Bob rushed around the corner, panic on his face. Awful possibilities flashed through his mind, making him run faster down the hall. At first, when he rounded the corner and scanned the kitchen, he saw nothing and nearly searched elsewhere. As an afterthought, he went around the counter to check, and gasped.
Dot glanced dully up at him from the floor. She looked like a very young child found with their parents' files scattered about them, saying nothing and only watching their discoverer's face. His gaze darted from the counter to the floor and all around her, searching for the cause of her scream, finding nothing but a block of cheese on the counter above her. Wrong, there was the knife she must have been using sitting next to her on the floor. It wasn't until he had assessed the environment that he examined Dot herself better. She was holding one wrist in her other hand very tightly, and a line of energy ran from her closed fingers to her elbow. A few drops on the floor told the quantity that had escaped her. Slowly, recognition dawned in his processor...
Dot slouched in the large, cupped chair across from Phong. The golden sprite readjusted his glasses and leaned on crossed arms to peer at her. He noted the look of intense thought that dominated her features.
When he cleared his throat, she looked up slowly. "Bob tells me you have been feeling...ill, correct?"
She shook her head. "Not ill. Just tired. And really, really stressed. That's all."
Phong nodded. "And you have not been to work in several seconds. This is unusual for you, my child."
Dot tapped the desk rapidly with the nail of her forefinger, the rhythm alternating every few nanos. Her gaze was locked on the spot it struck. She sighed and nodded, speaking in a dull tone of voice. "I know. I know it is. But I can't do anything while I'm there. I just sit. I can sit at home. I can sit anywhere."
Phong resituated himself. What Bob had actually said hadn't been 'ill'. He had described her as listless and lethargic, as occasionally doing something extremely odd. He mentioned that she had dropped out of her normal behavior, being far less neat than usual.
Phong didn't like the sound of it. He had come to respect his presentiments as things to be considered, and this one was bad. He watched her stop tapping and fall back into the chair again. "Dot, do you feel it is something serious?"
She didn't even flutter an eyelid. The only movement over her entire body was the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed. Abruptly, she snatched a nondescript doo-dad off the far corner of the desk and examined it. She gave half a smile. "Neat," she commented, holding up the gadget. It squeaked at the movement and the gears rotated with miniscule clicks. Phong looked at it thoughtfully. She was not going to like what he had to say.
"Dot," he began hesitantly, then paused until she had replaced the object to its rightful place on the desk. He steepled thin fingers and leaned in closer to her. "My child, it occurs to me that this may be deeper than only a lack of rest or a bit of stress."
Dot's dull expression vanished in a flash. Her head snapped up and she stared at Phong intensely. "Has Mouse been talking to you?" she demanded. Phong cocked his head slightly.
"She did mention that I should see you, yes. Why?"
Dot covered her face with her palms. They had already gotten to Phong. She'd have to find someone, anyone, to help her. Quickly.
Bob chose that moment to tentatively open the door and peek in. Phong looked up and nodded, and Bob walked into the room. When he saw Dot, curled into herself in the chair and hiding her face, he looked worried. Carefully, he sat down next to her on the edge of the seat and put a hand on her shoulder. She jerked away. Nobody to turn to...
Bob sadly stole his hand away from her again and looked at Phong with a heavy sigh. "She's been like this for seconds. Any idea what-"
Phong held up a finger to pause him. He shifted his gaze to Dot. "My child, why don't you go out into the hall and ask the woman there for a mug of cocoa. I find it soothes nearly anything."
She stood stiffly and walked out, closing the door behind her with the deliberate gentleness of one who wishes to slam it off the hinges. Bob sighed again and looked expectantly at Phong. It occurred to him that he had been sighing a lot lately. "Any idea what's going on with her?" he asked more quietly. Phong's eyebrows knitted together.
"I cannot seem to get any information from her. She is too withdrawn to answer any particularly helpful questions. It worries me."
Bob nodded. "Me, too." He paused a moment before saying suddenly, "Hey, you don't think I'm being too hasty, do you? I mean, it's only been a few seconds. Maybe she's sort of sick or just in a mood..." He trailed off and the room fell silent again. At last, Phong shifted in his seat.
"Her attitude does indicate something of importance, although it is somewhat beyond me. I wish I could do more to help, but...Perhaps, if she does not recover in the next few seconds, you should take her to see...someone else."
Bob knew what he meant. He swallowed hard. The thought was unappealing at best, but...he had to help her if she needed it.
Dot leaned against the door to Phong's office, her eyes wide and alert, her breathing very soft so as to be silent. She listened to what they said. Send her away? Is that what they wanted to do?
She stepped back from the door and pressed herself against the wall, rewrapping her fingers around the mug in her hands. The mug...
At that precise moment, Bob opened the door, emerging into the hallway just in time to see her drop the mug of cocoa as if it were a magnet. He started slightly as the bits of ceramic flew, one hitting the toe of his boot. Then his gaze went to Dot, who was staring in horror at the brown stain the drink had left. Phong, hearing the noise, wheeled around the corner to investigate.
For a moment, not a sprite moved. Then Dot took off around the bend in the hallway. Bob and Phong glanced at each other. "You see what I mean?" The Guardian asked, gesturing to the floor. Phong only went into his office and pushed a button to call for a cleaning drone.
Dot flew down the hall in barely contained panic, ignoring a surprised "Hey!" from the aqua-haired she almost collided with. She turned slightly to hit a swing-door with her shoulder, and burst into the women's bathroom. She jogged down the row of stalls, glancing under the doors to ensure her privacy, and threw herself on to her knees in the one furthest from the door. Her thoughts wild with the idea of poisoning, she didn't even have to use a physical method of forced sickness.
Bob walked slowly down the hall the way she had gone, calling her name softly. As he passed the restrooms, she walked out, shaking slightly. He smiled at her reassuringly and put his arm around her shoulders. She jerked, but didn't pull away, and in this fashion, they left the Principal Office and went home.
Things in the Principal Office had been more than hectic for the past few seconds. Nobody had truly realized how much Dot had been doing until she stopped doing it. Mouse was a great help, as she had always been, but there was a limit to the hacker's abilities. She herself came to much the same conclusion as she stared at the ridiculous pile of work on Dot's abandoned desk ("You basic little motherboards!" she had shouted to the secretaries of various offices, coming across them dropping off files yesterday. "If she's not comin' in, puttin' the work on her desk isn't gonna help!"). She picked one up, looked it over, and tried to discern exactly what one would do with these. Categorize them by file type? By content? Or did she have to read, understand and absorb all of this for use against the viral evil? The possibilities seemed endless, and none seemed very inviting. Mouse set the file down carefully and backed way from the desk, as if afraid the little datapads were only waiting for her to turn her back. As she shut the door of Dot's office, she gave an audible sigh of relief.
As Dot continued to ignore her responsibilities, her friends became more and more worried. As Bob had said, it had been only a few seconds, but she seemed very withdrawn.
What worried Bob most was two seconds later, when she made a bizarre refusal.
She had since ceased to cook more than with the microwave, and in order for food to be available Bob had resorted to frozen anything. They sat together at the table one evening, a little plastic platter in front of each person, Enzo chattering happily about some kid at school getting a pencil-topper stuck up his nose.
"...And not a small one! It was, like, this big!" He demonstrated with his fingers, indicating something about 2 inches wide. "And he was all, 'Agh! It's stuck!' and then Jenny started screaming and Ms. Brodie was trying to calm everyone down..."
Enzo stuttered to a halt, seeing that no one was even pretending to listen anymore. He directed an insulted glare at Bob, and, noticing the Guardian's gaze was on Dot, he sent a scowl to her for good measure.
But Dot didn't notice them. She stared at her plastic tray with a look of such utter and unmasked disgust that Enzo could have laughed. Bob looked hurt.
"Dot, look, I know it's not exactly gourmet, but we're running short on frozen foods and you know what my cooking ends up like..."
"Uh-uh. It looks funny."
Now, Enzo did laugh. "Ah, come on, Dot! You've gotta eat your vegetables!"
Her head snapped to point at the boy, and Enzo stopped snickering immediately and displayed obedience by taking a forkful of food. Her eyes widened, and with a lightning-fast motion she slapped Enzo's tray away from him. It landed with a great, plastic smack! on the linoleum and sent clumped grains of rice and wrinkled broccoli tumbling across the floor. Enzo could hardly believe his eyes as they surveyed the situation. He turned to Dot, who was glaring angrily at Bob across the table. He looked confused and possibly a little frightened. She stood up, her thighs pushing the table away from her by a couple of inches and making the water glasses sway threateningly.
"You keep that stuff away from my little brother!" she yelled warningly, pointing to the microwaved hash now occupying space on the linoleum. With that, she stalked out of the dinette and into the bathroom, slamming the door. Bob and Enzo exchanged glances.
Dot ran to the furry mat in front of the bathtub, compacting herself into the corner. She drew her knees up to her chest tightly, tucking her chin securely between them and staring at the fuzzy rug. It was obvious what was going on. Everyone stood to gain from her quick disappearance from the scene. If she held the highest office, she was preventing anyone from moving upwards. Nobody would even miss her after all the hell she'd put the system and its inhabitants through. Bob thought she'd be stupid enough to eat whatever was set in front of her. Probably thought her mind was dulling after all the trauma she'd been through. Ha! No way in the web. She was keener now than she thought she ever had been. And they still thought they could poison her without her knowing. Well, she wouldn't have it.
"Any of it!" she yelled aloud, emphasizing her point. She frowned deeper.
The one who's motives confused her was, in all truth, Bob. What did he stand to gain from her downfall? Being a Guardian, he was a position unto himself. Mainframe's politics would neither raise nor lower his status. Even choosing to ignore his supposed feelings for her (easily enough feigned, after all), it still made no sense.
And then it clicked.
How could I have been so basic? she berated herself. There was only one logical answer: It wasn't Bob, it was Megabyte.
She reached her arms around to hug her legs together, her fingers interweaving themselves with her toes. Of course. Of course! Megabyte had taken Bob's form again, trying to fool her twice with the same trick. Only this time, she reasoned, he wouldn't have left the original to come back and foul things up.
With a jolt of shock she realized that the real Bob was dead. Megabyte had stolen his code, probably even some of his memories or things like that, then disposed of him. She had a horribly vivid image of the virus flinging Bob's limp form into the energy sea.
That's ridiculous, she thought, cutting the reel of mental film short. All that's left is an icon when a sprite is deleted.
Unless Bob hadn't been dead when Megabyte had tossed him over Mainframe's edge.
She tucked her chin tighter between her knees as more images flooded her mind.
"Well, Guardian, look where your meddling has brought you now."
Bob held up his hands weakly, turning his face to the side, a last ditch attempt to save his own life. He was purple with bruises and iridescent with smeared energy, his complexion flickering dangerously into transparency. Megabyte stood over him, his claws opened and dripping the same oily liquid as covered Bob's upreaching hands. He smirked nastily.
"Giving up actual defenses? Feeling despaired? Then I've only one more thing to say." He hoisted the broken Guardian into his arms and took a few heavy steps forward, ignoring Bob's feeble protests. His footsteps each echoed with a hollow, metallic clank.
As he reached the edge, he held Bob up by his armpits and leaned in very close to his face, listening to the wheezing, gurgling strain of Bob's breath. "I shall very much enjoy Miss Matrix." He said in a very low tone, and as Bob's eyes opened in distress at Megabyte's statement, he felt himself leaving the support of the virus, his stomach suddenly twisting and leaping into his rib cage as he began to fall...
She giggled convulsively.
Her breath began to come hard, crushing her chest into her knees as her lungs inflated. She closed her eyes tightly, knowing she'd never see him again. Knowing that anything that had happened for cycles between her and Bob had not been Bob at all...Her giggling heightened to a hearty laughter, and she wrapped both arms over her head.
She looked up at the sound footsteps. Here he was now. He looked concerned, and bent over to be eye level with her. The worry reached deep into the brown eyes she knew so well. He was a wonderful actor.
Bob looked at the folded figure in the corner, smiling as if she'd never seen anything so funny as his worried face in all her life. Things were really getting out of hand.
A/N: As always, if you liked it, say so! And if you disliked it, tell me why! If you just hate me because I suck, don't tell me. It hurts my feelings.