The spider-like programs met at the place where their victims had stood. Their jaws opened and closed, as if they were frustrated to find nothing substantial to bite.
“humans tricky," said one, red eye-lights smouldering. "try to leave. tom angry."
"Dammit, I'm mad!" This one's eyes shone a baleful electric blue. "Never odd or even!"
Something, they agreed, must be done, for the sake of their glorious cyber-paradise. Or, as the blue-eyed spider-bot put it,
"Are we not drawn onward, we few, drawn onward to new era?”
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When not occupied in amusing their spambot masters, the captured Downers were kept in digital holding cells. Discouraged, helpless, those unlucky enough to be singled out had no defence when the spider-droids burst into their cells and sunk their fangs into their virtual forms. As before, the human shapes disintegrated– but this time, their glow remained, spreading into the fangs of their attackers, and from there over their entire arachnoidal bodies, as though the spiderbots were sucking up the very life-force of their victims.
In a sense this was true. A moment later the vast many-legged shapes wavered, collapsed and re-assembled themselves into the images of the Downers whose essential data they had absorbed.
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As the slaves filed out of their cells for their first "day" of electronic toil, most failed to notice anything odd about their companions. They were, after all, both fearful and disoriented– not to mention depressed to find even more of their friends had been captured than they had realised. At least, many people had an idea there were two or three extra faces in their group. But that was too upsetting to think about very much.
Only the Hacker took note of the rather curious exchange between the slaves marching behind him.
"extra slaves not slaves. extra slaves bots. bad bots. bad bots help humans. tom not like bad bots."
"Tom! Speak like a human, or you won't fool them for a microcycle! You've got the programming for it now. Do you hear me talking in palindromes any more?"
"Sorry, Lucy, tom do best– er, I mean, I'll do my best…"
"Well, well!" said the Hacker to himself. He glanced over his shoulder, but the speakers had already turned into another passage. “Now,
they sound like my kind of "people". If only I could let them know…"
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Day One has begun. You may post.
Living:
Inziladun
Galadriel55
Sally
Legate
Rune
Kitanna
Boromir88
Blind Guardian
Loslote
Morsul the Dark
Shasta
Dead
Coppermirror, Lommy– seized by Adult Friend Finder.
Nerwen, Aganzir– poisoned by webcrawlers.