CHAPTER I

THE FREAK

Bob loved to tell me stories – ever since I met him.  He'd tell me tales of the supercomputer where he grew up, all the games he's been in (and that really offlined Dot for a long time) – but most of all he loved to tell me about the Guardian Academy.

I guess that might be a big reason why I wanted to go to the Academy so much.  That and just generally wanting to be like Bob.  Bob is my best friend, ever.  He came to Mainframe and right away he treated me really nice – like I was his friend, too.  I guess he knew I didn't have any friends my age – and I'm sure Dot told him anyway.  He didn't have to be great to me, that's the point.  But he was.  He talked to me and took me into games - when Dot let him - and played jetball, took me circuit racing…  He let me help when he worked on his car and told me jokes and taught me neat little stuff.  Its only now that I realize just how pathetically lonely I was – but it doesn't even really matter.  Bob was still great.

So even if that were all there was to Bob, I'd probably have wanted to be like him.  But it wasn't.  Bob is the bravest guy I've ever met.  He never acts like he's afraid, and he never backs down from a fight.  He never looks for a fight either – I guess that's the difference between him and Matrix.  He's great at figuring stuff out in games.  He does all that without making anyone feel small or stupid, though – and he still loves to have fun.  And on top of all that, he's got the coolest job in the net.  So I guess, looking back, I never really had a chance.

Guess I got distracted – I was talking about Bob and his Academy stories.  When Bob went there it was in the supercomputer, and they had almost 1000 cadets.  Crash!  I couldn't even imagine that.  They had a bunch of dorms and a keytool repository and scads of teachers and their own shops and sports teams, and even a dedicated security force of over 50 CPUs and armored vehicles.  Wow.

Well, now it was a little different.  The new Academy had been set up on Gallifrey Seven, which was a small system with ports to the net.  Like Mainframe it's location had been hidden where nobody was gonna find it – guess who was responsible for that?  There were only like 120 cadets now, and not a lot of extra stuff.  And since Laser was the only clean Guardian we knew of besides Matrix, there were no keytools either.  Except Galileo, which was his.  And he actually let me use it one time, which was alphanumeric. 

So I knew a lot of stuff was gonna be different than it was in Bob's stories.  But that was OK, I guess.  It was still The Academy – and when everything was filed and processed that was what counted.  Right up until the nano Bob opened the portal and we stepped through onto Gallifrey it never quite seemed totally real to me.  But that all changed the nano I set foot in the system.

I guess it was a cycle of firsts for me.  That was my first step on a system besides home.  Bob squeezed my hand and grinned at me.  "So – whaddaya think, Tiger?"

"Pixelacious.  You've never been here before, have you?"

"Nope.  Just read the reports.  It's a good system – secure location, good infrastructure.  Maybe it lacks a certain charm that Mainframe has…"

"Yeah."  I looked around.  It was nice enough – not as green as Mainframe.  There was nothing like Floating Point or anything like that.  I could see their P.O. off in the distance – it was smaller than ours back home.  The energy sea skirted along the edge of the city in a long blue ribbon.  A small group of buildings and stuff clustered around the P.O.

"There it is."  Bob pointed.  I looked.  Set off away from the rest of the city, on a little hill, there was a modest complex of buildings, all golden colored.  Most of them were pretty small – two or three stories high.  There were a few green fields mixed in – I guessed they were for physical education and stuff like that.  I could see little dots as sprites zipped back and forth between the buildings, and faintly hear the voices carrying down to me.  And on the biggest building – the one right in the middle – there was a big gold and black icon.

The Academy.  I was here.

"Crash." I said softly. 

"Don't worry, Kiddo.  You belong here.  Just remember that and you'll be fine."

"K."  I took a deep breath and felt a big knot forming in my stomach.  Bob popped open his zip board and I did the same, and we gathered up all our stuff and started off towards the campus on the hill.

Bob opened up a vidwindow.  "Anybody home?"

A face popped up, someone I didn't recognize.  It was a guy who looked like he was maybe a little younger than Matrix, wearing a uniform like Bob's.  He looked a little nervous.  "Please state your name and function."

"Guardian 452."  Bob said it with that same pixelacious calm that he always seemed to have, no matter what.  "I have a first-hour I'm escorting in for the semester.  You should be expecting me."

The young guy looked even more nervous.   "You're…  Guardian 452?"

"Uh – yeah!" 

"OK.  Come over to the front gate – I'll let them know you're here."

"Thanks.  Let the Headmaster know I'm here too, willya?"

"Yeah.  I m-mean – yes, Sir!  Wow…"

"Thanks!" Bob chuckled and closed the vidwindow.

"I guess they know who you are, huh?"

He looked at me and winked.  "Guess so.  Nothing special I did – I guess if you're the last clean PID word's gonna get around.  You ready?"

"I guess so."

"Cool."  The thought occurred to me that if the other cadets saw I was with Bob, it was gonna change the way they looked at me.  It could be good – maybe they'd respect me a little more than they would for just being the youngest, littlest kid in the Academy.  But maybe some of them would be jealous of me.  And there'd be a lot more pressure, too…

Well, there was nothing I could do about it anyways – no way was I gonna pretend I wasn't there with Bob.  I was deleted proud of that – I was Bob's student.  Even Bob's kid, and although I had my insecurities about that Bob went out of his way to make sure I knew that's how he thought of me.  It was one of the best things about me, and no way was I gonna run away from it.  I'd just have to deal with whatever the other kids thought about it, and if they didn't like it they could kiss my bitmap.

"Here we go." Bob grinned, and squeezed my shoulder.  There was a proxy security setup with one guy manning it – again, he looked a little younger than Matrix' age – maybe 1.9 or something.  I guess I didn't have much experience guessing ages of anybody under 2.5.  "Hey!  Special delivery for you."

The kid smiled nervously.  "I…  We need to scan your PID, Sir.  Just for security."

"Sure."  Bob stepped up to the scanner and it beeped once, then twice.

"You too." The guy waved me over. 

"Oh!  OK."  I took my icon off and held it up to the scanner.  I guess I checked out too – it beeped twice and he waved us inside.  "Thanks."

We stowed our zips and walked through the security doorway.  "Sir, if I can ask – are you really-"

"Yup." Bob sighed.  "You can tell your grandkids about it someday."

I giggled – which was no small feat, scared and nervous as I was.  We walked into the main building, the one with the icon on the side.  There wasn't anyone around, but as we passed a couple of rooms with closed doors I could hear people talking inside.  Offices, I guessed.

Then, out of nowhere, two sprites walked around a corner, talking and laughing.  And I just about lost what little composure I had, right then.

Kids.

No matter much I tried to prepare myself for that nano, I never really had a chance.  It was so weird, so unreal to see them – I know my eyes must have been as big as jetballs.  But cut me a little slack – try to imagine being a kid and never seeing any other kids.  I don't know how I managed to get through it, sometimes – and believe me, sometimes it was really hard.  You can't imagine how lonely I was.  Matrix at least got AndrAIa, just when he needed her – but no one ever came for me.  As nice as Bob and AndrAIa and the others were, as much as they tried to make time for me - it just wasn't the same.

Basically I never saw another kid my age after I was about 0.4 – and who remembers anything from when they were 0.4?  The closest thing was Matrix – and he's like twice my age – and Mac, who's so little he hardly counts and he can't even talk yet.  That's not very close.

So when I saw those two kids come around the corner, I just crashed.  System overload.  It was a boy and a girl – I don't know exactly how old they were.  He was maybe 1.4, and she might've been 1.5 or1.6 – but they were kids.  They weren't much bigger than me, really.  They weren't in uniform because the semester hadn't started yet – they were wearing training shorts and plan gray T-shirts.  They were just walking and talking, smiling.  And she was pretty.

When I saw them my eyes went wide and, like I said, I just froze.  I couldn't move, even blink.  I don't even wanna think about what I looked like to them.  All I could do was stare.  They stopped talking and nodded politely at Bob, and he said "Hey."  They looked over at me and I guess they looked curious, maybe even like they were about to smile – but they didn't look mean, not really.  And all I could do was stare, look at them even after they passed us and watch them walk down the hall and not even blink.

"Tiger?"

I don't know how many times he had to say it before I heard it – maybe once, maybe a hundred times.  "Tiger!  C'mon – let's go see my Dad."

When I finally heard his voice it sorta broke me out of the spell I was in.  I thought about those other kids and how comfortable and relaxed they looked and how stupid I must have looked and I just groaned and dropped my stuff and threw my arms around Bob's waist and buried my face in his chest.

"Hey – what's wrong, Enzo?"

"Bob…"  I didn't even want to look at him.  I just felt totally overwhelmed and I was ashamed of it.  "Bob, I don't think I can do it!"

"What?  Do what?"

"I don't think I can handle it, Bob.  I can't deal with other kids, I just can't!  I don't know how to talk, what to say-"

"Whoa!  Chill, Enzo."  He wrapped me up and laughed softly.  "Take it easy.  You'll do just fine."

"I'm a freak!"

"Of course you're not!  Why would you say that?"

I couldn't bring myself to look at him – I just let him hold me and didn't look up.  "I…  I don't even know how to be around other kids.  I don't!  And there's like a hundred of 'em here and they'll all think I'm weird and totally basic-"

"Stop it.  You're a good kid – everybody back home likes you, don't they?"

"But – you guys are all grown-ups, and I know you…"

"Sprites are sprites, Enzo.  If anything you'll think it's easier to talk to these kids – you're all in this together.  You've got a lot in common.  They're gonna like you fine, stop worrying."

I took a deep breath and finally looked up at him.  "But what if they think I'm, you know…  Weird?"

"They won't!  Don't be basic."

"But I -"

"End file." Bob sighed.  "Enzo, everybody who knows you likes you.  You're the most likable sprite I know!  Crash, you got Matrix to like you and after that, how could anything be a challenge?"  That managed to bring a half a smile.  "All you have to do is just be yourself and it'll be fine, Tiger.  I promise – after a couple of cycles you'll get used to the other kids and it'll be easy as can be."

"But – what if I don't get used to it?  I-"

"You will.  I promise."

"But-"

"Just trust me, OK?"  He knelt a little so we were eye to eye.  "Isn't this what you wanted – what you've been working towards?  Being here, learning to be a Guardian?"

"Yeah."  I sighed.

"Didn't you want to see some of what's out there besides Mainframe?  Meet sprites your own age, make friends?"

"Yeah!  But I didn't think it'd be so…"

"Trust me." He repeated, with a grin.  "If I didn't think you could do this, you think I would have let you come here?  I'm gonna miss you like crazy every cycle, Kiddo – but I really believe you can do this.  So does Dot.  Do you think we'd let you go away if we didn't believe you could handle it?  If we didn't believe it was the best thing for you?"

I tried to smile back.  "No.  No, I guess not."

"There ya go.  Everything new is tough at first, but you'll handle it.  After all you've dealt with already this is nothing.  Look at it as an opportunity!  Don't think I can't see how hard it's been for you, not having any friends your age.  You can't even imagine how much you'll grow from being here.  So relax!  Get settled, enjoy yourself.  OK?"

"OK, Bob.  I'll try.  Thanks."

"Not a problem."  Then he surprised me and kissed me on the forehead, which he'd almost never done.  I can't even tell you how much that meant to me at that nano – I couldn't even try.  Start with everything, and build from there.  "Now – you ready to go see Laser?"

"Yeah."  I hugged him, hard, and we picked up the stuff and moved off down the hall.  We didn't see any more kids – I guess most of them hadn't arrived yet, or they were in the dorms.  I just thought about everything Bob had said and tried to get myself to believe it.  It would have been a close call, but somehow he'd known how to get me where I needed to be, emotionally.  Maybe living with Dot had rubbed off on him