Author : Jinque
Eoin dropped his bag in the hallway, and turned into his living room. His computer was nowhere to be seen.
“Caprice, I’m home. Where are you?” Eoin’s computer poked her head over the top of his favourite chair.
“I’m right here, Master Eoin! Welcome home!”
Eoin smiled, and walked over, nudging Caprice out of his chair. “Thanks. Have you got those reports on the revolutionaries? I know we did some research…”
“I have all of them, Master Eoin.”
“Excellent. Now, you can read them for me while I think. This paper is due in two days, and it’s important; forty-five percent of my final grade!”
After a while, Caprice turned to him.
“Master Eoin, want to see something neat?”
“Sure. Whatcha got?”
“I found music you like!” On the screen in front of them, a playlist popped up, and a heavy metal song started playing . Seeing his reaction, Caprice clapped, and giggled. “I have more! See?” She pointed to the screen. Thousands and thousands of song titles began scrolling by, just a little too fast to read.
“There’s no way we can afford all that! We’ll have nothing left!” Eoin cried out.
“It was free, don’t worry!”
Eoin was pulling his hair out. His computer was a pirate.
“Caprice,” he muttered, “What else do you have in there?”
“Nothing, Master. I promise.” Caprice turned to the screen, disengaging the music library, and pulling up the report files again. “Let’s continue…”
Someone knocked at the door. Caprice unhooked herself from the plasma, and went to open it.
An explosion of shouting and black uniforms flooded the room. Caprice screamed, and as Eoin whipped around, he saw her being tackled to the floor by two officers. “Don’t stun her! She’s a computer!”
“We know!” The smaller officer barked. The two men on the floor wrestled with Caprice, and Eoin lunged.
“Don’t touch her!” A third officer approached him, and held up a clipboard with a central government seal on it. “Mr. Hayslip, Your TriTek personal assistant, model 119/b is being taken offline. Large illicit data transfers have been traced to her IP. As far as our techs can ascertain, she has illegally downloaded music, software, and tools related to the bypassing of program security measures.”
Eoin took one look at Caprice, who looked back at him, her face expressionless.
The officer took the top sheet from the clipboard and handed it to Eoin. “We hereby sentence your 119/b ‘Caprice’, to three months enforced downtime. My officers are inserting a device to prevent boot-up. Any attempt to remove it will permanently damage her hard drive. No data, apart from the illegal files will be lost. It’s all on the ticket.” He turned back to his comrades. “All done?”
“Yessir.” The larger of the pair on the floor reached up behind Caprice’s decorative headgear, and found her switch, which was located just behind her ear. “Shutting down…” Caprice stiffened, and her eyes dulled, still fixed on Eoin.
“Goodnight, Master…”
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