ReBoot: Mainframe
 

"Game over."

The purple Game Cube left back to where it came from, User knows where that is, and left the celebratory players in Kitts sector. "Hurrah! Woohoo!" the binomes cheered as they celebrated their victory with their new guardian friend. "Aw man!" Enzo cheered. "Pixelacious! Bob, did you see that? The User was totally random! We were down to our last Barracks and then, out of nowhere, Usehack12 swooped in with his platoon and totally deleted the User's Headquarters! Bitmaps were flying everywhere!"

"Woah, woah, settle down, Enzo." Bob replied, "I was there too you know, I saw it. Yeah, I'm pretty confident Mainframe will be safe in his hands while I'm on vacation."

They turned to congratulate the new guardian's performance, but when they looked, they saw something completely unexpected.

"Woah!" Enzo exclaimed. "It's one of those game sprites!"

The binomes gasped and screamed, and generally took refuge behind whatever they could find. There, right behind Usehack12.dll, was a lizardman from Medieval Conquest.

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Megabyte checked the data again. This was not good. Three guardians in Mainframe? Something had to be done. "Hack! Slash!" he called.

"Yes boss!"
"Roger that!"
"Right here, what do-"
"What do you need?"
"I was just gonna say that."
"Well I said it first."
"But I said it too.
"Sorry."

"Prepare the virals for plan #204," Megabyte instructed, casually examining his clawed hands. "Bob is going to be leaving the system, and I want to see how these new guardians are compiled...."

"Right away sir!"
"I'm on it."
"Consider it-"
"It's already done."
"On our way."

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Back at the diner, Dot was busy talking business on four vidwindows at once while NinTari sat in one of the booths. Some of the customers stared at NinTari's rather "basic" appearance, but they saw his ancient looking keytool and kept their comments to themselves. He WAS a guardian after all, even if he's a few upgrades short of the current version.

CE entered into Megabytes throne room. His hodge-podge body covered by a ragged cloak. Many of his minds were rather self-consious thus they didn't like showing his hideous form. "Yes yes, we see, so the strongest guardian will be away. That is good, most good. Though that leaves mainframe more vulnerable, to the spites thats bad, very bad. But we are not sprites, no longer spites, for us viruses its good, very good. Now, now would be wise, most wise to begin moving out plans ahead. All plans, all viral plans."

As he spoke he knew he had gained Megabytes attention. No doubt he was soon to be removed however from under the rags his patch-work hand extended. In it was a captured tare, which instantly stabilized into a portal. "Perhaps, even time to expand our places of influence."

Cecil you dip switch, where's those quantum shakes I ordered 40 nano's ago, did you get stuck in a file lock? Bob and the kid will be back from the game soon!

SkAIle looked about in confusion, and then looked at his hand.

Wrenching it free of usehack12's shoulder, he then proceeded to make certain that nothing was wrong with it.

Megabyte stared at the new arrival. Only games and keytools could stabilize tears. What was this thing?

"Well, what are you two waiting for? Seize him!"

"You heard the boss!"
"You heard him too!"
"So get him!"
"You get him!"
"We'll both get the guy."
"What guy?"
"That guy!"
"Him? You mean Bob?"
"Not Bob! That guy!"
"Oh, him!"
"Yes, him!"
"Ready?"
"GET HIM!"

The two thugs whirred over to CE and grabbed him by the shoulders.

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Cecil whirred over to the impatient guardian. "huh! How rude! What do you think I am, some sort of personal servant? You guardians are all alike, so impatient for your orders. Regardless, I pride myself on my hospitality, and so I shall see to it you are served." With that, Cecil sped off to tend to other customers.

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"Glitch! Containment field!" Bob commanded. A force field enveloped the game sprite, and the binomes carefully peeked out from their covers. "I don't know what it's doing here," Bob said, "but I don't want anyone getting hurt. We'll take him to see Phong."

Crash sat in his throne room, shifting uncomfortably on his throne. It wasn't so much of a throne as it was a discarded, broken down sofa. But his virals seemed unable to get him anything better.

"Game Over."

Crash watched through a window as the Game Cube ascended back to wherever it came from, noting with expected dissapointment than the Guardians had survived once again. He closed it and opened another one, this to a viral he had sent to scout out the area.

"Any news?" he asked, only half paying attention.

The viral saluted and began his report. Nothing really stuck out to Crash, until

"Hold. Did you just say Bob mentioned a vacation?"

"Umm... Yes sir!"

Crash smiled to himself. Maybe now was the time for a move to be made.

"Return to the base. There is work which must be done, even if I have to overclock you all."

The window closed. Crash sat there, considering. He began to chuckle.

"Heh heh heh... without Bob, I can extend my grasp beyond this pitiful area. Maybe get a nice throne, too. Mainframe will yet be mine!" He ended with a shout.

"What?" came the distant reply from Al's cook.

The figure, black and so slender it looked almost stretched, watched the Cube as it returned from whence it came. It had hidden itself among piles of refuse--disgusting, but a good enough point from which to observe. You simply couldn't get information unless you were willing to get a bit dirty. So the Guardians would probably be on the move again...

The mind behind it wondered to itself for a moment if Megabyte knew just how close she had gotten to him--or if he even knew she existed. If Hack and Slash were typical examples of his underlings, then clearly he was not the virus he fancied himself to be. Those two alone had proven to be almost astonishingly useful information sources--they tended to let drop important details between inane chatter and tedious half-witticisms. It was almost too easy, and she'd initially been cautious with information recieved from them. But no, it was just how they really were.

Speaking of letting drop important details, there was also the crazy one. He called himself CE, but that was probably only one of the legion of personalities inhabiting that hodgepodge form. The first time she'd encountered him, she'd almost--almost--felt a tiny twinge of pity for one whose mind clearly couldn't cope with the endless chatter of internal voices, along with considerable surprise that one so demented would possess such vast power. She'd never had that trouble herself, with multiple personalities; at bottom, all the different streams of information in her mind were still only her. She was designed to split herself so, mind and body, albeit that doing so drained her terribly; it was the reason behind her name--Myriad.

Still, it wasn't about how many clones you had, or how much information you collected, or even how much power you had to command--it was what you did with it all that mattered. And she liked to think she'd been making very good use indeed of the tools at her disposal.

Myriad instructed the clone to hide itself away once more, as her mind moved on to one of her other sets of eyes and ears.

SkAIle cautiously reached out and touched the force field, then pulled his hand back. "You," he said, pointing at Bob, "were you not one of my shield warriors just prior to this? What is going on here? Where is the battle field? How did you become a shield magician when I did not yet order an upgrade to be produced at the library, and there has hardly been the time for you to report in and get a class change? And for that matter, where is your uniform?"

Calmly CE allowed himself to be grabbed. No desire to assimilate such entities, atleast not yet. The portal returned to its previous unstable state. "I can do alot with portals. Even control their destination and defeat barriers." He paused for a moment, as they could see one of his lit eyes glowing under the hood. "You see, we, I, am willing, able to generate portals. But no fool, no no. Offer, yes an offer is which we bring. Portals you need, portals I provide. You are a strong, powerful virus. But we know, Mainframe is not your true objective. No, your real target is the super computer. If you vanish, yes more room for others there will be for those in Mainframe."

Just as Cecil was delivering the quantum shake to NinTari, a vid window popped open right in front of both of them, interrupting the transaction. It was Bob, and he was a bit excited. "Hey NinTari, we've got something you won't believe! Come meet us at the Principle Office right away!"

"Ugh! Inconsiderate as always, Guardian!" Cecil reprimanded in vain. "I am trying to run a dining establishment!" Bob didn't hear any of it as he closed the vid window.

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"Hmmm...." Megabyte pondered. "Quite an interesting offer you provide, but are you really that content here in this two bit system? How do I have a guarantee that your portals work, and aren't just some cheap parlor trick? Make a portal and Hack will go through, and then we shall discuss... details."

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The gaming party arrived at the Principle Office. Bob neglected to even address the game sprite's confusion. He hoped Phong would know what to do. Meanwhile. Enzo couldn't get enough of the game sprite, and he did his best to give him a crash course on Mainframe.

"So you're really a game sprite?! Alphanumeric! You have no idea what any of this is, do you? This is Mainframe, and there's no user here, just three nasty viruses, Megabreath, Hexadismal are the old, really nasty ones and there's this new guy, Crash. My sister Dot executes a Diner in Baudway. We're taking you to see Phong in the Principle Office, and he's really old and totally random, and I don't get what he says half the time, but he can proccess anything! Like this one time-"

"Enzo!" Bob cut him off. "Put a file-lock on it, will ya? You'll just confuse him most likely. Anyway, we're here."