Prologue

The room was silent, boxes and books strewn about in various disarray. Every object was covered with a thin layer of dust, save for the computer in the far right corner. If not for its polished and almost new appearance, the room could be considered abandoned, or at least abused. But no, for the desktop computer was still whirring, a tiny red light flashing as if to prove that there was still something alive, something not broken in the area.

Suddenly it began to beep. At first, the tiny noises were spread apart, but rapidly they began to blend together. Finally it just became one long, steady beep before shutting off. The computer suddenly cut on, a bright white screen illuminating the entire room. As if on cue, the entire room woke itself up, every light beginning to flash and every alarm beginning to whine or bark.

With all the noise, one could hardly hear the small 'thunk' as sock-covered feet hit the carpeted floor. She had been asleep for a few hours now, just waiting for this to happen. The woman was struggling to hide her excitement at the computer's insistent beeping, her back straight and head held high, but her shaking hands gave away her emotions.

Artfully avoiding all of the junk on her floor, she placed herself onto the metal chair that sat in front of the now blinding monitor. Pushing up her glasses and uttering a soft prayer, she quickly typed the access code and password into the now present boxes, thin fingers never missing a beat. Pressing enter with her pinky, she sat back, cracking her knuckles. The screen switched to a new one, this page sporting a loading bar. The woman groaned, pushing back a loose, messy strand of black hair. "Not again… the last one took three nights… Of course this one will probably take long-"

"We apologize for the wait. Welcome 'Maggie46', to your current projects page," the high pitched female voice paused, gathering the pre-recorded lines from the website's database, "One of your projects has reached completion and has been approved by our monitors. Would you like to launch 'World_Virus04'?" She chuckled at how the voice dropped drastically to an almost masculine volume when it stated the name of her prize. It even pronounced the underscore and called her 'oh-four' 'zero-four'. Ah, the limited voices of the site were endlessly amusing.

A warning box popped up on the screen. Dragging her cursor over to it, she hovered over the 'Yes' option, pursing her lips with thought. She had worked for a year on the virus she was about to unleash. Pluto Again had inspired it, had struck actual fear into people. But already the names and faces of those heroes, the ones who had saved the coma victims and everyone else, had faded from public memory. Sure, they were represented by virtual avatars and none of their players had stepped up, but they had been forgotten so quickly. It just wasn't fair to any of them, any who had been involved at all. And so she had created a virus that would spread through The World again, causing widespread panic. It would mimic Pluto Again, data bugs and corrupted areas seeping into the game once more.

She was about to click the option that she so desired, but she hesitated again. What about those who had suffered during the event? Those families who lost members, if only temporarily, had been hit so very hard. Some may be hit again, and perhaps there was no hope of recovery this time around. But sacrifices sometimes needed to be made to reveal information previously withheld, correct? So many had, at first, wanted to know who their heroes were, even though very few even knew the names of the characters of the heroic people. With this limited information at hand, the search soon died down and eventually faded, just like the memory of those heroes. They deserved more than the five seconds of fame they had been granted.

With this in mind, she muttered to the computer her answer. "Yes. I do wish to launch the program." Clicking on the option that corresponded with her verbal response, she leaned back in her chair as the loading bar appeared again.

This one took longer than the last, giving her various notes such as warnings of risks to her computer. They never gave her an option to abort, however, though she wouldn't have anyway. Finally it bleeped to show completion, then opened another, smaller window. She peered at it, pushing her glasses up her nose again. It was a countdown until the virus was officially launched. With a barking laugh and a smile, she threw herself backwards, causing the chair to fall back with her in it.

There were ten days, twenty three hours and fifty eight minutes left until her virus chewed itself into The World's server.

"Mistress, it would help if you would tell us what the problem is." Sheraton sighed, exasperated. Aura was being a moody teenager, affected by non-existent hormones. The other vagrant AIs had decided to leave her with the poor broken Wavemaster, thinking that he of all of them could cure her of the curse that had taken hold. He had taken the job reluctantly, at first thinking that it would be easy. Upon arriving at the white room, however, he had been greeted by Aura throwing a pillow at him and screaming. It hadn't been the most pleasant thing, but by then he couldn't back out. The others had scurried away in a hurry, not giving him the chance to pass on the duty to someone else.

"It would appear, dear Sheraton, that she is in deep thought at the moment and not sulking. Perhaps you should look at more than the obvious, yes?" The AI groaned, beating his head against the white wall. The deep, but obviously female, voice laughed. She was the other bane of his existence, the other reason why the job was so unbearable. Her tail flicked, and she laughed again at his silence.

Finally she rose, shaking herself off before going to stand next to the Wavemaster. "Mia, what could you possibly mean? She's obviously in the middle of one of her tantrums. Damn teenagers and their complaining…" He rubbed his neck in annoyance. Mia laughed again.

"You haven't heard about it yet then, have you?" Sheraton sighed, not in the mood for one of her games.

"What, Mia? Mind being a bit more obvious as to what you're alluding to?"

"The virus that's been biting the servers, of course!" She said it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Though he would've liked to act as if he knew all along, the news surprised him.

"Virus?"

"Yes, virus. Don't tell me you didn't know!" She leaned towards him seductively; tail flicking back and forth and ears pressed back. Her toothy grin widened at his stumped face. With another laugh she resumed her standing position, smiling again.

"She's probably just e-mailing her hero, Sheraton. Relax. They'll get it settled soon enough. Don't you worry any more of your character data!" With that statement she shoved her paw through one of the holes in his robe and laughed again at his discomfort.

"Are you sure it's nothing, Mia?!" The cat-type AI had a way of words that could make everything she said mean something else entirely. This time she nodded confidently.

"Don't you worry, everything is going to be settled very soon."