Welcome to Mainframe by SpelCastrMax
Author's Note: Got ya! There is no author's note! Ha!
LAST WEEK ON REBOOT: A young Cadet known as Bob arrived in a small system where disaster had struck. In this city, Mainframe, the sprite meets a brother and sister who rise above the recent tragedy to win a game. Along with this interesting pair and their overprotective puppy, Bob crosses paths with a imposing British virus who calls himself Megabyte. Despite his request to stay and help Mainframe, Bob's classmate Zero is posted there instead. And now, on with the show...
Chapter 2: Second Visit (In Which Bob Is Formally Introduced To Hex)
"Of all the basic, no good..." Bob sat in his dorm grumbling, "They actually think Zero is qualified for this sort of thing! I can't believe Turbo turned me down."
"Get over it," Carden told him, "You're a cadet with weird ideas. You might as well ask the User why games. Why not just let odd looking killer bugs loose in the system." He thought about what he had said, "Never mind, we already have those."
Bob growled and decided to ignore his play by rules roomy.
Carden started to chuckle as he set the vid window alarm clock.
"What?" 452 asked as he closed the read me file he'd been pretending to study.
"You," his roommate replied, still laughing under his breath, "'I need to stay'. Oh brother!"
"Carden, those people need help," Bob defensively responded, "You know they've been using an ancient erase command to win games."
"And the fact that one of Mainframe's chief citizens is a babe has nothing to do with it?" he asked suspiciously.
Bob tried not to smile. "C'mon, she's not even my type."
"Then why didn't you tell her the truth. You're not a Guardain, not until you pass your finals." Bob didn't reply. Carden went on, "Don't get me wrong. I would have lied too." He picked up a rubber ball off the desk and tossed it directly at Bob. "To sum up what I'm trying to tell you I repeat my earlier phrase." He stood up and firmly stated with a teasing expression, "Get over it. She probably wouldn't date you anyway."
Bob threw the ball back at his roommate with another growl. Carden just let out another laugh.
*************
The cadets all hung out in a nearby bar where they'd fill up on energy shakes while they studied game techniques and the best ways to approach a tear.
Bob entered carrying an envelope he'd picked up from his mailbox before heading to the bar. He sat down with a group of sprites who greeted him cheerfully.
"What's that?" Molly, who was youngest of the group, questioned.
He overlooked the envelope. "Don't know." He opened it and a hologram of little Enzo appeared.
The young sprite spoke in tone that sounded rehearsed. "Dear Mr. Bob. This is Enzo Matrix." He paused when a bark sounded from the background. "And Frisket. We were just wondering when you were coming back. This other guy is a real..." His voice lowered to a whisper, "Dipswitch." He went back to his normal volume. "Dot can't stand him. He won't even let her go into games. I know you'd be a better Guardian. I'm going to be 01 soon, you could come for my birthday." He paused and with a little gasp he finished quickly. "Uh oh, Zero's coming. Bye Bob."
The message closed and Bob couldn't help smiling. His friends had all been taking his "obsession" with Mainframe as a joke, but for once they didn't tease or snicker. Carden gave him a pat on the back and they all went back to studying.
The blue cadet stared down at his keytool and wondered about what Dixon would have said if she were there. "What am I saying?" Bob thought, "I know exactly what she would've said. 'Listen cadet, you better use your energy for finals because there is no way Turbo would send you to Mainframe. By the way, I agree with Carden. If she's smart she won't date you. Now get to work before all the stuff you do know leaks out of that hole in your head.'" Although he considered Dixon his friend, she had never been one for inspiring confidence.
A click from Glitch brought Bob out of his thought and he realized that Molly was waving an energy shake in front of his face. "This goes in your mouth, Bob," she said with a laugh, "Just thought I'd let you know."
*************
Finals were approaching swiftly. With them was Bob's hope that if he scored high enough the Guardians would rethink their decision about him and Mainframe. They knew he was in steady contact with Enzo, who constantly wrote about how Dot was going to delete Zero next chance she had. Zero never did much in the system and binomes were being infected by Megabyte by the dozen. Most of the data sprites who had survived the accident had left the city to find out what was in these other systems they were suddenly hearing about.
Bob couldn't concentrate the closer time came to his test. He sat in a scanner room, trying to keep his eyes on the nearby readme file. Suddenly, Glitch began chattering as Zero entered the room out of breath.
"Mainframe really drains the energy," he complained sitting down across from Bob, "Especially that Matrix kid. He never shuts that input of his. And his sister is worse. I swear she has a hand in everything in that city. You have no idea how lucky you are, Bob."
Bob tried to restrain his brown eyes from glaring at Zero. The two had compiled up across the street from each other, so their "friendly" rivalry was nothing new. "You just love that you got the post I want."
Zero rolled his eyes. "You're pathetic, you know that 452. You're just upset that you can't go to Mainframe and check up on all your new buddies."
"Who says I can't go there?" Bob questioned leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest.
"It's a rule," Zero argued, "No cadet can leave the Academy grounds this close to finals...unless they have permission from Turbo." A vid window announcement interrupted him to report another problem in Mainframe that needed Zero's attention. "Oh, the kid probably swallowed a magnet or something," the cadet grumbled and glanced at Bob, "You like them, right? Why don't you go?"
"Oh yeah, I go and you tell Turbo," Bob scoffed.
Zero rolled his again. "I'm serious. I really don't want to go and if I told Turbo that he'd kick my ASCII." A portal to Mainframe opened and Bob stood in front of it suspiciously. Before he could answer, Zero had pushed him through.
Bob frowned at the way he had just come and almost thought about jumping through again to push Zero back. His final decision was "as long as I'm in Mainframe..." He was in the Principal Office. It was amazing the differences between this place and the Super Computer. It was so much slower and laid back. Even if he ever did manage to have a post in Mainframe, he didn't think he could ever call it home.
An excited voice shouted, "Bob!" The cadet turned just as a young green sprite bowled him over. Enzo sat on his chest and began to rattle on a mile a minute. "Hey Bob, you came back just like you promised! Are you our new Guardian? No more Zero! Wait until Dot hears. She's sick of all the useless busy work he's been giving her. It makes her swear a lot, which she thinks I don't hear. You know she didn't believe you'd come back." He took a deep breath and called over he shoulder, "Dot!"
Bob tried to sit up, only the little sprite on top of him made this difficult. Glancing up, he saw that Enzo was older with a sideways cap instead of his beanie and a baseball shirt decorated with his age- 01.
Dot's voice yelled, "Enzo, who have you trampled now?"
"It's Bob. Dot, he's here!" Enzo exclaimed as he climbed off the cadet.
His sister scoffed. "Right Enzo. Is this like the time you saw Megabyte under your bed?" She came out from a door and saw Bob groan as he picked himself up off the floor.
Bob came face to face with Ms. Matrix who held out a hand to help him stand the rest of the way. She was different also. Her hair was no longer streaked rainbow colors. It was black, still in her face, but now he had a better view of her violet eyes. The pink dress was replaced by a sensible red pant outfit. Okay, so Bob wasn't there just to see Dot, but the fact that she was there didn't hurt.
"You okay?" she asked, "You've got to look out for Enzo."
"Thanks for the warning," he replied sarcastically, then cleared his throat to get down to business, "I was told there was a distress call. Zero sent me in his place for the moment. What's the problem?"
"No one sent out a distress call that I know of. If there's a problem we usually prefer it if Zero isn't around," Dot confided.
Bob grinned. "I know how you feel. For me, most of the time Zero is the problem."
The two sprites laughed a little, until their concentration was cut off by a purple null sliding through the room and into a door.
"Hexadecimal," Dot moaned. Bob stared at her with confusion. "The other virus. She has this power to control nulls and well...C'mon."
They followed the purple null, all the while Enzo went into stories about how nuts Hex was. " She made her home at Lost Angels, which is an island that used to be the twin city. She's really crazy, Bob. Once she used a program to type on everyone's clothes."
Dot added, "We were all wandering around with pieces of the great viral novel on our shirts. It took a lot of talk for her undo it."
The journey ended in a large white room where dozens of nulls covered the floor. An old, distressed voice came from overhead, "Excuse me, my children, but HELP." Phong was suspended from a light fixture in order to be away from the energy draining creatures.
Bob pointed his arm towards the ceiling. "Glitch Power line." A wire shot from the keytool and wrapped around the chandelier so Phong could slid down.
"Thank you, my son," Phong said with a bow of his yellow head, "Now may I suggest that we run." He almost shouted the last word before dashing from the room. The others were close behind, slamming the door shut before they were overtaken by a sea of nulls.
"That was close," Bob muttered with relief.
"Finally, one of you Guardians admits he was scared," Dot said with a smirk.
"Scared? I never said I was..." He rubbed the back of his neck and noticed a silvery object laying at their feet. He leaned down to retrieve it and no sooner had he touched it than he was being shot into the sky towards Lost Angles.
Yelling for help, Bob began to fall right into a hole in the ground. Landing on a floating platform in a round room, he realized that the only light source was a hovering spotlight that cast everything in shadows. It reminded him of a room he had seen at the Mainframe Principal Office only very purple. A chair with a twisted back almost like some kind of demented throne sat in the center beside a glided mirror.
Bob commented aloud, "Nice place. Cheerful."
"I'm so glad you like it," screeched a voice. From the ceiling came a slender female virus with a white face. She wore a huge smile as she reach for Bob. "Shall we dance?"
"Whoa!" he gasped jumping out of her reach, "Shouldn't we...um...introduce ourselves first."
The long hand passed over her face and the expression changed to a thoughtful one. "I suppose." Her hand moved again and the mask returned to a smile. "I'm Hexadecimal, the Queen of Chaos."
"Uh...I'm Bob," he stated, trying to keep his cool.
"I know!" she beamed, then the her mask became an angry frown. "Skuzzy!" she screamed.
Her smile returned when a round creature zipped in. He drifted in front of Bob and wagged his tail as an image of the recent past was revealed in the stone on his head and body.
First was Bob introducing himself to Dot. "I'm a cad...I mean, I'm a Guardian. I come from the Net."
The image changed to a time shortly after he had left. Enzo was still a toddler who had jumped off a park bench and into his sister's arms. "Dot? When do you think Bob's coming back?"
She sighed. "We've been over this. He's not. He's probably off doing...whatever it is that Guardians do and forgotten all about us. Besides, we don't need two of them. Zero is bad enough."
Enzo began to whine. "But he's not like Zero, Sis, and he says he wishes he could be here, but he has finals and..."
"Enzo, when did he say that?" she cut in with a laugh, thinking her brother was making up stories.
"In his last message," he told her simply.
Dot's mouth fell open. After shaking away her shock, Zero called, "Ms. Matrix, what are you doing playing in the park? Where are those chips?"
Dot growled, "Get them yourself, you low density son of a null."
The image faded. Hex's infectious smile repeated, "Shall we dance? We know each other so intimately now."
"Well, I really should be going," Bob replied.
Hex's face turned to a menacing, sharp toothed shout. "DANCE!"
In a panic, Bob shouted, "Glitch anything!" The keytool became a chopper which flew him out of Lost Angles, way from Hexadecimal's angry screams.
__________________
THERE'S MORE TO COME FOLKS SO STAY RIGHT THEREHEY! WHERE ARE YOU GOING? HMM...MAYBE I SHOULD JUST ADD SOME SMUT AND EXPLOSIONS TO THIS. IT SEEMS TO HELP VIN DIESEL ATTRACT AN AUDIENCE. JAMES BOND HAS BEEN USING THAT BOX OFFICE PLOY FOR YEARS AND HE'S UP TO HIS BILLIONTH MOVIE. OH, WAIT. IF I DID THAT I'D HAVE TO CHANGE THE RATING AND I'M TOO LAZY TO DO THAT. FORGET IT.
Author's Note: Got ya! There is no author's note! Ha!
LAST WEEK ON REBOOT: A young Cadet known as Bob arrived in a small system where disaster had struck. In this city, Mainframe, the sprite meets a brother and sister who rise above the recent tragedy to win a game. Along with this interesting pair and their overprotective puppy, Bob crosses paths with a imposing British virus who calls himself Megabyte. Despite his request to stay and help Mainframe, Bob's classmate Zero is posted there instead. And now, on with the show...
Chapter 2: Second Visit (In Which Bob Is Formally Introduced To Hex)
"Of all the basic, no good..." Bob sat in his dorm grumbling, "They actually think Zero is qualified for this sort of thing! I can't believe Turbo turned me down."
"Get over it," Carden told him, "You're a cadet with weird ideas. You might as well ask the User why games. Why not just let odd looking killer bugs loose in the system." He thought about what he had said, "Never mind, we already have those."
Bob growled and decided to ignore his play by rules roomy.
Carden started to chuckle as he set the vid window alarm clock.
"What?" 452 asked as he closed the read me file he'd been pretending to study.
"You," his roommate replied, still laughing under his breath, "'I need to stay'. Oh brother!"
"Carden, those people need help," Bob defensively responded, "You know they've been using an ancient erase command to win games."
"And the fact that one of Mainframe's chief citizens is a babe has nothing to do with it?" he asked suspiciously.
Bob tried not to smile. "C'mon, she's not even my type."
"Then why didn't you tell her the truth. You're not a Guardain, not until you pass your finals." Bob didn't reply. Carden went on, "Don't get me wrong. I would have lied too." He picked up a rubber ball off the desk and tossed it directly at Bob. "To sum up what I'm trying to tell you I repeat my earlier phrase." He stood up and firmly stated with a teasing expression, "Get over it. She probably wouldn't date you anyway."
Bob threw the ball back at his roommate with another growl. Carden just let out another laugh.
*************
The cadets all hung out in a nearby bar where they'd fill up on energy shakes while they studied game techniques and the best ways to approach a tear.
Bob entered carrying an envelope he'd picked up from his mailbox before heading to the bar. He sat down with a group of sprites who greeted him cheerfully.
"What's that?" Molly, who was youngest of the group, questioned.
He overlooked the envelope. "Don't know." He opened it and a hologram of little Enzo appeared.
The young sprite spoke in tone that sounded rehearsed. "Dear Mr. Bob. This is Enzo Matrix." He paused when a bark sounded from the background. "And Frisket. We were just wondering when you were coming back. This other guy is a real..." His voice lowered to a whisper, "Dipswitch." He went back to his normal volume. "Dot can't stand him. He won't even let her go into games. I know you'd be a better Guardian. I'm going to be 01 soon, you could come for my birthday." He paused and with a little gasp he finished quickly. "Uh oh, Zero's coming. Bye Bob."
The message closed and Bob couldn't help smiling. His friends had all been taking his "obsession" with Mainframe as a joke, but for once they didn't tease or snicker. Carden gave him a pat on the back and they all went back to studying.
The blue cadet stared down at his keytool and wondered about what Dixon would have said if she were there. "What am I saying?" Bob thought, "I know exactly what she would've said. 'Listen cadet, you better use your energy for finals because there is no way Turbo would send you to Mainframe. By the way, I agree with Carden. If she's smart she won't date you. Now get to work before all the stuff you do know leaks out of that hole in your head.'" Although he considered Dixon his friend, she had never been one for inspiring confidence.
A click from Glitch brought Bob out of his thought and he realized that Molly was waving an energy shake in front of his face. "This goes in your mouth, Bob," she said with a laugh, "Just thought I'd let you know."
*************
Finals were approaching swiftly. With them was Bob's hope that if he scored high enough the Guardians would rethink their decision about him and Mainframe. They knew he was in steady contact with Enzo, who constantly wrote about how Dot was going to delete Zero next chance she had. Zero never did much in the system and binomes were being infected by Megabyte by the dozen. Most of the data sprites who had survived the accident had left the city to find out what was in these other systems they were suddenly hearing about.
Bob couldn't concentrate the closer time came to his test. He sat in a scanner room, trying to keep his eyes on the nearby readme file. Suddenly, Glitch began chattering as Zero entered the room out of breath.
"Mainframe really drains the energy," he complained sitting down across from Bob, "Especially that Matrix kid. He never shuts that input of his. And his sister is worse. I swear she has a hand in everything in that city. You have no idea how lucky you are, Bob."
Bob tried to restrain his brown eyes from glaring at Zero. The two had compiled up across the street from each other, so their "friendly" rivalry was nothing new. "You just love that you got the post I want."
Zero rolled his eyes. "You're pathetic, you know that 452. You're just upset that you can't go to Mainframe and check up on all your new buddies."
"Who says I can't go there?" Bob questioned leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest.
"It's a rule," Zero argued, "No cadet can leave the Academy grounds this close to finals...unless they have permission from Turbo." A vid window announcement interrupted him to report another problem in Mainframe that needed Zero's attention. "Oh, the kid probably swallowed a magnet or something," the cadet grumbled and glanced at Bob, "You like them, right? Why don't you go?"
"Oh yeah, I go and you tell Turbo," Bob scoffed.
Zero rolled his again. "I'm serious. I really don't want to go and if I told Turbo that he'd kick my ASCII." A portal to Mainframe opened and Bob stood in front of it suspiciously. Before he could answer, Zero had pushed him through.
Bob frowned at the way he had just come and almost thought about jumping through again to push Zero back. His final decision was "as long as I'm in Mainframe..." He was in the Principal Office. It was amazing the differences between this place and the Super Computer. It was so much slower and laid back. Even if he ever did manage to have a post in Mainframe, he didn't think he could ever call it home.
An excited voice shouted, "Bob!" The cadet turned just as a young green sprite bowled him over. Enzo sat on his chest and began to rattle on a mile a minute. "Hey Bob, you came back just like you promised! Are you our new Guardian? No more Zero! Wait until Dot hears. She's sick of all the useless busy work he's been giving her. It makes her swear a lot, which she thinks I don't hear. You know she didn't believe you'd come back." He took a deep breath and called over he shoulder, "Dot!"
Bob tried to sit up, only the little sprite on top of him made this difficult. Glancing up, he saw that Enzo was older with a sideways cap instead of his beanie and a baseball shirt decorated with his age- 01.
Dot's voice yelled, "Enzo, who have you trampled now?"
"It's Bob. Dot, he's here!" Enzo exclaimed as he climbed off the cadet.
His sister scoffed. "Right Enzo. Is this like the time you saw Megabyte under your bed?" She came out from a door and saw Bob groan as he picked himself up off the floor.
Bob came face to face with Ms. Matrix who held out a hand to help him stand the rest of the way. She was different also. Her hair was no longer streaked rainbow colors. It was black, still in her face, but now he had a better view of her violet eyes. The pink dress was replaced by a sensible red pant outfit. Okay, so Bob wasn't there just to see Dot, but the fact that she was there didn't hurt.
"You okay?" she asked, "You've got to look out for Enzo."
"Thanks for the warning," he replied sarcastically, then cleared his throat to get down to business, "I was told there was a distress call. Zero sent me in his place for the moment. What's the problem?"
"No one sent out a distress call that I know of. If there's a problem we usually prefer it if Zero isn't around," Dot confided.
Bob grinned. "I know how you feel. For me, most of the time Zero is the problem."
The two sprites laughed a little, until their concentration was cut off by a purple null sliding through the room and into a door.
"Hexadecimal," Dot moaned. Bob stared at her with confusion. "The other virus. She has this power to control nulls and well...C'mon."
They followed the purple null, all the while Enzo went into stories about how nuts Hex was. " She made her home at Lost Angels, which is an island that used to be the twin city. She's really crazy, Bob. Once she used a program to type on everyone's clothes."
Dot added, "We were all wandering around with pieces of the great viral novel on our shirts. It took a lot of talk for her undo it."
The journey ended in a large white room where dozens of nulls covered the floor. An old, distressed voice came from overhead, "Excuse me, my children, but HELP." Phong was suspended from a light fixture in order to be away from the energy draining creatures.
Bob pointed his arm towards the ceiling. "Glitch Power line." A wire shot from the keytool and wrapped around the chandelier so Phong could slid down.
"Thank you, my son," Phong said with a bow of his yellow head, "Now may I suggest that we run." He almost shouted the last word before dashing from the room. The others were close behind, slamming the door shut before they were overtaken by a sea of nulls.
"That was close," Bob muttered with relief.
"Finally, one of you Guardians admits he was scared," Dot said with a smirk.
"Scared? I never said I was..." He rubbed the back of his neck and noticed a silvery object laying at their feet. He leaned down to retrieve it and no sooner had he touched it than he was being shot into the sky towards Lost Angles.
Yelling for help, Bob began to fall right into a hole in the ground. Landing on a floating platform in a round room, he realized that the only light source was a hovering spotlight that cast everything in shadows. It reminded him of a room he had seen at the Mainframe Principal Office only very purple. A chair with a twisted back almost like some kind of demented throne sat in the center beside a glided mirror.
Bob commented aloud, "Nice place. Cheerful."
"I'm so glad you like it," screeched a voice. From the ceiling came a slender female virus with a white face. She wore a huge smile as she reach for Bob. "Shall we dance?"
"Whoa!" he gasped jumping out of her reach, "Shouldn't we...um...introduce ourselves first."
The long hand passed over her face and the expression changed to a thoughtful one. "I suppose." Her hand moved again and the mask returned to a smile. "I'm Hexadecimal, the Queen of Chaos."
"Uh...I'm Bob," he stated, trying to keep his cool.
"I know!" she beamed, then the her mask became an angry frown. "Skuzzy!" she screamed.
Her smile returned when a round creature zipped in. He drifted in front of Bob and wagged his tail as an image of the recent past was revealed in the stone on his head and body.
First was Bob introducing himself to Dot. "I'm a cad...I mean, I'm a Guardian. I come from the Net."
The image changed to a time shortly after he had left. Enzo was still a toddler who had jumped off a park bench and into his sister's arms. "Dot? When do you think Bob's coming back?"
She sighed. "We've been over this. He's not. He's probably off doing...whatever it is that Guardians do and forgotten all about us. Besides, we don't need two of them. Zero is bad enough."
Enzo began to whine. "But he's not like Zero, Sis, and he says he wishes he could be here, but he has finals and..."
"Enzo, when did he say that?" she cut in with a laugh, thinking her brother was making up stories.
"In his last message," he told her simply.
Dot's mouth fell open. After shaking away her shock, Zero called, "Ms. Matrix, what are you doing playing in the park? Where are those chips?"
Dot growled, "Get them yourself, you low density son of a null."
The image faded. Hex's infectious smile repeated, "Shall we dance? We know each other so intimately now."
"Well, I really should be going," Bob replied.
Hex's face turned to a menacing, sharp toothed shout. "DANCE!"
In a panic, Bob shouted, "Glitch anything!" The keytool became a chopper which flew him out of Lost Angles, way from Hexadecimal's angry screams.
__________________
THERE'S MORE TO COME FOLKS SO STAY RIGHT THEREHEY! WHERE ARE YOU GOING? HMM...MAYBE I SHOULD JUST ADD SOME SMUT AND EXPLOSIONS TO THIS. IT SEEMS TO HELP VIN DIESEL ATTRACT AN AUDIENCE. JAMES BOND HAS BEEN USING THAT BOX OFFICE PLOY FOR YEARS AND HE'S UP TO HIS BILLIONTH MOVIE. OH, WAIT. IF I DID THAT I'D HAVE TO CHANGE THE RATING AND I'M TOO LAZY TO DO THAT. FORGET IT.
