Guardian
by Alryssa Kelly 2001
Bob was gliding towards the Diner on his zipboard when the vidwindow popped up in front of him.
"BOB!"
"Whoa!"
He braked hard, almost falling off as he did so. In a desperate attempt to remain upright, he clutched at the vidwindow's top corner, and in a matter of a half nano he now found himself dangling precariously over the binary bypass.
"Bob?"
Dot's face peered out from the vidwindow, trying to ascertain why Bob had disappeared. Suddenly, he was there - sprawled across the entire vidwindow, but there. She pursed her lips.
"Uh... hi," Bob waved back at her, with all the dignity he could muster. "What's up?"
"We have a major breach in sector nine! We need you here, right now!"
Bob resisted the urge to mention he was dangling off the vidwindow and therefore it might take a nano for him to figure out how to get off it before getting there. Preferably in one piece.
"Sure, right away."
Dot nodded, and the vidwindow disappeared.
And with it, Bob's perch.
"Warrrrgh!"
It was then Bob realised it was going to be one of those days.
--------------
Bob could see the flashes of light and hear the noise well before he got to the rendevous point. As he arrived, he began to see why the situation was so urgent.
"Uh-oh."
Dot was at a safe distance, evacuating binomes with the Mainframe patrol. She saw Bob, and waved at him.
"Is everyone all right?" he asked as he glided to a halt.
"I think so. I'm amazed nobody's been hurt though - they just... came out of nowhere!"
Bob followed Dot's gaze past the chaos of panicking binomes, past the pixel smoke and the debris, and got his first look at the cause of the problem.
"Oh, boy."
In the remains of what had been Sector 9, two bizarre-looking winged creatures, one white, one red, were busy having at each other in a showdown that could well take out the rest of Mainframe - that is, it could, if he didn't stop it. Which he would.
He'd feel a lot more comfortable about that assertion if the creatures in question weren't about thirty times his size and breathing flame.
"Bob... be careful."
Bob managed to tear his eyes away from the spectacle just long enough to reply, putting on his usual display of confidence.
"I'll be fine. Mainframe will be back to normal in a couple of nanos - you got the best Guardian in the 'Net, remember?"
Dot's worried expression didn't change. Much. As he glided towards the chaos, Bob wondered who the show of confidence was for most - her or him.
--------
Bob tried not to be awed by the creatures' sheer size and unusual configuration. They were both similar in almost every sense. Both had scales. Both had a pair of large, leather-like wings. Both had four legs, all of which bore talons on each, and which were being used to tear into each other at close quarters. And their huge, elongated heads reminded him of dinosaurs - creatures he'd seen in the Games.
"Of course! They're /dragons/! I knew I'd seen them before... " he frowned, "Question is, how did they get here?"
"Why don't you ask them?"
Bob almost fell off his zipboard for the second time that second.
"Enzo!"
"Hey! Isn't this *cool*?" Enzo's grinning face beamed back at Bob from his perch on his own zipboard. Bob frowned at the young sprite.
"No, it's /not/ cool, and it'll be even less cool when Dot finds out you're here."
Enzo looked back at him sulkily. "S'not fair. I'm always getting told to stay out of things."
"Enzo, please..." Bob paused as the noise intensified, and turned to see what was going on -
- and managed to narrowly avoid a streak of flame as it shot past his head.
"Aie!" he yelped involuntarily. He could swear he smelled singed hair.
"Coooool!" Enzo countered, his eyes widening even more.
"All right, that's it!" Bob's expression hardened. "Enzo, go back to the Diner - " Enzo began to protest, "NOW!"
"Okay..." he mumbled, and sulkily retreated.
Bob watched him go until he was sure the sprite was at a safe distance, then turned to head into the fray. Stopping as close as he could to the tussling creatures, he saw the tear they'd used to enter Mainframe. He'd seen a lot of tears, but this one was different. It didn't have the torn 'edges' - it was a smooth, clean slice, as if one of them had used a talon to deliberately open it.
"Curiouser and curiouser," he mused. Why come here?
The constant roaring was starting to make his head ache. Turning his attention back to the matter at hand, Bob wondered if he knew precisely what he was dealing with. He stepped off his zipboard onto the roof of a still-standing building.
"HEY!" he yelled, trying to get their attention.
They were oblivious, their whirlwind activity continuing to topple towers. White hacked at Red. Red snarled, letting loose another bolt of flame. White dodged, using the opportunity to try for an attack on Red's neck...
"OVER HERE!" Bob jumped up and down and waved his arms around like a windmill. Still no reaction.
"Figures," he muttered. "Glitch! Megaphone!"
An unfeasibly large megaphone sprouted from Bob's keytool. "Cool," Bob grinned. He cleared his throat, and then...
"HEY, YOU! OVER HERE!"
The resulting clamour, accompanied by the electronic screech of the megaphone, had the desired effect. Two elongated heads whipped around, and Bob suddenly found himself under the piercing amber gaze of two dragons, both wondering what this tiny blue *thing* wanted in the middle of their battle.
"Now that I have your attention..."
------
Dot watched the proceedings with Phong and Mouse at the ComCon.
"What are those things?" she wondered aloud. Mouse for a change was also baffled.
"They look like game sprites to me," she offered, "But there's no way they can be."
"Look at that tear," Dot pointed at the screen. "it's deliberate... they didn't come from a game cube, that we know - it's been a few nanos since the last Game. So where did they come from? The Web?"
Phong was searching the archives, his long digits tapping the screens.
"Maybe it's another MegaByte trick," Mouse suggested.
"These days I wouldn't put anything past him," Dot sighed.
"I find no reference to these creatures in the Archives," Phong said periodically. "They are not of the games, or of the Web. I need to dig deeper into the files to discern their format."
A gasp from Dot caused everyone to stop what they were doing and look at the screen.
The building Bob had been standing on - as well as a large part of Sector 9 - had just caved in, taking the two dragons - and Bob - with it. Buildings crumbled and toppled in on top of them, pixel dust clouding the vidwindow.
"Oh my..."
A stunned silence, as the trio gazed, horrified, at the vidwindow, waiting, watching, hoping they'd imagined it.
Nanos passed.
"Bob..." Dot whispered; then shook herself back to the present. "Get a medivac team down there, STAT!"
As the Medivac scrambled to Sector 9, Dot tried to tell herself that Bob had been through much worse before, he'd be all right. Wouldn't he?
--------
Part 2
Liquid, cold dark.
The heat of pain, all up his left side; white fire searing his nerves.
He coughed, pixel dust irritating his already parched lungs. He felt pressure on his chest. Probably a piece of whatever building had collapsed on him.
"Glitch, light..." he coughed.
Glitch didn't respond. That was *not* good.
"Glitch?" he croaked.
Still no response; not even a chirrup of acknowledgement. The keytool must have been offlined. Bob felt a pang of guilt as he realised it. There was no way he could tell how badly Glitch was damaged; if it was even repairable. He closed his eyes - not that it made much difference in the dark - and swore.
He could tell he was lying on his back - that much he knew. But as for where, and how he was going to get out, he had no idea. He tentatively tried to move his left arm, and winced as fresh daggers of pain shot up it and into his shoulder.
"Agh!" he yelped, and ceased moving, waiting for the throbbing to stop.
Something moved in the fluid blackness.
He didn't so much /see/ it as /feel/ it; felt its hot breath whisper across his face. He froze. Then he remembered.
In his disorientated condition, Bob had completely forgotten about the reason he was here in the first place. He had to hope now that his two 'friends' wouldn't try to recommence their fight and crush him to his base pixels in the process.
A low rumble. The heat washed over him again. Bob stopped breathing, waiting for the inevitable...
--------
Dot stood at the edge of the charred, blackened hole, peering through the smoke to try and discern if anything was moving. Anything. Her practical nature had long since taken over, her thoughts moving in autopilot. But emotionally? It had been several nanos since the accident. There was no sign of Bob. And the sheer weight of the wreckage that had fallen on top of him and the creatures would be enough to level the Principle Office. The chances of a sprite being alive under all that were in the minus figures. She didn't need to read the report to know that.
The binomes around her continued to sweep the area, sifting through the wreckage, as Dot Matrix sank to her knees amidst the remains of Sector 9. If anyone had been looking in her direction at just that nano, they might - just might - have seen her tears.
-----
It seemed like seconds before Bob dared to open his eyes again; dared to think he was still with the program. As he did so, he realised he could actually /see/ where he was. He frowned, wondering if Glitch had managed to respond; then understood why he could see. One of the dragons had used its flame breath to ignite some debris. The heat he had felt across his face had simply been peripheral.
He took advantage of the situation, and assessed his condition, turning his head as much as he dared to view what was left of his keytool. True to his suspicions, Glitch was totally offlined; shattered into a hundred pieces. He sighed.
"I hate it when I'm right..." he breathed, moving his head to look up.
He could also see that, along with the others, he had been trapped in a small pocket of space, covered with what must be the remains of the buildings. While this was temporarily a good thing, this didn't bode well for them being found before their air ran out. Coughing again, he managed to pull himself to a sitting position, ignoring the stabs of pain in his arm.
As he did so, he came face to face - or rather, face-to-eyeball - with the red dragon.
Bob yelped, but it came out rather more like a squeak followed by a hacking cough, which took a few micros to subside.
The amber eye with its dilated slit blinked, the red scales surrounding it shifting and retracting as it did so. The eye moved back, allowing Bob to see the full head, bloodstained teeth catching the firelight as it opened its mouth.
"You are damaged, sprite," it rumbled.
Bob was speechless. Unable to find any words, he simply nodded slowly in acknowledgement. As he squinted into the flickering darkness, he could make out that the dragon was severely injured. Blood oozed from battle wounds on its neck and legs. It also appeared to be pinned by several large girders across its back. He'd been fortunate, he mused.
After a nano or two, he managed to clear his throat.
"Who are you?" he asked. "How did you get here, into Mainframe?"
The dragon grunted as it shifted position.
"You ask many questions, little one," it replied, not offering any explanation.
Bob's irritation at being stuck here began to show as he snapped, "I think I deserve some answers! Between you two you took out a whole sector of Mainframe, not to mention Glitch!" He gestured with his good hand towards the remains of his precious keytool. "And enough of the 'little', OK?"
There was an awkward silence. Then Bob heard an intermittent rumbling emanating from the creature's belly. Was it /laughing/ at him? It was! He sat and fumed, well aware that he was incapable of even standing right now, let alone kicking some dragon's ascii. His legs were aching, his head hurt - now he knew why, as he raised a hand to the source of the pain; he had a gash across his forehead - and he was without Glitch.
"You are amusing. What is your format?"
Bob scowled. "Why don't you tell me who you are first?"
"You are also persistent. Admirable."
"And you're evasive!" Bob countered.
"If that is your wish," came the reply. "My name is Dracus. My format... is Guardian."
---------
Part 3
Frisket howled at the Diner doors as if in sympathy, as Enzo continued to stare at the remains of Sector 9 from a vidwindow inside the Diner. Dot had him put under strict surveillance, and thanks to the combined efforts of Mouse, Mike the TV and Cecil, he knew he wouldn't be able to get away any nano soon.
He also knew that somewhere in that mess was Bob.
"He can't be offlined! He's *Bob*!" he wailed.
"We don't know anythin' fer sure yet, shugah," Mouse replied, trying her best to comfort the young sprite. "Bob's a resourceful guy, I should know."
"It's all my fault, Mouse. I was out there and I distracted him... he would never have been there if it weren't for me - "
"Honey, you know that ain't true," Mouse replied sternly. "Don't go makin' yourself feel bad for somethin' you couldn't know was goin' to happen."
Enzo knew she was right, but still... it always seemed like he was the source of everyone's problems.
And if Bob had been - he couldn't even bring himself to process the word - he wouldn't ever forgive himself for being such a low-density sprite.
--------
"Guardian?" Bob repeated. "You're a /Guardian?/ How... what... I..." he coughed again, "I mean, I've never heard of your type, not even at the Academy, they would have had you on file."
Dracus snorted.
"I doubt they would."
Bob frowned. "Why not?"
"You are a Guardian yourself?" the dragon looked keenly at him. Bob nodded, trying to clear his throat.
"I was assigned here, to Mainframe. To win the Games, fix tears, that sort of thing," he replied eventually. "But you didn't answer my question. Again."
Dracus paused a moment, the only sound the crackling of the flames.
"We... are the first generation of Guardians. We were old before you were ever compiled."
"Why haven't I ever seen you or heard of you before?"
Dracus sighed.
"It is a long story." He glanced across the debris, and spotted his opponent, motionless, crushed under the fallen building that also pinned him. "And a story that will end very soon."
"I don't understand."
"You probably would not even if I told you."
Bob's expression hardened in annoyance. "I'm not Basic, you know! I'm a Guardian!"
"Knowledge of us is... rare. We are becoming equally so."
"Why? What is it you do?"
"We protect the Supercomputer."
Bob shook his head. "No, we do that. That's our job."
Dracus rumbled again. His laughter. Bob's frown increased.
"No, Guardian. We protect it." The dragon looked troubled for a moment. "At least, the ones who are still alive do."
"What?"
"After many cycles of Games, we learned too much. We became too powerful to remain within the Supercomputer. We were ousted by the new generation of Guardians installed by the User - their pretense was to assign us to protect the more vulnerable portals to the Supercomputer. In reality, these portals were seldom utilised. Once we were outside, they sealed us off from ever returning."
"I can't believe it... that my own format would do such a thing..."
"They were afraid... afraid that our acquired powers would unstabilise the Supercomputer and therefore the 'Net. Some of us became bitter about their decision," Dracus glanced again at the fallen dragon, "and determined to make their way back to the Supercomputer to wipe out the new Guardians. The rest of us found new security holes and determined instead to do the job we were assigned to do. Mend and defend. Sometimes that defense included deleting our own kind."
"You mean your friend over there?"
A pained expression flitted behind his eyes. "Yes."
Bob stared at the dragon. "How did you get this... configuration?"
"We adapted," he replied simply. "This form was most adept at dealing with viruses and other... intruders. What troubles me is that our numbers are dwindling rapidly. You have no idea what we have been defending you against. When our time is over..."
"What happens then?"
Dracus looked Bob straight in the eyes.
"Chaos, Guardian. Chaos."
-------
"Dot honey, you need to get some downtime. You've been on this job now all second."
"Thanks for the advice, Mouse, but I don't think I'm going to be able to get any kind of downtime until we've cleared that wreckage."
Mouse sighed and shook her head. The Command.com of Mainframe was efficient, but when her heart took precedence over common sense...
"You're not doin' this operation any good by keepin' yourself up all cycle. I'll oversee this and if I hear /anything/, you'll be the first to know."
Dot sighed. "You're right, Mouse. I should. How's Enzo?"
"He went to his bed a long time ago, honey, which is where you need to be."
"All right, I can take the hint..." Dot tried a smile, which ended up looking more like a grimace. "I'm going. Just - "
"I know, shugah, first thing I hear! Now go!"
Dot Matrix reluctantly stood and left her command station. But while she left the station and the Principle Office behind in favour of her apartment, emotional turmoil still raged inside her like a virus...
"Please, Bob," she whispered to the winds. "Please. Be alive."
----------
Bob tried to take it all in; and felt dizzy. It was several moments before he realised that it was the thinning air that was creating the dizziness; not the story.
"How do we stop this... chaos?"
Dracus squinted at Bob in the dying firelight.
"Knowledge is power, Guardian."
"You're going to tell me?"
Dracus shook his head slowly. His breathing was getting shallower.
"Not... enough time." Dracus looked pained. The loss of blood must be getting to him, Bob thought.
"But how can I do anything - "
"Give me your keytool pieces. Now."
The tone of the dragon suggested urgency. Bob, with considerable effort, got to a kneeling position, and collected Glitch's remains, cradling them carefully in his hand. He winced as he moved his injured arm, but gritted his teeth and ignored it as best he could. He shuffled over to the dragon.
"Here."
Bob laid the pieces beside him, near his forelimb. "Back off." He did so. Dracus gingerly moved his forelimb, and extended a talon. The firelight died just a little more as he did so. Bob squinted. He heard the dragon rumble again. This wasn't laughter this time... it was a quiet command, intoned over his keytool. For a moment, there was a gentle, green light emanating from the creature's talon. When it dissipated, Bob saw -
"Glitch!"
The keytool chirruped at hearing its name. Dracus lifted his talon, and Glitch returned to Bob, nestling in its usual place on his left arm. Bob stared at Dracus.
"How..."
"You learn many things when you have time on your hands," he rumbled. "Now... come here. I have little time left."
Bob approached the dragon cautiously. "You want to know, do you not?" Dracus spoke gruffly, as if reading his thoughts. "Come. Now."
The Guardian did as he was directed. As he touched the dragon's forehead with his right hand, he felt the surge of mental energy and -
- he broke the contact with the dragonskin and fell on his backside, gasping.
Dracus growled. "Again!" he barked. Bob nodded, reeling from the encounter, but aware of how little time remained. Coughing, he struggled once more to his aching feet, and replaced his hand.
Images, thoughts, events, emotions, faces, things he couldn't even begin to understand, all flashed through his mind in a single breathtaking moment. It was Dracus' whole life, from compilation to expulsion from the Supercomputer, to now, contracted into barely a nano. As Bob finally broke contact with the dragon, he heard him speak, softly this time.
"This is my gift to you, fellow Guardian. Use it wisely. Mend... and defend."
Dracus then exhaled heavily, his muscles relaxing, his eyes closing. Bob suddenly found himself clutching at the creature's harsh, bloodied scales in panic.
"No! You can't do this! You can't..."
Breathlessly he watched the strange Guardian for signs of movement, of breathing, hearing only the beat of his own heart in the encroaching darkness.
"...leave me..." he finished, knowing that even as he said it he already had.
The fire's last flames died out as he sat gazing at the lifeless Dracus. And with it died Bob's last hopes for getting out of here alive. Shivering, he lay beside the dragon, and let the liquid darkness swallow him whole.
--------
Part 4
Dot Matrix arrived back at the scene of the disaster, barely a nano after Mouse's call. They'd managed to find a pocket of space under all the debris, and were now working triple time to get to it. She wanted to be there when.... if... no, /when/.. Bob was found.
Almost as soon as she arrived, she heard the yells coming from the rescue team, affirming their find. Hopping on her zipboard, she raced over to them to see the last of the girders being lifted up. Hope sprang back to life deep inside. Oh please...
She hovered as low as she dared near the space, and shone her flashlight down inside. The light glanced over the debris... over a hooked talon... and then -
"BOB!"
---------
Everything was blurry.
Well, that was something, Bob thought to himself. Better than nothing.
Things became a little less blurry as he stared at them. After a nano he could make out his surroundings. They looked reassuringly familiar.
"Bob! You're awake!"
Enzo's face popped into his line of vision. Bob wasn't sure there was a time when he'd been more relieved to see the little sprite.
"Hey, Enzo!"
Bob managed to shift himself into a sitting position. Enzo seemed fit to burst, and promptly did so in a flood of speech.
"What happened? Are you OK? What were those things? Did they hurt you? Are they coming back? Do they have friends? Are - "
"All right, tiger, time to give the Guardian a break," came a feminine voice from across the room. Dot entered the medlab, a smile on her face.
Bob rubbed his temples gingerly as she approached him and shooed the frustrated Enzo outside. His head hurt still, but his arm didn't anymore. This was a fair trade-off, he figured. At least the pain told him he was still alive.
"I told you I'd fix it, didn't I?" he grinned.
Dot narrowed her eyes, resisting the compelling urge to smack him. How /dare/ he be so smug after... after.... ooooooh!
Bob seemed to read her mind, as his expression sobered. "Sorry," he mumbled.
"What happened?" she asked. "We found you right next to that... thing. Did it hurt you?" She reached up, to touch the bandage covering Bob's forehead. Bob deflected the hand. Dot looked puzzled.
"No... and his /name/ was Dracus."
"What?"
"He was a Guardian, Dot. A Guardian. He was protecting us."
"Bob, I don't understand - "
"You don't have to. Look, I have something to do..." He began to move out of the bed, but Dot placed a hand firmly on his shoulder to restrain him.
"You aren't going anywhere!" Bob didn't budge. "You barely got out of that hole alive and - "
"I /have/ to do this, Dot. Please. After that, I'll lie around and recuperate all you want. This is important."
She relented.
"All right. Just... don't be long, ok?"
Bob nodded an acknowledgement as he got off the bed, and left the medlab.
--------
He stood in the now-cleared hole that had almost claimed his life, and knelt beside the great old dragon, still pinned beneath the girders. After a few moments, he stood again, and moved away.
"See you around, Dracus," he said. "Glitch... decompile."
Glitch chittered, and emitted a yellow beam that suffused to encompass the dead Guardian. A nano later, there was nothing of him left; his pixels disintegrated to the winds.
The girders that had pinned his body clanged to the ground. Bob sighed, and lifted his face to the sky as he stepped onto his zipboard.
"We'll be ready, old timer. I promise. I won't let you down."
-------
End
by Alryssa Kelly 2001
Bob was gliding towards the Diner on his zipboard when the vidwindow popped up in front of him.
"BOB!"
"Whoa!"
He braked hard, almost falling off as he did so. In a desperate attempt to remain upright, he clutched at the vidwindow's top corner, and in a matter of a half nano he now found himself dangling precariously over the binary bypass.
"Bob?"
Dot's face peered out from the vidwindow, trying to ascertain why Bob had disappeared. Suddenly, he was there - sprawled across the entire vidwindow, but there. She pursed her lips.
"Uh... hi," Bob waved back at her, with all the dignity he could muster. "What's up?"
"We have a major breach in sector nine! We need you here, right now!"
Bob resisted the urge to mention he was dangling off the vidwindow and therefore it might take a nano for him to figure out how to get off it before getting there. Preferably in one piece.
"Sure, right away."
Dot nodded, and the vidwindow disappeared.
And with it, Bob's perch.
"Warrrrgh!"
It was then Bob realised it was going to be one of those days.
--------------
Bob could see the flashes of light and hear the noise well before he got to the rendevous point. As he arrived, he began to see why the situation was so urgent.
"Uh-oh."
Dot was at a safe distance, evacuating binomes with the Mainframe patrol. She saw Bob, and waved at him.
"Is everyone all right?" he asked as he glided to a halt.
"I think so. I'm amazed nobody's been hurt though - they just... came out of nowhere!"
Bob followed Dot's gaze past the chaos of panicking binomes, past the pixel smoke and the debris, and got his first look at the cause of the problem.
"Oh, boy."
In the remains of what had been Sector 9, two bizarre-looking winged creatures, one white, one red, were busy having at each other in a showdown that could well take out the rest of Mainframe - that is, it could, if he didn't stop it. Which he would.
He'd feel a lot more comfortable about that assertion if the creatures in question weren't about thirty times his size and breathing flame.
"Bob... be careful."
Bob managed to tear his eyes away from the spectacle just long enough to reply, putting on his usual display of confidence.
"I'll be fine. Mainframe will be back to normal in a couple of nanos - you got the best Guardian in the 'Net, remember?"
Dot's worried expression didn't change. Much. As he glided towards the chaos, Bob wondered who the show of confidence was for most - her or him.
--------
Bob tried not to be awed by the creatures' sheer size and unusual configuration. They were both similar in almost every sense. Both had scales. Both had a pair of large, leather-like wings. Both had four legs, all of which bore talons on each, and which were being used to tear into each other at close quarters. And their huge, elongated heads reminded him of dinosaurs - creatures he'd seen in the Games.
"Of course! They're /dragons/! I knew I'd seen them before... " he frowned, "Question is, how did they get here?"
"Why don't you ask them?"
Bob almost fell off his zipboard for the second time that second.
"Enzo!"
"Hey! Isn't this *cool*?" Enzo's grinning face beamed back at Bob from his perch on his own zipboard. Bob frowned at the young sprite.
"No, it's /not/ cool, and it'll be even less cool when Dot finds out you're here."
Enzo looked back at him sulkily. "S'not fair. I'm always getting told to stay out of things."
"Enzo, please..." Bob paused as the noise intensified, and turned to see what was going on -
- and managed to narrowly avoid a streak of flame as it shot past his head.
"Aie!" he yelped involuntarily. He could swear he smelled singed hair.
"Coooool!" Enzo countered, his eyes widening even more.
"All right, that's it!" Bob's expression hardened. "Enzo, go back to the Diner - " Enzo began to protest, "NOW!"
"Okay..." he mumbled, and sulkily retreated.
Bob watched him go until he was sure the sprite was at a safe distance, then turned to head into the fray. Stopping as close as he could to the tussling creatures, he saw the tear they'd used to enter Mainframe. He'd seen a lot of tears, but this one was different. It didn't have the torn 'edges' - it was a smooth, clean slice, as if one of them had used a talon to deliberately open it.
"Curiouser and curiouser," he mused. Why come here?
The constant roaring was starting to make his head ache. Turning his attention back to the matter at hand, Bob wondered if he knew precisely what he was dealing with. He stepped off his zipboard onto the roof of a still-standing building.
"HEY!" he yelled, trying to get their attention.
They were oblivious, their whirlwind activity continuing to topple towers. White hacked at Red. Red snarled, letting loose another bolt of flame. White dodged, using the opportunity to try for an attack on Red's neck...
"OVER HERE!" Bob jumped up and down and waved his arms around like a windmill. Still no reaction.
"Figures," he muttered. "Glitch! Megaphone!"
An unfeasibly large megaphone sprouted from Bob's keytool. "Cool," Bob grinned. He cleared his throat, and then...
"HEY, YOU! OVER HERE!"
The resulting clamour, accompanied by the electronic screech of the megaphone, had the desired effect. Two elongated heads whipped around, and Bob suddenly found himself under the piercing amber gaze of two dragons, both wondering what this tiny blue *thing* wanted in the middle of their battle.
"Now that I have your attention..."
------
Dot watched the proceedings with Phong and Mouse at the ComCon.
"What are those things?" she wondered aloud. Mouse for a change was also baffled.
"They look like game sprites to me," she offered, "But there's no way they can be."
"Look at that tear," Dot pointed at the screen. "it's deliberate... they didn't come from a game cube, that we know - it's been a few nanos since the last Game. So where did they come from? The Web?"
Phong was searching the archives, his long digits tapping the screens.
"Maybe it's another MegaByte trick," Mouse suggested.
"These days I wouldn't put anything past him," Dot sighed.
"I find no reference to these creatures in the Archives," Phong said periodically. "They are not of the games, or of the Web. I need to dig deeper into the files to discern their format."
A gasp from Dot caused everyone to stop what they were doing and look at the screen.
The building Bob had been standing on - as well as a large part of Sector 9 - had just caved in, taking the two dragons - and Bob - with it. Buildings crumbled and toppled in on top of them, pixel dust clouding the vidwindow.
"Oh my..."
A stunned silence, as the trio gazed, horrified, at the vidwindow, waiting, watching, hoping they'd imagined it.
Nanos passed.
"Bob..." Dot whispered; then shook herself back to the present. "Get a medivac team down there, STAT!"
As the Medivac scrambled to Sector 9, Dot tried to tell herself that Bob had been through much worse before, he'd be all right. Wouldn't he?
--------
Part 2
Liquid, cold dark.
The heat of pain, all up his left side; white fire searing his nerves.
He coughed, pixel dust irritating his already parched lungs. He felt pressure on his chest. Probably a piece of whatever building had collapsed on him.
"Glitch, light..." he coughed.
Glitch didn't respond. That was *not* good.
"Glitch?" he croaked.
Still no response; not even a chirrup of acknowledgement. The keytool must have been offlined. Bob felt a pang of guilt as he realised it. There was no way he could tell how badly Glitch was damaged; if it was even repairable. He closed his eyes - not that it made much difference in the dark - and swore.
He could tell he was lying on his back - that much he knew. But as for where, and how he was going to get out, he had no idea. He tentatively tried to move his left arm, and winced as fresh daggers of pain shot up it and into his shoulder.
"Agh!" he yelped, and ceased moving, waiting for the throbbing to stop.
Something moved in the fluid blackness.
He didn't so much /see/ it as /feel/ it; felt its hot breath whisper across his face. He froze. Then he remembered.
In his disorientated condition, Bob had completely forgotten about the reason he was here in the first place. He had to hope now that his two 'friends' wouldn't try to recommence their fight and crush him to his base pixels in the process.
A low rumble. The heat washed over him again. Bob stopped breathing, waiting for the inevitable...
--------
Dot stood at the edge of the charred, blackened hole, peering through the smoke to try and discern if anything was moving. Anything. Her practical nature had long since taken over, her thoughts moving in autopilot. But emotionally? It had been several nanos since the accident. There was no sign of Bob. And the sheer weight of the wreckage that had fallen on top of him and the creatures would be enough to level the Principle Office. The chances of a sprite being alive under all that were in the minus figures. She didn't need to read the report to know that.
The binomes around her continued to sweep the area, sifting through the wreckage, as Dot Matrix sank to her knees amidst the remains of Sector 9. If anyone had been looking in her direction at just that nano, they might - just might - have seen her tears.
-----
It seemed like seconds before Bob dared to open his eyes again; dared to think he was still with the program. As he did so, he realised he could actually /see/ where he was. He frowned, wondering if Glitch had managed to respond; then understood why he could see. One of the dragons had used its flame breath to ignite some debris. The heat he had felt across his face had simply been peripheral.
He took advantage of the situation, and assessed his condition, turning his head as much as he dared to view what was left of his keytool. True to his suspicions, Glitch was totally offlined; shattered into a hundred pieces. He sighed.
"I hate it when I'm right..." he breathed, moving his head to look up.
He could also see that, along with the others, he had been trapped in a small pocket of space, covered with what must be the remains of the buildings. While this was temporarily a good thing, this didn't bode well for them being found before their air ran out. Coughing again, he managed to pull himself to a sitting position, ignoring the stabs of pain in his arm.
As he did so, he came face to face - or rather, face-to-eyeball - with the red dragon.
Bob yelped, but it came out rather more like a squeak followed by a hacking cough, which took a few micros to subside.
The amber eye with its dilated slit blinked, the red scales surrounding it shifting and retracting as it did so. The eye moved back, allowing Bob to see the full head, bloodstained teeth catching the firelight as it opened its mouth.
"You are damaged, sprite," it rumbled.
Bob was speechless. Unable to find any words, he simply nodded slowly in acknowledgement. As he squinted into the flickering darkness, he could make out that the dragon was severely injured. Blood oozed from battle wounds on its neck and legs. It also appeared to be pinned by several large girders across its back. He'd been fortunate, he mused.
After a nano or two, he managed to clear his throat.
"Who are you?" he asked. "How did you get here, into Mainframe?"
The dragon grunted as it shifted position.
"You ask many questions, little one," it replied, not offering any explanation.
Bob's irritation at being stuck here began to show as he snapped, "I think I deserve some answers! Between you two you took out a whole sector of Mainframe, not to mention Glitch!" He gestured with his good hand towards the remains of his precious keytool. "And enough of the 'little', OK?"
There was an awkward silence. Then Bob heard an intermittent rumbling emanating from the creature's belly. Was it /laughing/ at him? It was! He sat and fumed, well aware that he was incapable of even standing right now, let alone kicking some dragon's ascii. His legs were aching, his head hurt - now he knew why, as he raised a hand to the source of the pain; he had a gash across his forehead - and he was without Glitch.
"You are amusing. What is your format?"
Bob scowled. "Why don't you tell me who you are first?"
"You are also persistent. Admirable."
"And you're evasive!" Bob countered.
"If that is your wish," came the reply. "My name is Dracus. My format... is Guardian."
---------
Part 3
Frisket howled at the Diner doors as if in sympathy, as Enzo continued to stare at the remains of Sector 9 from a vidwindow inside the Diner. Dot had him put under strict surveillance, and thanks to the combined efforts of Mouse, Mike the TV and Cecil, he knew he wouldn't be able to get away any nano soon.
He also knew that somewhere in that mess was Bob.
"He can't be offlined! He's *Bob*!" he wailed.
"We don't know anythin' fer sure yet, shugah," Mouse replied, trying her best to comfort the young sprite. "Bob's a resourceful guy, I should know."
"It's all my fault, Mouse. I was out there and I distracted him... he would never have been there if it weren't for me - "
"Honey, you know that ain't true," Mouse replied sternly. "Don't go makin' yourself feel bad for somethin' you couldn't know was goin' to happen."
Enzo knew she was right, but still... it always seemed like he was the source of everyone's problems.
And if Bob had been - he couldn't even bring himself to process the word - he wouldn't ever forgive himself for being such a low-density sprite.
--------
"Guardian?" Bob repeated. "You're a /Guardian?/ How... what... I..." he coughed again, "I mean, I've never heard of your type, not even at the Academy, they would have had you on file."
Dracus snorted.
"I doubt they would."
Bob frowned. "Why not?"
"You are a Guardian yourself?" the dragon looked keenly at him. Bob nodded, trying to clear his throat.
"I was assigned here, to Mainframe. To win the Games, fix tears, that sort of thing," he replied eventually. "But you didn't answer my question. Again."
Dracus paused a moment, the only sound the crackling of the flames.
"We... are the first generation of Guardians. We were old before you were ever compiled."
"Why haven't I ever seen you or heard of you before?"
Dracus sighed.
"It is a long story." He glanced across the debris, and spotted his opponent, motionless, crushed under the fallen building that also pinned him. "And a story that will end very soon."
"I don't understand."
"You probably would not even if I told you."
Bob's expression hardened in annoyance. "I'm not Basic, you know! I'm a Guardian!"
"Knowledge of us is... rare. We are becoming equally so."
"Why? What is it you do?"
"We protect the Supercomputer."
Bob shook his head. "No, we do that. That's our job."
Dracus rumbled again. His laughter. Bob's frown increased.
"No, Guardian. We protect it." The dragon looked troubled for a moment. "At least, the ones who are still alive do."
"What?"
"After many cycles of Games, we learned too much. We became too powerful to remain within the Supercomputer. We were ousted by the new generation of Guardians installed by the User - their pretense was to assign us to protect the more vulnerable portals to the Supercomputer. In reality, these portals were seldom utilised. Once we were outside, they sealed us off from ever returning."
"I can't believe it... that my own format would do such a thing..."
"They were afraid... afraid that our acquired powers would unstabilise the Supercomputer and therefore the 'Net. Some of us became bitter about their decision," Dracus glanced again at the fallen dragon, "and determined to make their way back to the Supercomputer to wipe out the new Guardians. The rest of us found new security holes and determined instead to do the job we were assigned to do. Mend and defend. Sometimes that defense included deleting our own kind."
"You mean your friend over there?"
A pained expression flitted behind his eyes. "Yes."
Bob stared at the dragon. "How did you get this... configuration?"
"We adapted," he replied simply. "This form was most adept at dealing with viruses and other... intruders. What troubles me is that our numbers are dwindling rapidly. You have no idea what we have been defending you against. When our time is over..."
"What happens then?"
Dracus looked Bob straight in the eyes.
"Chaos, Guardian. Chaos."
-------
"Dot honey, you need to get some downtime. You've been on this job now all second."
"Thanks for the advice, Mouse, but I don't think I'm going to be able to get any kind of downtime until we've cleared that wreckage."
Mouse sighed and shook her head. The Command.com of Mainframe was efficient, but when her heart took precedence over common sense...
"You're not doin' this operation any good by keepin' yourself up all cycle. I'll oversee this and if I hear /anything/, you'll be the first to know."
Dot sighed. "You're right, Mouse. I should. How's Enzo?"
"He went to his bed a long time ago, honey, which is where you need to be."
"All right, I can take the hint..." Dot tried a smile, which ended up looking more like a grimace. "I'm going. Just - "
"I know, shugah, first thing I hear! Now go!"
Dot Matrix reluctantly stood and left her command station. But while she left the station and the Principle Office behind in favour of her apartment, emotional turmoil still raged inside her like a virus...
"Please, Bob," she whispered to the winds. "Please. Be alive."
----------
Bob tried to take it all in; and felt dizzy. It was several moments before he realised that it was the thinning air that was creating the dizziness; not the story.
"How do we stop this... chaos?"
Dracus squinted at Bob in the dying firelight.
"Knowledge is power, Guardian."
"You're going to tell me?"
Dracus shook his head slowly. His breathing was getting shallower.
"Not... enough time." Dracus looked pained. The loss of blood must be getting to him, Bob thought.
"But how can I do anything - "
"Give me your keytool pieces. Now."
The tone of the dragon suggested urgency. Bob, with considerable effort, got to a kneeling position, and collected Glitch's remains, cradling them carefully in his hand. He winced as he moved his injured arm, but gritted his teeth and ignored it as best he could. He shuffled over to the dragon.
"Here."
Bob laid the pieces beside him, near his forelimb. "Back off." He did so. Dracus gingerly moved his forelimb, and extended a talon. The firelight died just a little more as he did so. Bob squinted. He heard the dragon rumble again. This wasn't laughter this time... it was a quiet command, intoned over his keytool. For a moment, there was a gentle, green light emanating from the creature's talon. When it dissipated, Bob saw -
"Glitch!"
The keytool chirruped at hearing its name. Dracus lifted his talon, and Glitch returned to Bob, nestling in its usual place on his left arm. Bob stared at Dracus.
"How..."
"You learn many things when you have time on your hands," he rumbled. "Now... come here. I have little time left."
Bob approached the dragon cautiously. "You want to know, do you not?" Dracus spoke gruffly, as if reading his thoughts. "Come. Now."
The Guardian did as he was directed. As he touched the dragon's forehead with his right hand, he felt the surge of mental energy and -
- he broke the contact with the dragonskin and fell on his backside, gasping.
Dracus growled. "Again!" he barked. Bob nodded, reeling from the encounter, but aware of how little time remained. Coughing, he struggled once more to his aching feet, and replaced his hand.
Images, thoughts, events, emotions, faces, things he couldn't even begin to understand, all flashed through his mind in a single breathtaking moment. It was Dracus' whole life, from compilation to expulsion from the Supercomputer, to now, contracted into barely a nano. As Bob finally broke contact with the dragon, he heard him speak, softly this time.
"This is my gift to you, fellow Guardian. Use it wisely. Mend... and defend."
Dracus then exhaled heavily, his muscles relaxing, his eyes closing. Bob suddenly found himself clutching at the creature's harsh, bloodied scales in panic.
"No! You can't do this! You can't..."
Breathlessly he watched the strange Guardian for signs of movement, of breathing, hearing only the beat of his own heart in the encroaching darkness.
"...leave me..." he finished, knowing that even as he said it he already had.
The fire's last flames died out as he sat gazing at the lifeless Dracus. And with it died Bob's last hopes for getting out of here alive. Shivering, he lay beside the dragon, and let the liquid darkness swallow him whole.
--------
Part 4
Dot Matrix arrived back at the scene of the disaster, barely a nano after Mouse's call. They'd managed to find a pocket of space under all the debris, and were now working triple time to get to it. She wanted to be there when.... if... no, /when/.. Bob was found.
Almost as soon as she arrived, she heard the yells coming from the rescue team, affirming their find. Hopping on her zipboard, she raced over to them to see the last of the girders being lifted up. Hope sprang back to life deep inside. Oh please...
She hovered as low as she dared near the space, and shone her flashlight down inside. The light glanced over the debris... over a hooked talon... and then -
"BOB!"
---------
Everything was blurry.
Well, that was something, Bob thought to himself. Better than nothing.
Things became a little less blurry as he stared at them. After a nano he could make out his surroundings. They looked reassuringly familiar.
"Bob! You're awake!"
Enzo's face popped into his line of vision. Bob wasn't sure there was a time when he'd been more relieved to see the little sprite.
"Hey, Enzo!"
Bob managed to shift himself into a sitting position. Enzo seemed fit to burst, and promptly did so in a flood of speech.
"What happened? Are you OK? What were those things? Did they hurt you? Are they coming back? Do they have friends? Are - "
"All right, tiger, time to give the Guardian a break," came a feminine voice from across the room. Dot entered the medlab, a smile on her face.
Bob rubbed his temples gingerly as she approached him and shooed the frustrated Enzo outside. His head hurt still, but his arm didn't anymore. This was a fair trade-off, he figured. At least the pain told him he was still alive.
"I told you I'd fix it, didn't I?" he grinned.
Dot narrowed her eyes, resisting the compelling urge to smack him. How /dare/ he be so smug after... after.... ooooooh!
Bob seemed to read her mind, as his expression sobered. "Sorry," he mumbled.
"What happened?" she asked. "We found you right next to that... thing. Did it hurt you?" She reached up, to touch the bandage covering Bob's forehead. Bob deflected the hand. Dot looked puzzled.
"No... and his /name/ was Dracus."
"What?"
"He was a Guardian, Dot. A Guardian. He was protecting us."
"Bob, I don't understand - "
"You don't have to. Look, I have something to do..." He began to move out of the bed, but Dot placed a hand firmly on his shoulder to restrain him.
"You aren't going anywhere!" Bob didn't budge. "You barely got out of that hole alive and - "
"I /have/ to do this, Dot. Please. After that, I'll lie around and recuperate all you want. This is important."
She relented.
"All right. Just... don't be long, ok?"
Bob nodded an acknowledgement as he got off the bed, and left the medlab.
--------
He stood in the now-cleared hole that had almost claimed his life, and knelt beside the great old dragon, still pinned beneath the girders. After a few moments, he stood again, and moved away.
"See you around, Dracus," he said. "Glitch... decompile."
Glitch chittered, and emitted a yellow beam that suffused to encompass the dead Guardian. A nano later, there was nothing of him left; his pixels disintegrated to the winds.
The girders that had pinned his body clanged to the ground. Bob sighed, and lifted his face to the sky as he stepped onto his zipboard.
"We'll be ready, old timer. I promise. I won't let you down."
-------
End