Title: Spikylocks and the Three Rommies

Email: maryavatar@yahoo.com

Disclaimer: Andromeda is owned by Tribune, Goldilocks and the Three Bears is public domain. I'm making no money and very little prestige out of this.

Notes: This was written in answer to my fairytale challenge on the Andromeda Uncovered mailing list.


SPIKYLOCKS AND THE THREE ROMMIES
By Mandy Green

Once upon a time, in the vastness of space, there was a Glorious Heritage Class Starship named Andromeda. Inside this ship were miles and miles of corridors and rooms and machine shops and many other wonderful things. Right at the centre though, there was a computer core, and in this computer core lived three Rommies: Mainframe Rommie, Hologram Rommie and Avatar Rommie.

One day the three Rommies were swirling around in their matrix, prioritising their day. Hologram Rommie prodded her nice fresh data and said, "Now this just won't do: our data streams are misaligned."

Mainframe Rommie frowned. "Hmm, why don't we run a diagnostic? We'll be down for half an hour and that should fix the data streams."

Avatar Rommie clapped her hands and laughed. "What fun!"

So they shut down their consciousness and ran a full diagnostic.

~

Now the three Rommies weren't the only people who lived in the Andromeda, and right at that moment Spikylocks was approaching the computer core. Spikylocks was a naughty little engineer who never did as he was told. That day his captain had told him to clean the slipstream drive, but Spikylocks was prancing though the corridors reading a Playborg and ogling the cyber-bunny of the month.

Spikylocks had been warned not to go deep into the centre of the Andromeda, but as I said, he was naughty, and surely enough he made his way closer and closer to the Rommie's home.

"Oh my." Spikylocks said as he gazed up at the core. "That is so hot!"

Dropping his Playborg he rushed over and quickly jacked into the system, his cyber-body landing in the Rommie's hard drive.

"Cool!" Spikylocks said, running his fingers over the Rommie's data. "I gotta try this out."

So Spikylocks dipped into Mainframe Rommie's data, but it was too fast. He dipped into Hologram Rommie's data, but it was too slow. Then he dipped into Avatar Rommie's data and it was just right. Spikylocks enjoyed the data very much, but it was a little over stimulating and he shorted out a couple of relays in his excitement.

"Oops," Spikylocks said, pulling himself out. "I'll fix that later." He looked around and saw the systems that the three Rommies were in charge of; first he played with Mainframe Rommie's fire control, but it was too scary. Then he played with Hologram Rommie's tactical displays, but they were too boring. Finally he played with Avatar Rommie's human/AI interface and that was just right. In fact it was so right he left a bit of a mess in there.

"Oops," Spikylocks said again, "I'll clean that up later." Spikylocks was wondering if maybe it was time to leave when he saw the virtual forms of the Rommies floating in cyber-space. His jaw dropped and he'd have drooled if Rommie hadn't had buffers for that sort of thing installed after the Gabriel incident.

"Hubba hubba, come to daddy!" Spikylocks said, floating over to the Rommies. First he stroked Mainframe Rommie, but she was too hard. Then he stroked Hologram Rommie, but she was too soft. Finally he stroked Avatar-Rommie and she was just right.

~

The diagnostic complete, the three Rommie's slowly came back on line.

Mainframe Rommie looked around. "Someone's been looking at my data."

Hologram Rommie gasped. "Someone's been looking at my data too."

Avatar Rommie sniffed. "Someone's been looking at my data and they've shorted out three relays!"

The three Rommie's looked at each other. Hologram Rommie rolled her eyes at Mainframe Rommie and said, "I told you we should have installed Norton Anti-Virus and a good firewall, but oh no, you had to have that new sensor array first."

Mainframe Rommie huffed and opened her mouth to reply when she noticed. "Someone's been playing with my fire control."

Hologram Rommie gasped. "Someone's been playing with my tactical displays!"

Avatar Rommie whimpered, "Someone's been playing in my human/AI interface and they've left code all over it."

"Ewwwwwwwww!" The three Rommie's said in unison.

The three Rommie's were getting rather cross by this point and decided to check everything in the hard drive.

Mainframe Rommie growled, "Someone has been touching my virtual body!" She slipped her consciousness back into it and clenched her fists.

Hologram Rommie hissed, "Someone has been touching my virtual body too!" And she slipped back into it and scowled.

Avatar Rommie squeaked, "Someone has been touching my virtual body, and he has his hand in my blouse!!!" She slipped back into her virtual body and opened her eyes.

Spikylocks had his other hand inside his cyber-pants and was so shocked at Avatar Rommie coming back on-line that he did what every man does when surprised at the point of downloading.

The sparks were very impressive, as were Spikylocks' squeals.

The three Rommies laughed as virtual Spikylocks left scorch marks in his haste to get back to his wetware. Then they watched Spikylocks limp rapidly off, out of the centre of the Andromeda, swearing never to return.

And then they sent out a Maria-bot to incinerate the Playborg. (Oh, and lived happily ever after)

The End

Andromeda Uncovered http://www.anzwers.org/free/andromeda/
maryavatar's nexus: http://www.geocities.com/maryavatar/