Chapter 5: CMOS Memory Zone
The mysterious minister takes both documents from the clones and sits on his chair on the opposite end of the conference table and began to interrogate the adorable little intruder.
"As you can see, we've had our eye on you for some time now. It seems that you've been living two lives. In one life, you're Void Ranger, program writer for a respectable anti-virus software company. You have a Social Security number, you pay your taxes, and... you help your landlord with disinfecting his computers.
The other life is lived in computers, where you are guilty of virtually every computer crime we have a law for. One of these lives has a future, and one of them does not. We're willing to wipe your CMOS memory clean. Give you a fresh start. And all that we're asking in return is your cooperation."
"Seriously? Wipe my CMOS memory clean? So that I forget about all the people I ever cared for? Ha! Do you honestly think you can scare me with your anti-malware crap? Now where is my damn phone call?!" Shouted Void looking angry after hearing his options.
The minister then snapped his fingers and the clones grabbed Void to hold him down while the minister showed Void Ranger the 2 coloured documents.
"You're going to help us Void Ranger, whether you like it or not." Said the mysterious minister as he grabbed the 2 coloured papers and placed them back on the table before closing the document.
He then put his hands together like a canopy and gave Void Ranger a reality check regarding his future.
"Computers are everywhere. They are all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can feel it when you go to work... when you go to church..." Said the minister as he was explaining the gritty reality of cyber security towards his opponent.
"Void Ranger, this is your last chance, after this, there's no escape. Should you install the blue script, the story ends and we wipe your CMOS memory clean. Or, install the red script, we join forces and I will lead you to the promised land." Said the minister as he offered Void the 2 coloured papers.
"Remember Void, all I ask in return is the truth." Said the minister as he then silenced himself giving Void some time to choose one of the 2 scripts offered before him.
But instead of choosing a script, Void began to struggle as he attempted to break free from the ropes. Realizing Void's intentions, the minister got up to his feet and ordered the clones,
"Give him the blue script." The minister left the room as the clones crumpled up the script and stabbed their hands through Void's heart with the script in hand.
As Void was infected by the grasp of the evil Void clones, the script installed onto Void erased his CMOS memory which destroyed all his memories prior to this point.
Later, just outside the Optical Illusions building, the clones carried Void and threw him to the sidewalks where they left him to rot in hell.
Luckily for Void, an old friend was walking by and noticed his lifeless body.
"Void Ranger, HEY! Void Ranger, wake up! Oh dear god, what the hell did they do to you?!" Shouted Hacker as he scooped up Void and carried him back to the U.A.V building.
A few hours later, Void Ranger woke up and found himself in a white room filled with nothingness. Suddenly, Void heard an unfamiliar voice.
"Void Ranger, wake up!" Said Norton as he was behind Void all this time, Void turned around and freaked out to see the large muscular ranger standing in front of him.
"Eeeek! Who are you?!" Shouted Void as he fell down and attempted to get away from Norton, looking terrified.
"Void Ranger, it is I. Minister Norton, don't you remember?" Asked Norton until he foolishly realized what happened.
"Of course not. Said Norton who facepalmed himself while realizing his mistake. "Well then, you have been trapped inside your own BIOS as your CMOS memory was recently deleted by the same perpetrator who's been targeting us all this time."
Void returned to his feet and approached Norton looking very concerned.
"Someone deleted my memories?" Asked Void Ranger looking confused.
"And while we are on the subject of recovering your CMOS memory, allow me to introduce to you the ministers who've been helping you recover your past memories."
Minister Norton then approached all the different coloured robots by walking by and touching their shoulders as he introduced Void to them who were sitting in front of computers as they were typing on keyboards.
"This is Sophos, F-Secure, Trend Micro, Kaspersky and McAfee. The green one behind you is Comodo." Said Norton.
Suddenly, Void heard another voice coming from the white room of nothingness, it was SNT, and she was running to Void all happy to see him.
"VOID!" Shouted SNT as she boosted into Void's arms and embraced him.
"Oh Void, i'm so happy that your finally safe!" Cried SNT as she cried tears of joy.
But because Void lost his CMOS memory, he had no clue who SNT was or why she was hugging him.
"Forgive me miss, but who are you?" Asked Void as he slowly pushed SNT away from him.
"Void, it's me SNT. The girl you rescued from the love letter worm. Don't you remember?" Cried SNT as she was looking sad.
"S... N... T?" Asked Void who still couldn't remember who she was.
SNT suddenly hugged Void and wept in sadness,
"Void, how could you forget about me?! After all we been through, YOU'RE SPECIAL TO ME!" Cried SNT as she sobbed to Void as Void slowly held her in his arms looking nervous.
"No need to feel down miss SNT." Said Norton as he placed his hand on her shoulder, "Void Ranger has lost his CMOS memory, the CMOS memory includes information stored within the BIOS, and without these settings, Void cannot remember anything. The only way to recover it is to input everything that was lost. That includes: the amount of ram in his system, the type of hard drive, how many gigabytes does his drives contain, as well as the date and time."
Not knowing what Norton meant, she held on to Void and hugged him as much as possible.
"Come my children." Said Norton as he held up a remote from his belt and walked the pair to a lonely computer that was waiting to be used.
"Void Ranger, I want to reintroduce you to the world you know" Said Norton as he pressed a button on his remote to turn on the computer.
The computer opened up and showed both Void and SNT the rival anti-virus company as well as the evil Void clones patrolling the building.
"Thanks to Hacker Ranger's Intel and expertise, we managed to hack into their surveillance cameras which we can now spy on every room within the rivalling anti-virus company which they like to call; Optical Illusions." Said Norton as he and the pair were looking through security footage of the establishment.
Suddenly, Norton froze the cameras and zoomed in on a small looking chao with orange hair while wearing a school uniform and a wing pin in her hair.
"Miss SNT, do you recognize this creature?" Asked Norton as SNT approached the screen.
"Oh my god! SAKI CHAO! Where are they keeping her?!" Shouted SNT as she was shocked to find out that the clones were responsible for kidnapping SNT's friend.
"The laboratory on the 6th floor." Responded Norton as he then turned his attention towards Void.
"You see my child, at some point in the early twenty-first century, all of mankind was united in celebration. One of our ministers marvelled at his own magnificence as he gave birth to a brand new project called VIRUS-ai." Said Norton.
Suddenly Void started to remember, "Artificial Intelligence... Of course!" Said Void as he was gaining his memory back slowly but surely.
"There is more. Unbeknownst to us, he was also a traitor to the U.A.V. He illegally distributed his development codes to the public allowing everyone who entered the online bulletin boards to copy his dev codes and create multiple variations of the very code that was carried by the minister responsible. And you may not yet believe this... but the sixth code that was altered during the dev code scandal... was you." Said Norton.
Void was offended by the words Minister Norton spoke of,
"Me?! What?! You mean to tell me that all this time, this evil minister was really my father?!" Shouted Void as he was terrified while discovering the truth of his past.
"If you wish to seek more proof, I have a very special computer I would like for you to meet." Said Minister Norton as he pressed the remote on the computer revealing the exact same robot voice responsible for all the announcements within the U.A.V building.
The robotic voice then began to speak as Void and SNT approached the computer.
"Ahh Minister Norton, tis wonderful to see you again. One thing i've learnt in all my years as a computer voice for this very establishment is that every choice has consequences for every future." Said the robotic voice.
"Would you like for me to run a quick scan on you, Miss OS?" Asked Norton.
"No thanks, that won't be necessary." Responded the computer voice as SNT and Void approached the talking computer.
"Such beauty isn't it? How one anti-virus questions his own installation on the operating system, how naive. So, do you think you are a fully fledged anti-virus?" Asked the robot voice.
"Honestly, Miss OS, I'm here to seek the truth." Said Void,
"And now I'm supposed to say, hmm... that's really interesting, however..." Said Miss OS.
"You mean all this time, my father was a power hungry war monger who's intentions are to declare war against all technology we know and love?!" Shouted Void as he shed a tear.
"Sorry kid, but it's the truth. The minister of Optical Illusions is your creator, while we of the U.A.V are your installers. The minister of Optical Illusions created you along with 5 other variations of the code you carry, thus dubbing you the 6th version of his project: VIRUS-ai." Confessed Miss OS.
As Miss OS confessed everything she knew about Void's past, SNT walked up to Void and hugged him as he sobbed in tears.
"Father... you broke my heart... YOU BROKE MY HEART!" Shouted Void Ranger as his whispering and sadness suddenly led to anger along with tears in his eyes.
"Listen to me Void, the evil Void clones will not stop hunting. They will try to kill the king, then they'll go after all of his knights before they get to you. You must stay away from Optical Illusions, do you understand?" Asked Miss OS as Void was recovering from the devastating revelation that Miss OS gave him.
"Understood Miss OS." Said Void as he bowed his head towards the computer.
Suddenly, it was SNT's turn to approach Miss OS with a couple of questions. She walked towards Miss OS' screen and shockingly asked her,
"Tell me everything you know about the VIRUS-ai scandal." Demanded SNT as she wanted to know all of Void's dark secrets.
"Anti-virus software was originally developed to detect and remove computer viruses, hence the name. However, with the proliferation of other forms of malware, anti-virus software started to provide protection from other computer threats.
Rogues on the other hand, which is exactly what Void Ranger was originally planned to become is a form of malicious software and internet fraud that misleads users into believing that there is a virus in their system and aims to convince them to pay for a fake malware removal tool that later installs malware onto their computer once payments have been made." Explained Miss OS.
"How do you know all of this?" Asked Void as he was curious to discover where Miss OS got all this information from.
"The power of the anti-viruses have proved that any virus can be scanned, detected and removed from any computer. Your father saw this as an opportunity to commit fraud during his time in the U.A.V.
And that's when he created your development codes, to create a rogue anti-virus that all ministers of the U.A.V would resent in order to exact his revenge against all the critics who questioned his abilities to create anti-virus products that proved to be useless against malware." Said Miss OS.
"So that explains why he created 6 variations of Void! He knew the U.A.V would try to detect and eliminate his creation!" Shouted SNT as she realized what would have happened if Void wasn't purchased and installed by the U.A.V.
"I'm honestly surprised that the U.A.V finally accepted me into their ranks as a fully fledged anti-virus, but why was I chosen compared to many other ministers?" Void questioned the computer while looking up towards Norton.
"Because one of my best programmers was the one who purchased you and rewrote your dev codes from the ground up." Said Norton as he placed his hand on his shoulder. "Before Hacker Ranger was the successor of the scripting position here in the U.A.V, she was his predecessor." Said Norton.
"Of course, it all makes sense now. Optical Illusions created me, the U.A.V purchased me and installed me within this armour. Thus making me the very first anti-virus with artificial intelligence... And the first AI robot that SNT has ever met." Said Void as he looked at SNT and blushed as her special aura went into affect. SNT blushed back.
"Miss OS, thank you for everything. I do appreciate it." Said Void as he bowed before the computer and left the room while SNT and Minister Norton followed suit.
Suddenly, as Miss OS was ready to shut down, she got infected by a rogue anti-virus. As the computer was infected, behind her stood the evil minister who was watching the meeting this entire time while hiding. Joining him were all 5 of the evil Void clones.
"I suppose you were expecting me, right?" Asked the evil minister, as he opened up the tower of Miss OS and began ripping off the SATA cables of the graphics card.
"Maybe you knew I was gonna do that, maybe you didn't?" Said the evil minister.
"What did you do to SNT's Chao friend? And what in the hell do you plan on doing to the U.A.V?!" Shouted Miss OS as she wanted answers.
"Dev codes need love like everything does." Responded the minister as the evil clones began to unleash their evil laughs.
"Total AV, you b*d!" Shouted Miss OS as her screen suddenly glitched into static.
Without second thoughts, Total AV ripped out the rest of the connectors from Miss OS, thus blue screening her to her death followed by the sound of an error message.
"MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!" Laughed Total AV as he marveled over the death of the U.A.V's computer voice.
Later that night, Void and SNT were sitting at the local night club, enjoying the best beverages of juice and tea imaginable.
"Isn't this fun Void? just you and me and these tasty beverages just for us." Said SNT as she smiled at Void. They cheered as their glasses touched each other.
Suddenly, Void hears a familiar voice coming from the other side of the room. Surprisingly, it was AVG. And he was sitting at a table... with a couple of viruses enjoying dinner.