CH 1
It was dark. It smelled too. It smelled like, like old. Matrix slowly and painfully opened
his eyes, had be been napping? He couldn't remember what second it was or when he had gone to
sleep, in fact, was it day or night? His body ached as he moved it, it felt like he hadn't moved
in a long time, and he was cold. He stretched his muscles before managing to sit himself up.
Eventually he did and he rubbed his head. Quickly he scanned the room he was in, it wasn't his,
or anything he recognized.
"AndrAIa?" he asked the room. But nothing stirred, nor echoed. He groaned as he got out of the
container he had been sleeping in. He examined it. What is this...he thought, where am I at? He
inspected the container with the glass lid and read the words "Cryogenic freezer" and then a
digital readout that said "0 days". 0 days? He thought about it and he suddenly panicked. I was
frozen? In THIS? He tried to search for windows, files, anything that would tell him how long he
had been asleep in the freezer, but the files and windows were not able to work, nor were the
files able to read because they would just crumble out of Matrix's hands as soon as he picked
them up. The room was in complete disarray, as if someone had been using this, laboratory, and
suddenly left without turning anything off or putting anything away. He felt a shiver of dismay
blanket him as he started to realize that everything he once knew, was destroyed.
He walked down a long corridor which was supposed to be lighted but nothing was on.
"Hello?" he said softly, his echo reverberated and came back to him in the sound of a long
murmured groan. He wrapped his hand around his gun and cautiously made his way to another
set of halls. He reached a door that led outside into the city of Mainframe and his jaw dropped
at the sight. Everything was gray and in shambles. His view was from Lost Angles which was
just as grey and dismal as the city. His eyes squinted and he choked, for the city he once knew to
be alive and happening, was now a dead, slum of abandoned buildings and rotting streets. He
fell to his knees and cried out, "AndrAIa! Bob! Dot!" and he yelled long into the air.
The city looked worse than it had when it had shut down after he and AndrAIa returned
from their search for Bob. This time there were no binomes or ones to greet him, or run away,
not even nulls. He dragged his feet, if he was going to find or do anything, the most obvious
place would be the Principal Office, and that's where he headed.
Matrix walked in and out of destroyed and shambled buildings searching for anything
that would move. He couldn't even find any nulls.
"Hello?" He shouted. But everything was so quiet, it made him shiver. "Hello?" He shouted
again, panicked. No, he thought, everything can't be gone, not everyone, not everything! He ran.
He ran towards the principal office. He had wondered why there wasn't a whole system
shutdown being that nothing was working and the city had no energy to run off of. His steps
took him down a road he knew once to be full of stores and shops, now diminished into dust and
broken walls. His eyes were lidded at the sight and he felt like dying. But as he walked past a
broken down building with only two walls barely standing, he saw a bright light. His eyes had to
adjust, but he was ecstatic to find something alive, perhaps.
He made his way to the light but discovered it wasn't a light at all, but a sprite, with
white skin, and white hair inside of a tube filled with liquid. It was a female, and her eyes were
closed. Matrix steadily walked towards the tube, with his hand clenched on his gun tightly. He
stopped in front of it and stared. He read a label that was only half readable on the base of the
tube that said "DRP sprite: do not remove unless emerg" and the rest was torn off. He observed
the label some more and the sprite fluttered her eyes open and looked down at him.
"I am DRP number 92, please state your inquiry" she said. Matrix gasped at the sudden noise as
he jumped backwards, tripping over a broken chair and into a pile of dust.
"You... What are you?" He boldly asked. The sprite blinked several times before answering.
"I am a Disaster Repair Plan sprite, I am interconnected through the entire system and am able to
access any database within for information." she spoke with a British accent.
Matrixgot to his feet and peered at her intently. "I...don't know... what's..."
"Going on?" she finished for him. He nodded.
"What happened here? Where is everyone..." Matrix inquired.
DRP closed her eyes and accessed stored information. "You are Enzo Matrix, guardian, you are
a resident here and last accessed any information 200 days ago"
"What?" Matrix screamed, "You mean... I've been frozen for 200 days!" DRP nodded.
"But why? I can't even remember what happened before I slept! Tell me!" He placed both hands
on the clear tube surrounding the sprite and breathed deeply. DRP closed her eyes again and a
whirlwind of information flashed into her mind.
"I cannot tell you." she said.
Matrix frowned and banged his fists against the tube, "Why not!" he yelled.
DRP looked annoyed, "Because my program did not run until after you were already frozen, I
have no memory of what happened before then."
Matrix hung his head, if this was the only creature alive in the system, and if she didn't even
know, then he would never find out what happened. DRP looked at him and thought about it a
little more.
"I...might be able to access logs, from when I was first programmed to run as a DRP sprite." she
said. Matrix looked up at her. "I can search for logs that might mention anything about you and
the freezer." She closed her eyes and lists were flashed in front of her eyes into her head quickly.
Matrix stayed quiet and still and three minutes later, DRP opened her eyes again, "Nothing." She
shook her head. Matrix sighed again and cast his eyes downward again.
"My friends, my family... what happened to them?" Matrix looked up at her again. "Tell me
what happened to AndrAIa!"
"AndrAIa..." DRP searched her database for a while, "AndrAIa, last accessed information 112
days ago...former command dot com of the system and game sprite, is this the AndrAIa you
want?" Matrix shook his head, "Yes! Where is she, what happened to her, was she frozen too? Is
she alive?" his eyes lit up, thinking maybe of the impossible.
She spoke slowly, "Game sprites are notable for their weak and vulnerable icons, and would
never last in a cryogenic freezer, therefore, if she had lived when you had last accessed
information, she would have long since passed away."
Matrix sat back on his haunches on the revealization of this news. AndrAIa was dead. She died
long ago, and he wondered if her life was the same after he was gone or if she changed upon his
disappearance.
"Did she know?" Matrix asked DRP, "Did she know where I was?"
"No" DRP said after a while, "nobody knew...would you like to see a stored image of your
friends?" she asked cautiously. Matrix arched his eyebrows and thought about it. Would he want
to see something he ever would again and remain in constant agony because of their absence? Or
would he be glad to see his friends and loves one more time, to remember.
"Show me." he said.
DRP opened a small hole in the base of the tube and with a click, an image was flashed
on the partial wall of the once building. Matrix watched and his eyes widened at the scene in
front of him.
---
"My fellow Mainframers!" a male red guardian sprite was saying on a stage in front of hundreds
of binomes and other sprites, "A glorious day this is, for we are celebrating a new age in
technology!" a big cheer spread across the crowd. "Honoring the new achievements of our civil
age is an opportunity to move towards the tomorrow of Mainframe! You have heard, and now
you will see! Behold!" and the guardian speaker flung his hand backwards and there opened a
curtain, behind the curtain was various technical objects and contraptions. Among them was
DRP in her tube. The crowd cheered on, and once it died down, the guardian spoke again, "This
year, to honor the scientists and computer technologists is, your beloved dot com, AndrAIa!" An
even bigger cheer spread through the crowd and from the corner of the stage, an old and aged
AndrAIa slowly made her way to the microphone. She must have been close to 90 or 100 at this
point, and her age weighed her down. The wrinkles on her face showed utter joy and tired at the
same time, her hands were strong yet fragile and her eyes were full of knowledge.
"Mainframers, welcome" she said with a wide smile and tired voice. "I'd like to award those
scientists who made this technology a living dream." She called each scientists name, and the
title of the technology they created or the contraption they built and one by one, gave them an
award and a round of applause.
"This never could have taken place without the help and building blocks that were made from
the very beginning by Guardian 452, and Dot Matrix, former dot com of the system who both
have so recently passed away." AndrAIa closed her eyes. "Thank you to all who have taken part
in this celebration today, may the net be kind to you." And she was done.
---
"Turn it off!" Matrix sobbed, "Please, stop the video!" he sniffed into his hands and DRP shut
the feed off.
"This system has been in disrepair for 120 days now, I am under a time-lock while in this tube so
I never age, and I never come out..." DRP hung her head. Matrix rubbed some tears from his
eyes and then shook his head.. "AndrAIa," he whispered, "What of the city? What happened?"
Matrix softly asked.
"The city, there was an infection, a virus infection, which infected the whole city..." she closed
her eyes again.
"And?" Matrix replied, "then what?" DRP squinted her eyes and tried to access the
information deeper.
"The... the virus...was a HTTPD virus, it..."
"Wait wait, first of all what's an HTTPD virus?" Matrix asked. DRP opened her eyes and
looked to Matrix.
"Guardian, I would expect you to know that.." she said, tilting her head to the side.
"Excuse me, I'm only a first class guardian renegade who goes against my code." he said
sarcastically. She peered at him after that, floating in her tube then shook her head and
continued.
"The HTTPD virus is a stealthy invisible hacking program that waits for incoming server
transmissions and intersects them, causing misinterpretation and mixing of messages that slowly
and eventually cause the downfall of a whole system." DRP finished, "and that's what
happened."
To Be Continued...