“So, to be exact, where would I be living in?” asked Ryan.

“You’ll see,” replied Emily.

“Conscious Recall,” she continued.

Emily began flashing bright, and she soon disappeared from Ryan’s sight, leaving him alone in the corrupted cyberspace of Emily’s one of many folders. Standing before him was the still-dead Fahren Anti-virus—which became broken probably because Ryan also absorbed it’s life—and also the green diamond which was the data that Emily fed Ryan with. Ryan touched the data, and a word appeared in the form of hologram in front of it.

CACHE DATA [CURRENT SIZE: 254MB]

“Oh, so it was a cache,” thought Ryan.

Of course. Emily wouldn’t want to feed someone using her personal data, so she must have pulled this one out from the Operating System. In spite of that, Ryan basically also sort of helped her by getting rid of junks that often gathered itself in a computer, while maintaining his own form inside the cyberspace. It’s a win-win situation, Ryan would say. And, considering the fact that it’s not really a vital data to the computer’s cyberspace itself, Ryan decided that he should just devour the entire thing, and along with the AV because it was already dead anyway.

“But, how do I… eat it?” contemplated Ryan.

Emily was taking her time, so Ryan might as well learn of his current situation, and what exactly he could do in order to survive until he could come in contact with his physical body. He circled around both the data and the anti-virus, constantly poking at them while thinking that it would trigger something. Nothing happened. Touching at these things felt like touching a solid matter, that’s for sure.

Ryan also tried literally biting them, but to no avail. In fact, it made him look more stupid by the second.

But then, Ryan remembered something. How did he absorbed the data whilst he were in the suspension state? It was like a warm sensation entering Ryan through his torso, and then spreading it outward within his insides. That was the only clue he had, and the only witness to see what actually happened was Emily, whom was currently outside the cyberspace, doing something that was unknown to Ryan.

“Hmm… what if I do this…” thought Ryan

He reached both of his arms out toward the data and the anti-virus, and then relaxed his body. In a way, it was like calling out those two entities to himself, but it wasn’t guaranteed to work. It wouldn’t hurt to try however, so Ryan still did it anyway. Afterward, he began thinking within his mind repeatedly, like it was sort of an ancient ritual to summon a monster from another dimension. He closed his eyes while doing it.

“Come.”

Ryan swear to god he felt like cringing so much right now.

“Come.”

Still nothing.

“Come.”

After several times of the odd chanting—and self-humiliation—results were finally showing itself. The data and the anti-virus shook intensely, and then started to disintegrate into tiny pieces of matter, slowly floating towards Ryan. Ryan was delighted to see it happening, but when he looked down towards his chest, he noticed a swirling black hole on it. Naturally, he was shocked. Very much so.

“I got a hole in my chest. Hahaha. Of course I got a hole in my chest,” said Ryan, his laugh as dry as desert itself.

Regardless, the data and the anti-virus turned into some form of a mist, and was sucked into Ryan through the black hole on his chest. He could feel it, the amount of energy he receiving, and how it circulated throughout his body, solidifying his current existence within the cyberspace. After the last bits of the data and AV was absorbed by Ryan, his body emitted a light that lit the entire dark cyberspace he was inside. A sentence appeared before him, in the form of a hologram.

CCL Update – Version 3.5.19

You have acquired the program ‘Restore’ and ‘Delete’ from consuming Fahren AV.

It is now possible to restore this Cyberspace to its former condition.

“…Uh… what,” said Ryan.

Just like the CCL notification mentioned, Ryan seemingly had obtained a fragment of ability that the AV had before it was consumed. Often, it wasn’t possible to do such things, as Users wouldn’t really absorb program or even data in the first place. Naturally, such thing didn’t apply to Ryan, as he now needed to feed on data to ensure his survival within the cyberspace.

As someone who had often traversed into cyberspace to fix things and such, Ryan had some degree of information about it, but he definitely never heard of the story that someone obtained a program’s ability. Therefore, he didn’t know what he should do in this situation. On the other hand, Ryan also felt a little relief as absorbing the AV didn’t turn him into some sort of corrupted User. There was indeed risk present, but he just couldn’t resist trying it out.

“Let see… I could restore this cyberspace now?” asked Ryan.

If he could do that, it would be nice as it was his fault that this part of the computer’s cyberspace became corrupted. But, the real question remained. How could Ryan activate this ability?

“Hmm… how about this. Restore!” Ryan shouted. Nothing happened.

“Okay… that didn’t work. Maybe I need to specify what exactly I’m trying to restore,” said Ryan.

This time, Ryan knelt down, and touched the cyberspace’s floor. “Restore.”

As soon as Ryan said that, a phantom copy of the Anti-virus appeared before him. It was transparent, just like Ryan himself. In any case, the phantom floated into the centre of the cyberspace and began dispersing a bright aura that spread outward. The parts of the room that touched the aura started reverting to its former colour, the colour of the blue ocean whilst the lines pulsed data once again into other parts of the computer. At the same time, Ryan noticed that he was a bit exhausted after using it, as if the energy used to repair the cyberspace was taken out from his own body.

“Of course. Nothing can be born from nothing. There will always be something needed for another,” said Ryan as his energy slowly plummeted.

Soon enough, the repairing was done, and the phantom AV disappeared. Ryan estimated—by the mere rough feeling—that ‘Restore’ took about five percent of his energy. Not too alarming, and it could be dependent on the size of the thing that he needed to restore. What’s important was that at least Ryan fixed this cyberspace for Emily. In a way, I literally vomited out what I ate from this place now, didn’t I, Ryan thought.

“Now then, there was the ‘Delete’. I wonder if it literally just delete something? That would be both dangerous, and useful in some situation. I shouldn’t use it until I really have to, and also I have to account for the amount of energy I use every time I activate an ability,” thought Ryan.

Just as Ryan was fixated on his newly gained abilities, a program suddenly emerged before him. It manifested in the form of a sphere, much like the previous anti-virus, but instead of being coloured in purple, it was in blue instead. Yes, Ryan knew exactly what it was. Inside the cyberspace of a computer, each programs were coloured differently, depending on their type. Anti-viruses were coloured in purple, neutral programs like Paints and Browser in blue, third-party or outsourced programs in black, and so on.

The sphere before him wasn’t doing anything. It stood still, and then it started producing words in front it in the form of a hologram. It was likely a notepad, accessed by Emily currently in the real world.

Ryan. I can see that you’re still in there. I can’t speak to you in voice, so I’ll use this. Anyway, I’m going to move you to my smartphone. I’m not sure what’ll happen if I tried to forcefully move you, since I never did this before. Anyway, tell me when you’re ready. I’m going to click you, and then drag you to my smartphone. It’s connected through the USB port, so… yeah, we’ll see what happen.

“Smartphone, huh. Well, it is fine I guess,” said Ryan.

Ryan grabbed the blue sphere before him with both of his hands. He focused his mind, and slowly absorbed specifically the data that made up the words of which Emily had written. It all disappeared into him, and Ryan took control of the program in order to reply to Emily.

I’m all good. Let’s try that out.

Ryan let go of the program. The words on it disappeared.

I was wondering how you were going to reply. Can’t believe you actually took control of the notepad program and wrote the words yourself. Anyway, I’ll start now. Prepare yourself.

Ryan braced himself for the transfer. He began by concentrating the energy that was collected in his body by imagining as if they were concentrated at the centre. It solidified, and slowly, strengthened his integrity within the cyberspace for a temporary amount of time. Just as he did that, a black wall suddenly appeared from the floor around his leg, and rose up to trap Ryan within from what appeared to be a cuboid. This was probably Emily’s attempt to transfer him into her smartphone.

It was pitch black inside, and Ryan couldn’t see a thing. He guessed that this was how a transfer would happen, when a data was moved from one place to another. It was sort of scary to Ryan, as it reminded him of his state when he had just woke up in this cyberspace. Still, he was in Emily’s hand, so he believed that he would come out unscathed. Hopefully.

CCL Notification – Version 3.5.19

You are now accessing a different Cyberspace. Cyber Body is now converting to APK format.

Conversion Complete.

Please wait until you are authorized for installation.

.

..

..

Installation authorized.

“Wait a minute. Installation?”

Just as Ryan questioned about that, all of a sudden, the wall that surrounded him disappeared. He was suspended in mid-air within a new cyberspace, where no walls, ceilings or floors could be seen as far as his sights could reach. Line of ever changing light red numbers decorated the pitch black background, where it came from the top, until it reached the bottom of the space. Ryan was so confused, he didn’t know what was going on.

Before he could gather his thoughts again, multiple cables materialized around him, and charged for him. Ryan tried to stop them, but he was way outnumbered, and lost the skirmish. The cables all attached on his body, from his legs, to his torso, up to his arms. Lights of data began pulsing within the cables, slowly appearing from the darkness of the cyberspace, and travelling into Ryan’s body. He felt dizzy for a brief moment, as there were multiple bits of data entering him at the same time, overloading him much more than he could sort of take.

With his blurry vision, he could see that each cable had a name to it. Camera, Speaker, Microphone, Root Control, and so on. However, he couldn’t keep up with the stream of information input.

In the end, he fell unconscious as he kept being fed with data.

On Emily’s side, she was panicking. Her smartphone had suddenly asked for her authorization to install Ryan into it, literally. She had no ways to contact Ryan in his current form, so she could only believe in his luck and allowed the installation. As of now, there was still no respond from Ryan, and it had been a few minutes passed. Inside her smartphone, there was now an application called ‘Ryan’ with other apps, but pressing it didn’t yield any result. Naturally, uninstalling it would be the last thing Emily was going to do, as it might actually cause some unspeakable consequences.

Just as Emily was about to give up and place the smartphone down, Ryan appeared on the screen. In his full form. He was just stepping above the icons of the application shortcuts on the home screen, appearing perplexed. He took a look around his new surrounding at first, but then, he stared outside the screen directly, as if he could see Emily.

“Emily?” the speaker of the smartphone produced his voice.

Emily’s eyes widened. “Wait, Ryan? How are you doing this?”

“I… I don’t know. I think, I’m sort of merged with your smartphone now,” answered Ryan.

“Huh?”