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"Katherine!" Susan argued. "You can't do that! That's nuts. There's no
sprites for you in the images directory. You'll make Creatures crash!"
"True." replied Blip. "But we fixed that. It'l turn her into a nearly pure
norn."
"I should of known." Susan responded, realizing that she NEVER needed to
ever underestimate Blip or Katherine. But, then what Blip said soaked in. "Wait
a minute- It'l turn her into a NORN? Katherine stop, don't..."
"Look, the authorities are after me, I'll be thrown into a small,
lightless padded cell if I don't get away. I'm sure you understand." said
Katherine. Then, she scrunched herself up on the HoloDeck, and pressed the
button. A flash of light filled the room, and Katherine dissapeared.
Susan turned to Katherine's computer. "Where is she?" she asked.
"It takes a little while." replied Blip.
Meanwhile, Katherine was floating in sort of an Inbetween space. This was
where the game determined what sprites to use. A beam of light, like a laser
almost, flashed upon her face. Her brown hair turned a fluffy white, her eyes
widened, and her mouth and nose began to form a muzzle. The light turned to her
body. The front turned a peach color, and the back formed into a purpleish
color, with a white tail. The light focused on the arms and legs, which turned
purple too. Then, the light grew bigger, until it surrounded her in white. The
white then melted away, only to reveal... The garden of Albia.
Katherine looked around. "Wow! It WORKED! I'm ALIVE!" She exclaimed, and
did a little dance. Her words came out of the litte speech bubble norns use
when they want to talk.
Back on earth, Susan and Blip were watching from Katherine's laptop.
"Wait- she's not talking in weird fragments! What happened here?" Asked Susan.
"Hey-" Blip replied. "I said NEARLY pure norn, didn't I?" Just then the
doorbell rang. Susan got up to get it. It was the authorities.
"Hi there," said a man with a southern accent. "We're looking for
Katherine Riggs, have you seen her?"
"Never heard of her." Susan spat out, and tried to close the door. The man
stuck his foot inside.
"Then you won't mind if we take a look around." The man said. He and
another man came in and started serching the house.
They took what seemed like forever, but turned up clueless. Finaly, they
left.
Susan ran back to Katherine's room. There she found Jenna and Karr, along
with Blip. "Katherine," Susan typed in. "WHY are Jenna and Karr here?"
"There's a nice norn couple out on the Islands that want to have a child,
>but there were too many norns in Albia." Katherine answered. "So I got rid of
Jenna and Karr. Becides, it was THEIR idea." Just then, a big Ron norn came up
to Katherine.
"Push norn". he said. Since he was a bit angry, he gave her a hearty
thwap.
"Ouch!" Katherine cried out. She thwapped him back.
"OW!" the norn screamed. Then he thwapped her again.
"That's it." Katherine replied. "I am NOT going to take this anymore." She
took the ponytail holder off of her tail. Raising it slightly, she shot it at
him.
The ron norn screamed and ran away.
"Showed him." Giggled Katherine, retrieving the ponytail holder and
putting it back on her tail.
"I think you need to come back." suggested Susan.
"HA!" Katherine mocked. "Let's have some more fun. Export me!"
"What?" Susan was shocked.
"Yeah!" shouted Blip. "We want to know what it's like, OK Katherine?"
"Deal." Katherine replied. Susan said nothing, but you could tell this was
worrying her sick. She exported Katherine.
"Hey!" Blip said. "Maybe we can e-mail CyberLife and tell them. Or we
could send Katherine..."
"We can e-mail Cyberlife," answered Susan, "But we are NOT sending
Katherine." Susan quit Creatures, and started up America On-Line. Then, with
Blip's help, she typed the following message.
Dear CyberLife,
My name is Susan, and I am here with my friend's robotic invention, Blip.
My friend, Katherine, has created an invention called the HoloDeck. The
HoloDeck links earth to Albia. She now imports norns from Albia onto earth. We
have only imported three, the first norn ever to be on earth was Jenna, who
kisspoped with Jack, the second norn on earth, and gave birth to Karr, the
first norn born on earth. Katherine would mail you herself, but she's now
testing the HoloDeck, and has beamed herself into Albia.
Just thought you might like to know,
Susan
"I have to go pee." Susan said, after typing the letter.
"I'll wait outside the door." Blip replied. They left the room, leaving
Karr & Jenna alone. Jenna stepped up to the computer.
"Push computer" she said. She clicked on attached file.
"Push computer" she repeated. The attach file dialog box had been up. She
found something that said "Katherine.exp" and clicked on it.
"Push computer" she repeated. The dialog box had gone away. Now she
clicked 'send message'. Just then, Susan and Blip entered the room.
"Jenna," asked Susan, noticing the computer had been played with. "what"
"Jenna push computer" Jenna replied.
"Hey!" Shouted Blip, looking at the screen. It read: 'Katherine.exp -98%
uploaded'. "Do you realize what Jenna did?"
"No!" Susan responded. "She- She sent Katherine to CYBERLIFE!"
"File's done." said the computer.
----------------------------------------------------
BEFORE I CONTINUE: Toby Simpson makes an appearance in today's story, and I
just want to say that I never mean any disrespect tword him. I can't figure out
how you can flame me for it, but I'm just covering baces.
And so it goes...
Meanwhile, in Cambridge, England, a lone employee was checking mail. His
name was Jack Zuckerman. He was happily ignoring all the e-mails with norns
attached to them stating that "This norn loves to push food!" and "This norn is
weird... It runs from plants just because I smacked it for eating one..." and
"What IS that big green thing that beats my norns? I sent you a copy of it..."
However, he saw another email. This one sounded different... almost
intellegent. It stated that the norn atached was an actual human. Jack had not
dealt with alot of prank e-mails, so he downloaded the file ("Katherine.exp")
and imported the norn immediatly.
At first, he was dissapointed. It looked just like a purple mountian
norn, only with a Fox head. But then the norn gave him a big shock.
"That was WEIRD! Everything was black for a while..." Said the norn, whom
you know as Katherine. Katherine then took a look out the monitor. What she
usually saw, a blond-haired girl and a yellow floating robot, staring at her
was not there. No, this was a man, 20 years old or so, with almost red hair.
"Who- Who are you?" she asked.
"I'm Jack, from CyberLife." Jack typed in. "How did you get in there?"
Katherine told Jack the whole story, from Jenna's first import, to
Jenna's kisspoping, to Karr's birth, to the grendel, to being in the asylum,
and now to here. Jack picked up a phone an punched some numbers. "Hello? May I
speak to Toby Simpson? Yeah. Mr. Simpson? You gotta see this. What is it? If I
told you, you wouldn't believe me. You're comming? Great." Then he hung up. He
typed to Katherine: "Toby's comming down to see you."
"Excuse me?" gasped Katherine. Just then, she saw a figure come down the
stairs. It was Toby.
"What was so amazing?" He asked.
"See that norn?" Jack pointed.
"Yeah. Another Highlander somebody send us?" Toby replied.
"Nope. That's an actual human." Jack answered.
"You've been playing too long." quipped Toby. Then he sat down to the
computer, took note that the 'norns' name was Katherine, and typed "Katherine
what"
"Why speak norn to me?" Asked Katherine. "My gosh, I'm human too. I just
LOOK like a norn."
Toby scooted back. This was not happening. He knew Creatures was designed
to be upgradable, but this was totaly unexpected. Jack took the controls and
typed in, "Tell Toby the story you told me."
So, again, Katherine told the whole HoloDeck story. Toby sat in awe.
"When she gets older," he thought, "This girl is going on my staff. I claim
her." Then, Toby typed to Katherine, "What if I send an employee over to your
home to check this out?"
"That'd be fine with me." Katherine replied. Then, she watched the cursor
move tword the file menu. "Wait... before you export me, can you help me with
something?"
Back at Katherine's home, Susan & Blip waited for CyberLife to send
Katherine back. All of a sudden, the computer shouted, "You've got mail!"
Susan scram