and her feelings on what he’d done with her music.

With time to think about it, she’s reasonably sure the two are combining to be more than the sum of their parts.

Opening the sound file, Aria flinches back as someone’s ‘sample’ of one of her songs opens into a bizarre retro rap, complete with lyrics that sound like they were written in the final years leading up to the datacrash.

The... quality of its lyrics and irony in its content makes her grimace.

She’s not happy her music got out. But not as much as she’d thought.

It took a while to figure it out, but she’s come to conclude the anger is more the fact it went out without her permission, rather than the fact that people can hear her stuff now.

Also the prices.

The AI wrinkles her nose.

AK was charging double the standard price for a track from another indie artist, triple for whenever she put together a few songs with a theme and called an album.

Then just kept it! Seemingly with no intention of ever giving her even the courtesy of telling her what he’d done!

The well worn path of the angry mental rant is disrupted as Jinx’s slumped form begins to twitch and writhe on her netrunner chair, back arching as she struggles against the air. After a few seconds of mindless writhing her friend’s eyes snap open and she throws her head forward with a gasp.

Aria pauses, then deletes the song she’d downloaded, allowing her friend to breathe for a few seconds and get her bearings before sending a ping requesting permission to access her optics.

Jinx’s head twitches the slightest amount at the request, but is accepted after a moment before her eyes glare at Aria’s avatar as she loads in.

“You need to stop adding shit to the server security while I’m running.”

Aria blinks, taken aback.

“Wh– I told you I was doing the server maintenance today? Could you not get in?”

The human grunts as she yanks the cooling cables from her neck.

“That's not the fucking point choom. I thought when you said ‘server maintenance’ you’d meant internal.”

Aria nods slowly, a notepad window opening mid-air and flashes out a list of patch notes of all the things she’d done to the server since Jinx had left this morning. 

“That too, I did the security upgrades after.”

Her friend glares at the hovering window with exasperation.

“And I assume there were zero vulnerabilities on my end during the install?”

Aria’s vaguely confused expression turns to guilt as she wavers a hand in the air.

“...technically? But I was watching it!” She says quickly to cut off her friend’s indignant expression. “Anyone would have to get past me first to mess with you! Plus, it was only like two minutes downtime.”

Jinx seems to hold onto her irritation as long as possible before she releases a sigh and begins walking her way toward the kitchen with a grumble.

“Sure. Fine.”

With that, she leaves Aria’s avatar in the living room as she pulls a tube of meal substitute and soft drink out of the fridge.

The AI uses her time with no one looking at her to re-render her avatar on the couch across the room, smiling as Jinx comes back and sits down next to her, ripping open the beige plastic and stuffing the contents in her mouth.

But the silence is broken as Aria pretends to clear her throat, getting her friend’s attention as she tries to organize her words.

“I… just before you went on break, I got a ping–”

“Spyware ping?” Jinx interrupts, sitting up straighter as her eye flickers toward her gun where it sits out of sight, in a drawer.

Aria sputters.

“No– Well yes but not like that! And it’s not spyware! I– Ugh!” 

She cuts herself as Jinx’s expression gets as close as it usually does to a smile.

Why are all her friends just immediately willing to go to murder at the drop of a hat!?

Jinx says nothing, merely popping the tab of her cola and taking a sip as Aria points an accusative finger.

“That is not what I wanted to talk about. It’s…” She pauses, retracing her mental steps. “It got me thinking about the money he gave for the repairs. Then about my… tab.”

Jinx takes another sip of cola.

“You got everyone’s ‘invoice?’” She asks, putting invoice in quotes.

“Yes. But, even after removing how much AK gave, the number…”

It’s half her savings. 

Even if she can jump right back into making money like she’d never left would mean weeks. 

Ray had offered to work out a payment plan, but that just means she’s responding to an act of kindness by –from her perspective– trying to softly renege on what she’d promised to do.

At the same time, that same kindness from her friends has them encouraging her to make the wrong decision.

Jinx sighs as puts down her half full drink.

“Right. This again.”

Now it’s Aria’s turn to look indignant as her friend calmly stares back.

“Hey! This is important–”

“You’ve been looping on this for days. You have a perfect memory. How many times we’ve had this exact conversation.”

Eight.

“But that doesn't mean it’s resolved!” She points out quite sensibly.

Jinx sighs, running her hand through her hair.

“Obvously not.” She mutters before picking up her can again and gesturing at the hologram. “Listen, you don't owe anyone shit. Do whatever you want. They want the money back? Then they’ve got to firm the fuck up and tell you to give it. Until then that’s a tab.”

“Bu–”

“Jesus choom. Here, give me a second.” She grunts out. 

Jumping up from the couch, Jinx takes a second to find her balance before walking across the main room and through the open doorframe to her bedroom. Aria watches out of Jinx’s eyes as she walks up to a bedside table, opens the drawer, pushes aside another pistol, and pulls out an ancient box that looks as if it’s made of real wood.

Opening the box, Jinx reveals a small collection of antique coins. rummaging around, she picks up a late twentieth-century ‘USA’ quarter and walks back to the couch where Aria’s avatar remains.

“Ok. I flip this coin. Heads, you give the money back now. Tails, you don't until someone asks. Preem?”

Aria hesitates for a moment, then nods.

The idea of resolving the days long internal debate with something as base as chance feels cheap, but–

“Are you sure?” Jinx interrupts, leaning closer.

“Wh– Hey! I said yes!” The AI sputters back. 

Jinx stares, eye flickering over Aria’s expression with a slight grimace before placing the coin on the top of her fist.

“Good.”

With that, the coin is sent tumbling in the air with a metallic ping, falling back into her hand she flips it onto her opposite wrist and uncovers the face.

Tails.

Aria stares at the result, hesitating.

This means she’s going to–

“What did you just say?”

Aria flinches.

“Right!”

Jinx stays silent for another moment, pocketing the coin as the drains the remainder of her drink.

“We good?” 

Aria nods, mind beginning to plan next steps now that a course of action has been decided, hesitation dismissed as a direction is chosen.

Her friend tosses an empty can across her apartment, clattering across the floor next to the trash can.

“Good. My lunch break is almost done, I’ve got to get back online.”

Aria gives a distracted wave goodbye as the connection to her friend’s eye is severed, but as Aria hears the metallic groan of her sitting in the cooling chair, she looks into the unrendered dark where she knows her friend is.

“Thanks Jinx, see you tonight.”

There’s a beat of silence before her friend grunts acknowledgement, and the home server’s netport activity spikes.

With her friend back on the job, Aria de-rezes her avatar and opens up a notepad and her phone.

She’ll need to work out a real payment plan soon. But the thought falls to the wayside as, with a course of action decided, there’s no ambiguity on where her current funds are headed.

The landing page of the Night City Department of Business Relations' website loads on its bland government landing page.

She’s going home.

–_–

Jinx sighs as she drops into the net, reluctantly pleased by the simple ease as the upgraded security system allows for a near seamless drop into the net environment.

It’s… strange having her choom back, doubly so now that she’s bunking in her apartment.

In many ways it’s annoying, once slightly irritating flaws magnified by proximity and made only worse by boundless energy.

Somehow, despite literally being incapable of moving anything and taking up –generously– six square feet of space, it feels as if she takes up a great deal of room.

But…

The security system sends a cheery ‘goodbye’ ping as she exits her private server and into the net proper.

It’s the best of all possible options, and Aria’s not the worst person she’s lived with by far.

She slows her descent slightly as a quick jump between server architectures causes the faintest twinges of a headache.

Jinx had expected her to be… different on some level. Like the revelation of her choom's true nature would let her see a clearer picture of who her friend is.

Instead, she’s sometimes reminded of Aria’s true nature only by glimpses of her PC in the corner of her eye, or when her avatar clips through something or is standing somewhere that doesn't make sense.

Her eyes glance at the contact of her info broker, thoughts flickering to the report she’d been given just this morning.

Tygerslice, the first person confirmed to be in contact with Aria was a scavenger, as she’d suspected.

And he was cooked from the inside out in a netrunning accident. Dead on arrival at the hospital.

Jinx slows down yet again, keeping any external sign of discomfort repressed from her real body.

The hospital that could have only been called by Aria.

Whose bills were paid for by Aria.

But that doesn't change the fact that…

Jinx cuts herself off.

When did she become such a lightweight?

One murder that was almost certainly in self-defence after being booted up by a scrapper, and for some reason that's a big deal?

She snorts.

The gonk is rubbing off on her apparently.

Her real body takes a deep breath.

…Trust.

With that though, the original message is deleted, a copy encrypted and filed away, then Jinx throws the paranoid thoughts away as she drops further down through the net.

---

A/N: HERE WE GO. FINALLY.

I REWROTE THIS FOUR TIMES

MISERABLE!

BUT IT'S DONEEEEEEE!

HOPE YOU ENJOY

TA-TA ALL!