Part 3Chapter Three

Part 3Chapter Three

"Hmmm…." Phong frowned as he went over the readings he had taken from Dot's condition. Bob had brought her in immediately after finding her, and they ran scans over her. At that moment, she was resting in a hospital bed next to the room Hexadecimal was in, but so far, there were no changes.

"How's she doing?" Bob asked, sitting beside Dot's bed and holding on to her hand. "Will she be okay?"

"I cannot tell now," Phong said, "I am sorry, Bob. I don't know if she's going to make it."

Bob looked down, shaking his head. He tried not to let the tears loose. "I shouldn't have come late," he said, "if I had only left earlier, this wouldn't have happened. I would've been able to protect her! Now look at her."

Phong put a sympathetic hand on Bob's shoulder. "Go home, Bob," he said, "get some rest. Tomorrow is a big day for you. Everyone else is ready to check out Hexadecimal's lair."

Bob continued to shake his head. "I can't go. I have to stay here with Dot."

"But if your friends get hurt, then you will regret the fact that you stayed behind."

Just then, a vidwindow popped up and AndrAIa's face appeared. "Bob!" she cried, "Is Dot okay?"

Bob shook his head. "I don't know, AndrAIa. Phong doesn't even know."

"Oh." AndrAIa looked down sadly. "Well, um, we're ready to head over to Daemon's…if you're ready, we're set to go." She looked up. "Are you up for this? I mean, are you going to be okay?"

"Yeah…" he nodded. "I hope so. I'll meet you guys, okay?"

"Okay. AndrAIa out." She turned away from the vidwindow and it closed. Bob turned to Phong.

"I'm going," he said defiantly. "Watch for her, okay? Don't let anything bad happen."

"Always, my child. Now get going, and stop that maniac from infecting other Mainframe citizens."

********

"Okay, sugahs," Mouse said, popping up a view vidwindow of Los Angles. They could all see Hexadecimal's old lair, still glowing with the green radiation. "We're all set to go. All we need now is Bob."

"Here," Bob spoke up, flying over to Mouse, Ray, AndrAIa, and Matrix. Enzo was told to go to the Principle Office to visit his sister. "Are we ready to go?"

Matrix nodded, but he wasn't making any eye contact with anyone. Looking down at the ground, he unsnapped his zip board and hopped on. "Well, are we going or not?" With that, he flew off into the sky.

The others followed behind, Bob tagging in the back. He didn't feel all in the mood for anything. Matrix, on the other hand, looked like he was ready for some bloodshed. He hadn't said anything else on the way over.

Ray noticed Bob's hesitation and slowed down until he had caught up with him. "Are you all right, mate?" he asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Bob replied, trying to cover up. "I'm just trying to figure out what we do when we get there."

Ray paused, giving Bob some quiet time. Then he said, "you know Matrix? He's taking it a lot harder than you. I'm proud of you, though. You're holding yourself together. I don't mean it's not okay to cry, that's fine, it's just that, just going out of control won't help anything."

"Hey guys!" Mouse cried out suddenly. They had reached Hex's lair by then. She sounded surprised. They all looked at the building. The radiation was gone.

"The force field!" AndrAIa gasped, it's gone!"

"Fine with me," Matrix snarled, taking out his gun. "all the better to blow that piece of-"

"Matrix!" AndrAIa cried, horrified.

"- Into oblivion."

"Now wait a minute, guys," Ray interrupted, surfing up toward the front of the group. "We need a plan before doing anything. Does anyone have any?" He paused, than looked directly at Bob. "Bob?"

Bob looked skeptic as the group turned to look at him. "I don't know. I guess we just find an opening somewhere and figure out what she's doing in there."

"Fine with me," Mouse agreed, taking out her Kitana. "Where do we start?"

Before anything could be done, though, a huge cry came from the building, and a swarm of sprites came charging!

"Oh my User!" AndrAIa whispered. She unhooked her trident. "There has to be about thirty!"

"They couldn't be all the infected guardians in the net, could they?" Mouse asked.

"No way," Ray replied, "not all of the guardians came. Who else would keep the net under Daemon's order?"

Something snapped inside of Bob as he watched the guardian sprites advance on them, and he flew up beside Ray. His sadness had disappeared with the moment. "Guys," he said, "we can't just stand around here. We have to either fight or get help."

"How?" Mouse asked, "there's far more of them than there are of us. We'd get deleted!"

"I don't care," Matrix replied, turning on his gun.

"It would get us somewhere if I went to get some more help," Ray volunteered.

They all turned to look at AndrAIa. She glanced back at the oncoming hord. She knew there wasn't much time left. Looking back at her friends, she said, "divide and conquer."

"Okay," Bob replied. "Guys, go! Ray, go send for help- and Matrix?" He stared testily at the renegade. "Don't do any full deletes until we know what we're doing."

"Aye, mate." Ray turned and surfed off.

"Okay," Matrix replied.

They all turned to face the group, and they were already on top of them. They each carried a weapon. Either a keytool, or a gun. Bob began to feel crushed. Was this really the right thing to do?

"Okay, big fellas, let's go for it!" she yelled, holding out her kitana and her fist containing the ring. Two guardians rushed at her, and she easily encased one in a force field from her ring and disengaged the other's zip board with her kitana. That was why she was most surprised when she felt something cut her arm from behind.

"Owe!" she cried, whirling around. Her eyes widened when she saw a male guardian standing there. His keytool had been turned into a sword and he was pointing it at her offensively. "Turbo!"

Turbo didn't even smile crookedly. He held the sword out firmly. "Copeland, gun," he commanded, and the sword turned into a gun. "Hello again, Mouse."
Mouse stepped back, eyes still wide. "Turbo! What happened to you? I thought you weren't totally infected!"

"Yeah, well things happen over time, and things change."

Matrix was flying by at that time, sending five different guardians reeling off in different directions, and he saw Turbo. He was so surprised, he nearly fell off the zip board. His jaw dropped open. "Turbo!"

Turbo looked up at Matrix and smiled. "Well, old friend. It's good to see you again. Or is it…enemy?"

Matrix's eyes widened with surprise.

*********

Ray surfed expertly and smoothly through the Mainframe skies. He had to alert the Principle Office military, maybe they could do something about this. Glancing down, he saw the chief in command and swung down. "Sir!" he said loudly, "we need your help in Los Angles!"

The chief looked up at him. "We hear you, surfer," he said, "but there's a problem with that."

"Problem?"

The chief guestured toward his men, and Ray followed his gaze. His eyes widened when he noticed that the rest of the soldiers had green radiation glowing from their temples. Surprised, he nearly fell off his board. "They've been infected!"

The chief shook his head. "I'm sorry, surfer, but there's nothing we could do. I sent my troops there earlier this morning to see what was happening. Some of our traveling citizens had noticed something weird over at Los Angles, so we went to investigate. We only got infected, nothing achieved…" He paused. "One of us stumbled on some sort of starfish, and immediately got infected. The virus was only passed on to the rest."

"What about you, chief?"

The chief looked up sadly then removed his hat. Ray gasped when he saw the radiation glowing on his forehead.

"We're not infected completely, surfer," the captain said, "but I warn you not to return here soon. We might not make it."

Ray nodded. "Thanks, though. Try to stay in one place, okay? I'll tell Phong about this." With that, he turned and surfed away.

*************

Bob and the others were fighting through almost successfully, but more and more infected guardians seemed to be coming from the lair. That Daemon sure has an endless supply, he thought, as he used his powers to throw aside two guardians.

Suddenly, a vid window popped up, and Phong's face appeared. "Bob!" he cried.

"Phong!" Bob cried, dodging a guardian attack. "I'm a little busy here!"

"Bob!" Phong ignored him, "one of the patients here has awakened, I think you'd better come quickly-" He couldn't finish. A guardian had thrown himself through the vidwindow, breaking the connection. Angrily, Bob froze him with his powers and called out to AndrAIa.

"AndrAIa! Someone at the principle office as revived, I have to go check it out! It could be Dot!"

AndrAIa glanced up during the lull of her fighting. "Bob! Go! We can handle this! If it is Dot, you should be there!"

"She's right, Bob!" Mouse cried from her own fight. Matrix had thrown Turbo away from her and continued to fight him. "Get going! We can handle this!" She paused. "I hope."

Bob glanced around. No further guardians were coming for the moment, and they had already said they could handle it. But could they? "Okay you guys," he said, "remember the comlink. If the strangest thing happens here, vidwindow me. The nano second something happens call, okay?"

"Okay!" Matrix called, "Just go already!"

Bob glanced around one final time, they flew off on the zip board.

*************

Phong paced wildly and impatiently in the front room leading to the hospital rooms. "Where is that guardian?" he cried for the fiftieth time. "You call asking for his aid, and what happens? He takes forever to get here!"

Just then, the door opened, and Bob ran in, breathless. "I'm here!" he cried.

"YOU'RE FIVE NANO SECONDS LATE!!!" Phong yelled in his face.

Bob looked at him, startled. "I'm sorry! I had to-"

"Never mind that. Follow me." With that, he led Phong toward the rooms.
"I came as fast as I could, honest," Bob said, "is Dot okay? Has she said anything since she woke up? Is she still infected? She can walk still, right? Can she fight? How is she? When will-"

"Dot?" Phong frowned at Bob. "Who said anything about Dot?"

Bob frowned down at him. "But if Dot's not awake, who…?" He trailed off as Phong opened the door to the hospital room. Sitting up right on the bed, checking over her nails, was Hexadecimal.

Bob's jaw dropped open as he stepped inside. "Hexadecimal!"

Hex looked up and smiled. "Well Bob! I'm so glad to see you! How are you? Tell me, tell me, what have I missed? Nothing much?"

Bob looked at Phong questioningly, too surprised for words.

"She hadn't been infected as much as Dot has," Phong explained, "she's fully healed now thanks to me, and she's fully operative."

"But Dot…?"

Phong looked toward the next room, sad. "I'm sorry Bob. Not yet."

Bob followed the sprite's gaze, equally as sad.

"Uh, fellas?" Hex spoke up, "what are you talking about? Can't I know? Come on guys, fill me in, I really want to know."

Phong opened his mouth to reply, but Bob walked past him and toward the next room. The old sprite watched sympathetically as the guardian opened the door and entered Dot's room.

Bob closed the door behind him, and looked at Dot. She was still out cold, sleeping peacefully. Suddenly more sad than before, he walked over to her and sat beside the bed. He watched for what seemed forever, before reaching into his belt and taking out the engagement box. "I…I don't know what to say," he began, "or if you could even hear me. I'm so sorry I wasn't there for you last night. I could have…protected you, made you safe. But because of my stupid zip board…" he paused, straightened up. "My zip board…" He glanced around the room. "It had suddenly stopped working. My zip board was rigged! Someone knew this was going to happen!"

***************

Mouse stopped and glanced around. The seemed to be doing alright. All the attacked and infected guardians had flown back to the lair, including Turbo, after Matrix gave him a taste of asphalt. Before long, they all had retreated.

AndrAIa and Matrix flew over to Mouse. "Think we got them all?" she asked.

"Think so," Mouse said, breathlessly.

"I doubt it," Matrix replied, still keeping his gun out and ready.

They floated there and waited. "Maybe…we can advance?" Mouse asked. She glanced at the others. Matrix nodded.

"Slowly," he said, "and steadily."

They began to slowly advance on the lair, their weapons out and ready.

Suddenly, the force field dropped. The radiation vanished.

The three froze in their places and glanced warily at each other. What was happening?

"What was that?" AndrAIa finally said.

"Matrix flew forward a bit until he was in front of the girls. "Something bad," he said, "Very bad."

A small door opened on one side of the lair, and a figure came flying out. It took awhile before it was close enough to be described, but it was clear that she was a woman. She was wearing white leather. A white skirt, white midriff tank top, white boots, and white gloves. Her eyes were covered with sunglasses.

"Get back," Matrix ordered under his breath, and they slowly retreated backward. They didn't fly away, though. They stood there, waiting.

"Hello!" the woman called out. "I'm a guardian. We surrender! Please! Leave us in peace!"

"Don't," Matrix said gruffly, stopping Mouse and AndrAIa from advancing. "We can't trust her."

Daemon smiled to herself. "What's wrong?" she called out loudly.

"Declare your file name and format, guardian!" Matrix called out. Mouse and AndrAIa remained silent.

There was a long pause. Daemon hid a hand behind her back and slowly worked up an energy ball. "My name is Daemon," she called out, "and I'm a virus!" She reached out and hurled the energy ball at the three.

"Look out!" Mouse cried, trying to push the others away. But it was too late. They were hit.

*************

Bob returned to Hexadecimal's hospital room to see Phong explaining things out to her. "Phong," he said, "can I talk to you? Outside?" Without waiting for an answer, he stalked out of the room and waited for Phong to catch up. Phong followed, closing the door behind him.

"What is it, my child?" Phong asked, tapping his fingers together.

"Look," Bob explained. "I'm glad that Hex is alive and conscious. She's my friend, and I respect her...now. But I have four of my friends out there, fighting for their lives, and what can we possibly do with her? Daemon is out there. If she could infect her once, she could do it again."

Phong sighed heavily. "I'm sorry that Dot hasn't awakened yet. But at this process, I'm hoping she doesn't wake up so soon."

Bob looked at him, baffled. "What?"

"Bob, with Dot fully infected the way she is, if she wakes up, we don't know what she could do. Attack the Principle Office, fly into a rampage. We don't know, and that's what I'm afraid of."

Bob stared at him. "But what can we do? We-" He was cut off when the door opened and Ray surfed in. He jumped off and picked up his board.

"Sorry to interrupt mate-" he began, but he stopped. "Bob! What are you doing here? I thought you were at Los Angles with the rest!"

Bob frowned at Ray. "Phong called me here. I thought you were getting help for Matrix, AndrAIa and Mouse!"

"There's only three out there fighting against Daemon?" Phong gasped.

"That's the problem," Ray said, breathless. "The only real help is the military forces, and they have been infected when they went to Los Angles earlier this second. There is no help. I thought Phong might have some ideas, so I surfed here."

Bob stopped talking, and gazed at Ray with disbelief. The men were thinking the same thing. "The others," they said in unison. Without another word, they jumped onto their zip boards (or surfboard, in this matter) and flew out of the Principle Office.

*************

They flew to Los Angles in silence, both dreading the worst. Neither one knew what to say or what to do, and staying silent helped them think better.

"Do you think they made it?" Ray asked finally in a low voice.

"I don't know," Bob admitted. "I sure hope they did."

It wasn't long before they reached the lair. But what they saw stopped them right in their tracks.

The whole place was empty. The shields were still up around the lair, but absolutely no one was flying about.

Ray's eyes widened. "What happened?" He asked, "Where are they?"

Bob closed his eyes and called up Glitch. (Whom, now at this moment, is INSIDE Bob.) He waited as his powers made a scan of the lair before giving him the final results. Opening his eyes again, he turned to Ray. "They're inside," he confirmed.