The Hollow Sprite
by Joshua Falken

Based on Paul Verhoeven and Douglas Wick's "Hollow Man" and H.G.Wells's "The Invisible Man"

Thanks to Sydney for the beta-reading and to Julia_Cat and BenRG for the revision. Thank you! :-)

Prologue

Two hours ago, a super-virus, known as Daemon, infected the Guardian Collective, which controlled the security of the entire Net. The control of security protocols and, by extension, of the data transmission protocols would give total power to her. Except for a small detail.

System Mainframe, the one thought to have been destroyed in an attempted elimination by a web-creature, was connected to the Net again, and with that, the intact Guardian protocol had come back on-line, through three other guardians that had been believed lost. Daemon sent some infected guardians to eliminate them, thinking that it was just a detail without much importance, even when they failed. How could just a system shake the control that she had on the others? That was Daemon's mistake.

System Mainframe originated a resistance movement, uniting with several others that were fighting against her and with every sprite and binome that had yet to be infected. Alone, they didn't have a ghost of a chance. Together, the free systems of the Net were a formidable force. The Anti-Virus Emergency Response Team (AVERT) was formed.

Now, the forces of Daemon, known as Echelon, and the AVERT were in a technical stalemate. Each one had half of the Net under its influence. From open war, it went to a tactics of mathematical war. Nobody attacked in a direct strike nor revealed the conditions of their own resources. Now, the attacks were on the communications and supplies lines among the systems, through sabotage and hacking. The development of cryptography codes and decoding techniques became a fundamental weapon. They were the only way to protect the communication lines against sabotage.

But both forces were forced to accept that the war was heading for an unavoidable draw. Although cryptography codes were increasingly developed, the protective codes of the Netships were approaching their limit of possible variations. Echelon and AVERT based those codes on the old MS-DOS/Neumann Equation, responsible for the hidden file force-field generation, the last possible protection for the intersystem transport.

Having in mind that that mathematical war would only reach the end with the development in a new way of generating a hidden file force-field, completely different from the MS-DOS/Neumann Equation, AVERT and Echelon pursued research in those areas. Whoever was the first to develop this new algorithm would win the war. Although it is not known as that Daemon's forces were pursuing their own research, AVERT thought they had discovered a breach.

In the Pentium Institute, in Mainframe A, Project Rainbow had at last reached its' final stage...

============

Chapter 1 - Quantum Alteration

In the soft light of the Main Room of the System Mainframe's Principal Office, now known as War Room, a sprite sighed after reading the last report. Command.Com and Commandant Dot Matrix didn't like anything that she had just scanned.

Dot jumped when she felt a hand on her left shoulder. It was Matrix. "Hey, what's going on, Sis?"

She sighed. "Daemon almost got to break the Transportation Line between the Systems of the Sub-Net 216." Dot stood up and walked in direction of the door.

He bit the lower lip to control his rage, while he followed his sister. That meant that Daemon had discovered a way to detect the AVERT Netships that made the connection between several systems... if she could do that, she had practically won the war.

"But did she stop the shipments of supplies?"

"No. Your idea of netship convoys worked very well." Dot said.

Matrix shrugged. "Well... all that time stuck in military strategy games was good for something."

Dot smiled sadly at Matrix, when she stopped and leaned against the wall of the corridor, her gloved hand on her forehead.

"Are you alright?!" Matrix asked, concerned.

"Yes... I'm fine. I just felt a bit dizzy, that's all."

"Dot, have you been sleeping lately? Or at least resting?" He asked suspiciously. He knew his sister very well.

"Just a little." She admitted.

"Sis, you have go sleep once in a while," Matrix warned, shaking his head. "I mean, I know that you are strong and that you have a lot of energy, but you doesn't have transfinite levels of energy, like Hex!"

Dot laughed.

"What's so funny?" He asked, surprised.

"I remembered how many times I had to give that speech to make you go to sleep!"

Matrix grumbled. She had made her point. "And Bob? When will he return?"

"Today. He finished the training of the volunteers in System Berkeley and Mouse finished the security firewall for the system."

System Berkeley was the newest ally of AVERT, and a task force was urgently needed to protect the system.

Dot and Matrix talked a little more, until the System Voice echoed: "Warning, Incoming Game! Warning, Incoming Game!"

"Defrag! I gotta go! And Dot... Rest a little, ok?" He asked his sister, before going to the game with a worried expression in his face.

=======

Some time then, Dot was back to the War Room, monitoring the progress of the game.

"And then?" She asked Sperck.

"They are already in the last level. The User is still in the third."

The Command.COM caught herself biting her thumbnail, a sure sign of nervousness. Knowing that it was a somewhat easy Game, and that AndrAIa and Matrix were, perhaps, the best game specialists that Mainframe could want, due to their "field training", did not matter. She only got to breathe again when the Game ended. A perfectly comprehensible fact, considering what had happened during the beginning of the War against Megabyte...

A Vidwindow opened up:

"Hi, Dot! How are you?" Bob smiled. The Port of Mainframe was behind him.

"Bob! You've arrived already?" His arrival was not expected for another two milliseconds.

"Mouse discovered a shortcut." He gave a grin of "You-know-how-Mouse-is". "Where are Matrix and AndrAIa?"

"Inside of a Game, like you could ima..."

"Game Over! Game Over!"

"I think they aren't there anymore." Bob answered.

She smiled. "I'm going there." she declared.

As soon as the door of the War Room closed, Dot began to feel dizzy. Some nanos later, the dizzy spell had passed.

======

Half cycle later, they were gathered in the Core Control Room, the safest place of Mainframe. Bob had already told them about the volunteers in System Berkeley, and now Mouse was telling them about the System's defense shields.

"...They are not exactly the latest version, but they will take care of the message."

"Thank you, Mouse. And about the protection of the transportation line?"

The hacker made a wry face. The protection was based on cryptography and hidden file force-field generation. The first part didn't have a problem, but the second one... "It was the best possible." She answered dryly.

Everybody knew that that was true. There were a finite number of possible variations for the MS-DOS/Neumann Equation, and Mouse had already used most of them. Worse, each newer version was more and more similar to the previous one, making them easier to crack by the other side's cryptoanalysts.

Dot closed up the meeting. Everybody stood up and went home. It was already the end of the cycle.

Dot sighed, revealing her fatigue. Bob kissed her on the neck and hugged her for a while, knowing the responsibility that she had on her shoulders. "Are you ready?" he asked at last.

"Yes."

======

Dot couldn't avoid looking around of the interior of her apartment. It was cosy, but at the same time, roomy apartment. Too roomy, she thought. It was the apartment where her family had lived before the Twin City Accident, and where she and Enzo had also lived after that. Now she lived alone there.

"Dot?" Bob asked, concerned.

"Huh? Oh, sorry! I was only thinking." She had a sip of hot java. "Did you have any news about your family?", she asked carefully.

Bob closed the eyes and leaned in the sofa, a tense expression in his face. "None. I hope they are OK, but I just don't know..."

She put her gloved hand on his shoulder, to reassure him. Since the beginning of the war, Bob had lost contact with his parents. Naturally, this was something that he found extremely preoccupying, as they were in the very front line. His father, David Challenger, was simulation controller in the Northridge-NSSL system and his mother, Veronica Overdrive, was a Top-Level Guardian. Although he has not received any firm information, he feared that his mother was now under Daemon's control.

"Well, if they really are just a tenth than you told me, Daemon will have serious problems."

He couldn't avoid a smile at that thought. "You're right." He said, looking at her.

They were silent for some time.

Dot looked at for the window. Everything outside was calm, silent. No one who saw that could suppose the danger that they were facing...

"And how is Phong?" Bob asked. "In your message, you said that he had left the ICU."

"He is better now, but he still needs special care."

Although his mind was as sharp as always, Phong began to show the signs of ageing. His vision grew progressively, and he had suffered a core.sys attack. Now he was interned in Mainframe General Hospital, recovering from an energy line bypass surgery.

"I understand." Bob stood up. "I think I have to go now." He said, a little embarrassed.

Dot was silent for a nanosecond. "Well, it's still early." She finally replied.

It was not. And both knew about that. Their feelings demanded that they spend their downtime together, but prudence demanded otherwise. "Well, what about a good-night kiss?" Bob asked, to try ease the tension in the atmosphere a little.

She agreed. In the moment that their lips touched... well, let's say that prudence was shifted firmly to an inactive directory.

=======

"Incoming Message! Incoming Message!"

The sound of the vidwindow, transmitted by the plug in her right ear, woke up Dot. Sleepily, she noticed that she was still spooned around Bob's back. She looked at the clock on her bedside table. "5,034UT!" she thought, "Who would call at this millisecond of the morning?"

With some reluctance, she released her boyfriend from the hug, and got out of the bed. "This had better be really important!" she thought, a little surprised at the intensity of her irritation.

The message just consisted of one line: "Project Rainbow successful. Experiment with high energy sprite today. Dr. Iridium is the volunteer."

Her chin fell and she read the message again.

Yes, the message continued to say the same thing.

In a fraction of a nanosecond, she shook Bob to wake him up. "Bob! Wake up!"

"What?" He asked, still sleepy.

"They got the new equation."

When he heard that, he become completely awake, with a surprised expression in his face. "But I thought..."

"That they were still in the theory stage." Dot completed. "Yes, I thought that too. But it seems that they must have had a quantum leap sometime in the last few minutes."

Quickly, both they got ready to go to the Principal Office. Dot stopped in the door of the bedroom, her face showing a little uncertainty.

"What is it, beautiful?" Bob asked, concerned.

There was a pause before Dot replied. "Wouldn't it be better we went separately? Just in the case?"

A longer pause. "You are right. I'll find you there."

Bob gave her a fast kiss on the cheek and teleported himself away. As soon as the light of the process disappeared, Dot shook her head. "Can my life be any more pathetic?" she asked the empty air before leaving in the direction of the Principal Office.

======

Dot and Bob arrived at the reception room of the Pentium Institute, where a green-skinned, black-haired sprite awaited them. He wore a white lab coat and a red tie. He scratched his moustache, nervously.

"Hi Dot. Hello Bob."

"Hi Dr. Matrix."

"Hi Dad. Can we go to your office?"

Later, they were in the office of Dr. Welman Matrix, director of the Institute. It was a small, but functional office. The messy table showed that Dot had inherited from her mother her organisational skills.

"Your message was serious? Your people really have developed a new hidden file force-field equation?"

"Well... yes."

"You don't seem very sure." Bob commented.

"Well, the fact is that Project Rainbow is considered top secret, therefore my knowledge is based purely on what Dr. Cisco and Dr. Iridium told me about it. They think they have a definitive solution, but..." He stopped, seeming a little unsure.

"But?..."

Dr. Matrix decided to continue. "Well, it is just a feeling. When a project suddenly accelerates to a conclusion in this way, there are usually problems. It is true that the tests with inert data and with a lieutenant binome who had presented himself as volunteer didn't indicate any collateral effects. However, even so, I believe that they are going too fast!"

======

"Even so, I believe that they are going too fast!" Dot recalled her father's words, as she listened to Dr. Cisco, a one binome, 60 hours old more or less. He described the basics of the invisibility process, but he was deliberately evasive about the details of the same.

"As you can see, the data does not show any collateral effects due to the hidden file field generation..."

Dot's attention wandered to the center of the laboratory, where they prepared for the test with a high energy sprite. Dr. Hewlett Iridium was doing a last check in the instruments. She was one of the best mathematicians in AVERT, but Dot thought the doctor was ambitious; determined to be the one who did the impossible and found the new equation. Dot had worried that her ambition would ultimately doom the project. However her fears did not seem to have been realised.

"Attention. Test Rainbow-beta in final stage of preparation." One of the assistants announced.

"Do you want to observe the test?" Cisco asked.

"Yes."

Moments later, everything was ready. Hewlett was standing up, in the center of a platform, between two enormous quantum variation field generators. At that same moment, in the Port of Mainframe, a Netship was being prepared in a covered dock for a field test of the new equation. The countdown had begun.

"Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Activation!"

The generators began to emit neon blue force lines around the volunteer and the generators themselves. Hewlett seemed to be going through the reboot procedure several times.

"Vital systems nominal." She informed

The force lines became weaker and Hewlett began to disappear. The assistants pointed for the platform, excited. The medical monitors didn't show any alteration in the performance of her vital systems.

"Great!" Cisco exclaimed. They had done it! There it was the final evidence!

In that moment of triumph, an alarm began to sound. "What?"

"Wait!" Hewlett yelled. "Something is wrong!" She lost the strength in her legs and fell.

"Turn off the field generator!"

At that moment, a silver stream of energy flashed out from the center of the platform, deleting Dr. Hewlett Iridium in a nano. The energy began to be thrown out in streams to every side, deleting some of the lab assistants. The others ran to protect themselves.

A stream flashed out in the direction of Cisco. Dot leaped, in a reflex action, knocking him from the path of the stream. The energy struck a column and burnt through it in a picosecond. A part of the roof, which the column had supported, collapsed upon Dot.

======

Matrix ran as fast as he could through the corridor in direction of the test site of the Project Rainbow. He found Bob and Dr. Matrix trying to force their way into the lab.

"What happened?!" He yelled, alarmed.

"Something went wrong with the test!"

"And Dot?!"

"She is still inside!"

Although the small window of the door, he saw the streams of energy emitted by the doomed experiment.

"Bob, why you didn't teleport yourself to get Dot of there?!" Matrix asked, yelling.

Bob answered, punching the door in frustrated fury. "The laboratory is protected by a Faraday's Cage! I can't teleport inside there!"

"Spam!... Alright. On the three, we knock down the door! One. Two. THREE!"

Even the combined force of Matrix and Bob was not enough to open the reinforced door. Matrix looked at the window of the door.

"Spam! They have a lot of junk blocking the door!" Then he noticed where his sister was. "BOB! DOT IS STUCK UNDER A GIRDER!" More and more of the streams of silver energy were flashing dangerously close to the unconscious sprite.

"HEY!" Dr. Matrix screamed behind of them, carrying a solid high pressure tube pipe with difficulty. "We'll use this as battering ram!"

Then they heard Dot scream. "Ok. Ready? One. Two. THREE!"

======

Dot had just dragged herself from under the girder when the one of the uncontrolled quantum variation streams struck her a glancing blow across the chest. She felt every single bit of data making up her being subtly shift and alter to a new configuration. The transformation was more painful than anything she had ever experienced. Her limbs locked solid and she screamed as loudly as she could.

She vaguely noticed Bob, Matrix and her father enter the room, their faces showing total despair. Immediately, Bob created a shield against the streams while Matrix removed pulled her to safety and her father desperately tried to examine her.

Within a few nanoseconds, the emergency teams arrived to tend to the other beings injured in the accident. As Matrix hovered over the unconscious Dot, her father tried to tell if she had been seriously corrupted by the accident. It didn't look good, her limbs were trembling as if her neural pathways had been disrupted. Bob was suffering a lot of strain, trying to hold back the hurricane of energy within the room. Then, as suddenly as it began, the silver streams of energy vanished.

And Bob didn't wait for one moment. He ran in direction of the emergency medical department, where he knew they would take Dot.

He arrived just as they were moving Dot from the stretcher to the examination table. Her limbs were still writhing and she had recovered enough consciousness to be whimpering in pain. "You will be OK, Dot." Dr. Matrix said as he examined her, praying that this would be true.

Then... it happened.

A light halo passed through her body, as if she had rebooted. Then her skin texture began to disappear, as it was being melted down. The flowing energy currents that made up the interior of a sprite were suddenly visible, as was the endoframe data, the skeletal equivalent in a sprite. Dot saw this and screamed in utter panic.

The skin texture of her face began to disappear, revealing blue eyes filled with terror and pain. In the chest, the core.sys could be seen, palpitating out of control. The energy lines of the body were visible, disappearing soon after. After a few picoseconds, the energy currents, core.sys and even the eyes faded from view, leaving nothing but the outer wireframe and the internal endoframe.

Dot screamed as if a million energised needles were being shoved into every sensory ending in her body.

Then, just the wireframe was visible, and then, nothing.

Dot's scream stopped with the suddenness of an electric light being switched off.

The only thing that they saw was the padding of the stretcher, deformed by the form of a sprite's unconscious body.

What do you think? Read and Review!

Chapter 2 coming soon...