The Hollow
Sprite
by Joshua Falken
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! :-)
Chapter 3 - Hostage Situation
The dark interior of the apartment was lit all of a sudden when a portal opened in the middle of the living room. Dot, Bob and Enzo emerged from it. Dot sighed, relieved at leaving that hospital.
"Home, sweet home." Bob said, smiling. Dot and Enzo just looked at him, and he shrugged.
"Enzo, you can leave your things in your old room." She said, removing her helmet.
He looked at her, a little worried. He could not avoid remembering the story of the Headless Horseman, when he didn't see her head over her shoulders and saw the helmet under her arm.
Bob heard Dot snickering. "It's a little strange," she exclaimed, "the change in roles: Enzo taking care of me!"
Before leaving the hospital, it had been decided that someone would watch her to guarantee that she wouldn't suffer any delayed side-effects. After all, just because the medical exams indicated that she was OK now, it didn't mean that she could not develop some symptom later. Enzo was the chosen one for the function. When somebody suggested that Hack and Slash could make the service, Matrix commented, sarcastically, "In that case wouldn't it be easier call the Data-Times, or better, the Tattler, and to announce that Dot is invisible? Because it is what will happen if those two watch her. They would not keep a secret, even if their lives depended on it!"
"Hey! Do you want something?" Enzo asked, from the kitchen.
"You don't waste time, do you?" Dot commented, opening the leather jacket. "Just a cup of java. And you, Bob?"
"No, thank you."
"Black?" Her brother asked.
"Yes, please."
When Dot had a sip, they saw the java go down her transparent throat, and disappear in the area of the core.sys.
"What?" She asked.
"Nothing at all."
Later, Dot was alone in her office in the apartment, checking if any urgent work for Mainframe's maintenance or an AVERT requisition had been put back. It was true that she was only absent for five cycles, and that her friends had checked twice each routine that ran in the city, but Dot was too much an experienced administrator to forget that it was exactly in situations like this that the Murphy's Law attacked...
She checked the messages for her. She blinked: "Thirty five messages?!"
She pressed the play button of the organiser.
"Hello, Miss Matrix." Said the masculine voice, in a calm and professional tone. "This is Howard Copernic, from Mainframe Data-Times. I would like to know if you are available to speak about the time that you stayed interned..."
Fast Forward.
"Miss Matrix, here is the CGI Special Agent Dana Nully. I would like you come to the CGI Office as soon as possible, to testify in the inquiry that is happening about the accident in the Pentium Institute..."
Stop.
"CGI?!" She murmured, surprised. But why in the Net would the CGI investigate... Then she remembered. By her own decision, any accident in that there that had the suspicion of sabotage would have an independent investigation, by the CGI. And the accident in the Project Rainbow was a good candidate in the category, due to its connection with the AVERT defense efforts.
She sighed and shook her head.
Play.
"Miss Matrix, this is Roger Pagemaker, from the Tattler." The reporter had an ironic tone in his voice. "I would like your comments on a article that we are doing on an explosion that happened at the Pentium Institute due to sabotage..."
Stop. Fast Forward.
Another message of Data-Times.
Plus two messages of Tattler.
Plus twenty-nine messages to hear.
======
Dot was sleeping in the bed, exhausted. During seven cycles her routine had been divided between meetings in the Principal Office about the War against Echelon and about the maintenance of Mainframe, escapes from Mainframe Data-Times and Mainframe Tattler's attempts at interviews, and medical exams to determine if she was well. She felt sometimes that they had removed enough energy-blood to make her anaemic for the rest of her life (not that anybody would notice in the condition in that she was now). In the third cycle, a test done made her fell so ill that she vomited for half a millisecond. Also, there is the fact that she didn't get to sleep: the light passed through the eyelids. She only got to rest now because her body didn't bear it anymore... She felt and was in the limit.
"Warning, Incoming Call! Warning, Incoming Call!"
The warning came from the living room. She looked at for the clock: 2,075UT.
Who would, in healthy conscience, call in that millisecond?!?!
Murmuring some curses, Dot got up and went answer the call. In the way, she bumped her invisible hand on a vase, that shattered in the fall, and she tripped twice. The combination of invisibility and tiredness completely destroyed her movement co-ordination.
She activated the function "Audio Only".
"Who are you?" She asked, tired and upset.
"Hello Miss Matrix, here is Roger Pagemaker, from Tattler, do you remember me?"
Dot remained silent for an instant, incredulous. Then she spoke with an extremely controlled voice:
"Mr. Pagemaker, do you had idea what time is it?!"
"Excuse me, but it was very difficult to contact you. Your friends have built a wall around you. Why?" He asked ironically, as if he knew there was some story there.
"Mr. Pagemaker, I don't know about you, but I am too tired right now to even think coherently. Besides having gone through a very bad experience, therefore excuse me if I don't have time to answer your impertinent questions."
"Well, you can't say that we didn't give you a chance to speak!" He exclaimed, before she turned it off. She was seething with anger.
Enzo, who had just woken up due to discussion, saw his sister's nightgown floating in the middle of the living room. He approached her carefully, and he touched in the area where her right shoulder should be, at an arm's distance.
"Are you OK?"
"NO! I AM NOT OK! I AM TIRED OF EVERYBODY ASKING IF I AM FINE! I AM TIRED OF BREAKING THINGS BECAUSE I DON"T GET SEE MYSELF IN THE MIRROR! I AM TIRED OF HIDING AS... AS AN ABERATION!"
Enzo gave a step back, for pure reflex. He was terrified by his sister's outburst, her really furious voice coming from a distance of some centimetres from his face. He tripped on the rug, falling over his bitmap. He never saw his sister that furious: that was fury at the highest level. His eyes showed the terror that he felt in a very clear way.
For a moment, they just looked at each other. Jaggies passed through Enzo's spine like thunderbolts.
Then, he heard his sister say: "Enzo... I... I'm sorry. I didn't want..." The tone of her voice was at the same time shocked with her own reaction, and deeply embarrassed by what she had just done.
Enzo swallowed dryly, before answering:
"Its' OK, Dot. I know that you're a little upset lately. You needed to blow off some steam."
He stood up and took her back to her room. "Enzo, excuse me. I'm really sorry."
He told her that everything will be well and that after resting a little, she would feel much better. After she closed the door, Enzo placed his hand over his chest. His core.sys pulsed as an out of control pile driver. Dot would not be the only one to have difficulty to sleep that downtime.
======
In the following cycle, Dot was in her apartment, accompanied by her mother and AndrAIa. Half a millisecond before, they had come back from a session of medical exams. Dot's outburst in the earlier downtime could be credited to the psychological stress, but it could be a collateral effect from the invisibility. They had to check to be certain.
"Mom, explain to me again how you learned about theatrical make-up." The invisible sprite was lying on the sofa, that was covered with a towel.
"Well, in college, my class decided to do a sci-fi play." Kathleen explained, while she prepared a jar of plastic material, of the same colour of Dot's skin when she was visible. "They decided to do something about monsters, I don't remember the story now, but the make-up would be a very complicated work. While they discussed who would be with the problem, I was called by the director to solve a problem with my school record: a part of it seemed to have been lost. After solving that, I went back to the theatre and I was informed that I would have the great honour of being the make-up artist for the play."
Dot and AndrAIa laughed.
"Well, I didn't have another choice. I had to do the make-up anyway. It's ready!" She informed, bringing the glass with the plastic mass to them.
"And was the make-up good?" The game sprite asked, at the same time that gave Dot a breather.
"Yes. The play participated in a competition in various modalities: we only won the make-up award. Close your eyes." Kathleen emptied the plastic mass on where should be her daughter's head. Dot's face appeared.
======
Dot, Enzo, Mouse and Kathleen were walking in direction of Dot's office, in the Principal Office. They saw Dot's secretary, a zero binome called Mrs. Eprom. Enzo, Mouse and Dot's mother silently hold their breaths. They arrived to the door, when the secretary noticed them.
"Hello Miss Matrix. It's nice see you back."
Dot didn't turn back, holding the eye shade of her cap down. The collar of her jacket was raised. "Thanks, Mrs. Eprom. Something urgent?"
"No."
"Good. I will talk with you later."
They enter in the room, and closed the door, immediately. Mouse said:
"It worked."
"More or less. And I don't believe that you let me sleep for two entire cycles!" Dot exclaimed.
"Dot, if you slept for so much time it was because you needed it," her mother said.
"And are you feeling better, isn't?" Enzo rebutted, smiling.
She conceded that point. Now, she felt really rested.
"And Dot... Nice face." Mouse chuckled.
The Command.Com removed the dark glasses that covered her eyes. She was using a plastic mask, moulded in the form of her face. A wig substituted the hair. But the eyes had to be hidden with that glasses, until them discover a better solution. "The hollow sprite." Mouse thought, a little anxious, when she saw Dot's empty eyesockets.
"Thank you, Mouse," Dot thanked her, ironically. The mask didn't seem very natural, with some wrinkles, but it fit with the story of the burns, and now, in an emergency, she had a face to show. And she could sleep, because the mask impeded the passage of the light.
"Warning, Incoming Game! Warning, Incoming Game."
"Oh, perfect." Mouse summarised the opinion of all present. As soon as the game cube landed, they saw the environment: they were in a police station.
Enzo was the first to reboot:
"ReBoot!"
His character was a policeman. The others followed him. Mouse was a policewoman, Dot was a detective and Audio was a public prosecutor.
"What does Voyager say?" The hacker asked.
Enzo verified Voyager, his key-tool.
"This is a simulation game called "SimPolice", to see who can administer a police station better. We have to compete with the User's station, solving the cases better than him. Bob and Matrix are also inside the game."
"Well, let's go!" The Command.com ordered.
Kathleen could not avoid a smile. Her daughter was returning to the normal.
======
Now they were arriving at the end of the game. Only a case left, but it was a problem of the size of the Supercomputer.
It was a hostage situation.
A gang of thieves had invaded a bank and taken the customers and employees hostages. Matrix was inside of the bank, as one of the security guards. He could have solved the situation easily, but there was a detail that he has just informed his sister:..
"They are all covered with explosives! They covered their bodies with P2B4!" Matrix informed her, by means of a cellular phone.
Bob, as a police sniper, closed his eyes. "The heat of a bullet would detonate that explosive. A shot could send the whole building sky high." He answered Dot's silent question.
On that moment, another voice appeared on the telephone, nervous: "Now, you will take us seriously." And the voice began to do the list of demands: a car to escape, without pursuit or any charges... the usual.
"But Bob, the heat of a bullet?"
"I know, the bullet is fast, but the explosive is temperature unstable to this point, really."
"Can't you get in there another way?" Dot whispered.
"How?"
"You know... teleporting."
"No, the game has an internal logic that doesn't allow teletransport!" He slammed his hand on the car, frustrated.
"Go in there?!" Detective Jack Shepherd, the user's character, asked, sarcastically. "Only if you were invisible."
Dot looked at the User for a moment, completely without expression. Then, she pulled Bob to a side.
"Could that explosive detonate from a physical impact, like a punch?"
"No, just for action of the heat." He answered, surprised. He had not understood what she meant.
"Bob, take the control of the operation."
"But, Dot..."
"I had an idea." She ran in direction of the bookstore on the other side of the street, entering in the bathroom. As soon as she entered in one of the stalls, she pulled up her left hand leather glove, revealing the emptiness inside.
"It's worth a try." she murmured, pulling up the facial mask.
======
Matrix was lying on the floor, face down, as well as the other hostages. Two thieves walked to and fro. The third one, aimed a gun to the head of an employee. He was seething with anger. If it wasn't that defragged explosive...
Suddenly, the front door opened up, as if it had been kicked. Everybody turned to the door, but they didn't see anybody that could have opened the door in that way.
The thieves looked at each other, confused.
The closest thief of the door thought to have heard a breath at his right side, before being knocked down by a strong punch in his face, coming from nowhere. He was knocked out completely.
"Hey, Matt. What happe..."
The second thief tripped in something unseen. During the fall, his body was projected back, as if his face had been kicked.
Matrix had understood what was happening, as soon as the first thief had fallen. He leaped over the third one before he had chance of gathering him wits after those absurd events or had a chance to hurt the hostage. Disarming him, the renegade soon shackled him.
During that, the second thief was knocked cold, but nobody knew how, except Matrix.
After tying the three criminals, he alerted the policemen who were awaiting outside the bank. In the moment they entered in the building, Matrix heard:
"Game Over! Game Over!"
The game cube departed, leaving the Mainframers, outside of the Principal Office. Bob ran in direction of Matrix, as well as Kathleen, Enzo and AndrAIa.
"What happened? Where is Dot?" They asked, in a whisper, to the renegade.
A one binome come to them.
"Where is the Command.Com? I didn't see her after the game."
"She went to the Principal Office." Matrix said, to cover Dot's 'disappearance'.
"That fast?!"
"Don't you know how she is?" The renegade replied.
As soon as the binome gone away, Bob felt an invisible hand grabbing his right arm.
"I'm here." Her voice came beside them. Before they could recover from the fright and the surprise, Dot asked. "Can we go back to the Principal Office?"
======
Enzo walked at his sister's side, while they went back to her apartment. Now, Dot wore a new mask, since the previous one had been lost when the game de-rezzed. She wore dark glasses, a black jump suit and a black coat. He began to laugh.
"What?" She asked, surprised.
"Sorry, Dot, but you look like a cross between a businesswoman and a spy."
"Ha-ha," she snorted.
They entered and she removed the dark glasses. An involuntary shiver went through Enzo's spine when he saw her hollow eyes.
"Can't you use contact lenses?"
"Not the normal ones. Dad is making special lenses, to hide... my invisibility."
"But, Dot... is it that bad?"
"Well, I can't appear invisible on the street, can I?" She answered.
"That wasn't what I meant. I want to know how it is to be invisible."
"No one sees you." She smiled. A sad smile, Enzo noticed.
"Ha-ha. Very funny."
She sat down in the sofa and observed the expression in her brother's face. "Are you really curious, huh?"
"Yes. I'm curious about it, and, mainly, curious about how you are dealing with it." He sat down at her side.
"Who said that I'm not dealing well with this?"
"Sis, I know you very well."
Dot stayed silent for an instant, then she spoke. "It is strange." She removed the glove on her left hand. Soon after, Enzo felt an invisible hand touch his cheek. "I can feel your face with my hand, but I can't see my own hand. When I want to touch an object, I'm not sure from where my hand is, then I knock down things, sometimes. I can't explain it right. I... I feel completely separated, different from the others. There are moments in that I feel that I'm not here."
Her voice seemed sad. Enzo decided cheer her up a little and convince her that the situation was not so bad.
"Come on, Dot. Your invisibility helped to win the game, right?"
"Yes, but I wasn't sure that would strike a punch. It was like fighting while blind."
"And now you to go to any place without anybody knowing: as much as to the movies, without needing to pay the entrance, as to go spy on Daemon in her HQ!"
She laughed. "Do you want me to become a super-spy?" She asked, smiling as she got to her feet.
"You already have an advantage." He smiled back. "Come on, did you never want be invisible to enter in the boy's room when you're in the school?" She snickered at hearing the classic invisible person joke. "You could also see Bob in his apartment without him knowing!" he added, joking.
"Enzo!" She exclaimed, entering the bathroom.
"Dot, everybody knows that you two are dating. And do you want to know? Everybody wonders why you haven't got married!" While he spoke, he went in direction of the door of the bathroom, which was open. He preferred to speak with her face to face. Or the closest thing possible.
When he arrived the door, his sister had disappeared. Before he could react, he felt himself being tackled. Falling to the ground, he began to feel tickles. He tried to stop it, trying to also tickle in her, but it was almost impossible.
"Dot, stop!" He asked to her, laughing.
"Then you give up?" Her voice seemed that she would burst into laughter to any nanosecond.
"Yes." he answered. Then, Dot stopped and clicked on her icon, wearing mask and visible clothes again. Covering the eyes with the dark glasses, she smiled at her brother, who was still recovering his breath.
"Next time, let me worry about my relationship with Bob, ok?"
"Okay. But that isn't fair, you know?!" But he was smiling too.
"Hey, you are the one putting these ideas in my head! What do you think of talking your own medicine?"
"Guilty as charged. Feeling better?"
She laughed. "Yeah, I am feeling better. Thank you." As she hold out her hand to help him to stand up.
"You are welcome."
======
Dot rolled in the bed, thinking of the talk that she had with Enzo. A lot of what he had said was to cheer her up, she knew that. But... it also made sense.
She got up, the nightgown and the mask floating in the air.
She went to the room, thinking. 21,015ut. An idea began to take shape in her mind.
She entered in Enzo's room, and shook her head when she saw him. During the sleep, he had thrown the blanket to the ground, and a leg was hanging. She placed the leg on the bed and she covered him again.
Her invisible fingers arranged his hair. Her lips kissed him on the forehead. "Good downtime." Her voice whispered in his ear.
She left and closed the door quietly.
Dot got dressed with the mask and the visible clothes and went to the door of the apartment. She stopped before touching in the handle. Then she decided.
She rebooted and left to the downtime... invisible.
What do you think? Read and Review!
Chapter 4 coming soon...