Plugging along at my funeral pace. Ole! Reboot belongs to Mainframe. The other characters belong to me.
---
Chapter two
Tronnie stretched and spun in her rotating chair. The training with Divot had been smooth enough. He came from a system near the outskirts of the Net, and although his comprehension of technical materials was unflawed and sound, his accent was hard on her especially after a stressful second.
"And this second isn't even half over." Tronnie muttered.
"'Ardon? Ma'am I did't 'ear you." Divot peeked into her make shift cubicle holding a welder and a dustpan.
"Oh, Divot." Tronnie flashed a tired, but genuine smile, "it's nothing. I was just talking to myself."
Divot nodded and stepped into full view. Like Guardian 452, Divot had blue skin. Though his hair was a flashing white halo that accented his shimmering gold eyes. He wasn't very skinny, or well built. In fact, his body compile was near stereotypical of a tech boy.
"Is 'here mure thinks?" He paused and his face screwed in the effort of talking in a foreign tongue. "Are there more things to do?"
Tronnie sat and wrack her processor for tasks. There was always something to do these days, too many things to do in fact.
"Ma'am, th-u viral dele-tian room. I'll go and clean it up." He said with much difficulty.
Tronnie looked into his golden eyes. He must feel very out of place, she thinks. The other techies were very friendly and nice, but the stress that comes from repairing equipment with only one eight of your original team only grows when you can't communicate clearly.
"Sure Div," Tronnie shortened his name, more out of trying to create a feeling of comradely than laziness. "If you need anyone, don't hesitate to ask."
Divot smiled and nodded before briskly walking out of the main repair room.
Tronnie usually tried to get cadets who were fluent with the language files used on the super computer. But there was such a lack of recruits interested in engineering that Tronnie had to go into the Net and look for possible recruits by herself. Out of the few she had found, Divot's tests results were just so promising.
The green skinned guardian tapped a screen and began scrolling down the contents of the file.
"Muscle bound eight bits." Tronnie said in disgust as she read the roster for the new row of Guardian cadets. "Being a Guardian isn't all about deleting." She said as she closed the file, and shut off the screen.
Tronnie wondered how AndrAIa was. She received Turbo's readme about Andi, and of course, Tronnie wasn't surprised when Turbo had told the game sprite to go offline. On her wrist, Tronnie's wrist computer began to beep, and outside, one of the tech boys heard it.
"Break time's over Tron! No rest for the weary!" Piped a voice.
There was a loud zapping noise, followed by a high-pitched yelp and finally a roaring of laughter. "Come join the party!"
The laughing continued, and when the much welcome humming sound of an online and functioning application was heard, the laughing was joined by whoops of cheering. Tronnie walked in as the tech staff broke into one of their regular, yet welcome victory parties. Tronnie smiled and joined in the celebration.
On her table, the screen Tronnie used to view the list of cadets flickered on briefly before shutting off again.
---
Far off on the other side of the Super Computer where the personal quarters of the Guardians were, AndrAIa rolled over in her pool of water. The time offline had been wonderful. The water was warm; her room was beautifully dark and quiet. Everything felt perfect. AndrAIa rolled back onto her front and her face slid back under the water's surface. As a water game sprite, she could function submerged in water as well as if she was not. With a half online effort, she tapped the controls and felt more warm water close over her. This is the life, she thought to herself before going offline again.
---
"These are the cadets that feel they are capable of skipping levels two to six." Palmer pulled up the file and handed the data pad to Garrison.
Garrison scanned the list. The cadets had entered the Academy with a host of recommendations from their home systems. It was these recommendations from the security sector of their systems, and their outstanding physical exam tests that convinced Palmer to wave the below average written scores on their entrance exams.
Garrison hated his current situation. As the new head of the security and viral incident teams, Garrison knew there was a massive shortage of trained sprites for the job. But his original position, one he still occupied as head of the Academy, conflicted with the idea of advancing sprites just so they could fill the ranks of the teams. At another time, he wouldn't have let any cadet think they could skip levels, even cadets with recommendations and high scores. But he needed more sprites to deal with the new surge of viral activity on the Net. Garrison and those in the Super Computer weren't the only ones who knew of the shortage in Guardian numbers over the past hour.
"You say their combat skills are good, and that they are always completing the objectives before their peers."
Palmer cleared his throat. "They prefer the use of large detonation weapons, and I have the feeling the other students don't like to train with them. I believe this suits them."
"Not team players eh?" Garrison tossed the pad on his desk and looked at Palmer.
"They say that levels two to six are intro courses to User and Game combat skills. As they want to work on the incident teams, they believe the levels as irrelevant."
Garrison drummed his fingers. Advancing them to level six would hasten the time for them to finish in the Academy, and he did desperately need people in his teams.
"Palmer, I'll think of it. Chances are no." Garrison saw Palmer start to protest. What chaos must they cause in order for Palmer to want to get them out of his classes so much, Garrison wondered. Out loud, he said, "I need to consider their combat skills. If they are as good as you say they are, than I suppose the benefits out weigh the levels they need to go through."
Palmer relaxed visibly. Garrison pitied the aging sprite. The past year clearly aged him. Before Daemon, Palmer had only taught the first introductory class in being a Guardian. His background being in medical knowledge, Palmer usually taught cadets how to handle medical emergencies. But, like Daecon, under the influence of Daemon, had sabotaged the internal systems crew, so had he done with the Academy. The Academy had more than a hundred instructors, and fully equipped training facilities. After Daemon, those few who were not deleted were assigned to be on the viral incident teams. Recruitment, training and basically everything else fell upon Garrison, Palmer and a scant handful of other teachers.
"They train every second on the fifteenth cycle in the Danger Room."
Garrison checked the time.
"I'll go and watch them from the terrace."
---
"Please keep all limbs inside the engine!" The search sprite said, "We're about to embark on our trip. Fasten your seat belt sprites and binomes! The search begins! Yahoo!" With that, the yellow metallic sprite pressed the search button and was zipped off with its passengers in the streamlined search shuttle.
The search engine scanned past systems and networks. It was a version 6.0 search engine with a higher search capacity. But this did not interest Zaider. This was the first search trip that the little round binome was on. Zaider watched the gateways speed past them. There were more than he could count, process or compute.
"Passengers," came a friendly voice from the overhead speakers, "we are pleased to inform you that our search trip will take us through parts of the Web. Please remain seated and for your viewing pleasure, this new search engine is equipped with Tranillumination technology."
There was a musical chiming noise that was followed by the walls of the craft becoming transparent. A collective sound of awe was heard from the passengers as they enjoyed the ability to see the Web in all directions. Zaider, like the rest, gasped in marvel as the engine exited the Net and entered the Web.
Swirling masses of energy gravitated around various points and created spinning wheels of colour. The myriad of colours flowed together to create Web nebulas of fantastic effects. Still, like most trips, the ride was bumpy and more than one binome or sprite was throwing up. Zaider, however, stared out into the wild and wonderful Web, and wondered how free it must feel to be a Web rider or Surfr.
Zaider smiled. "Web rider Zaider," he whispers.
The turbulence increased and the friendly voice from over head came again.
"Oops, sorry folks. Nothing to worry about. Just a few energy flares. We regret to inform you that we must deactivate the Tranillumination technology in order to create a smoother ride."
At Zaider's young age, the slight quaver of uncertainty in the voice went unheard.
Another tremor came, this one stronger and longer. Then, without warning, the walls of the search engine tore open. Screaming ensued and behind Zaider an older sprite clutched his chest and choked as his driver overloaded.
Zaider watched as the Web poured in. His mother screamed in mortal terror and turned to shield Zaider's body. From above, nozzles opened up and a spray of silver-gold liquid coated the bodies of the passengers. With himself coated in the substance, Zaider felt the degrading effects of the Web stem off. From above, facemasks dropped down and his mother snapped it over his face before doing so to her.
Zaider never made a sound throughout the commotion. The Web was beautiful, why would sprites be afraid of them? Though the body of his mother still obscured most of his view, Zaider saw something. Web creatures, black and red tendril waving monsters. They were the ones who ripped open the search engine and now, these roaring whale shaped entities circled the broken engine like vultures. Zaider turned his eyes to look at the other passengers. Many were being impaled brutally by the tendrils, and some were being torn from their seats and flung broken into the Web.
"Search Command HQ! Mayday! Trapped in the Web!" The search engine sprite yelled into the communicator before turning around to see a blue and green ball of tentacles descend into the engine.
Zaider watched as the ball unwinded, and out from the mass of twisting limbs was a sprite like creature. The thing floated to the trembling search engine sprite, and from its hanging arms came two ugly green coils. Like snakes, the coils reared up and surveyed the sprite before striking. Through the body of the screaming sprite the coils went. Then, as the coils held the skewered sprite in mid air, they began to pulsate. With each pulse, the coils emitted a brighter colour. With each pulse, the search engine sprite dimmed. When the vampire deed was done and the sprite was absorbed, the tendril bearing sprite monstrosity turned to survey the cowering group.
Green skull.
Zaider saw a green skull, or at least it once was in the shape of a skull. Now, it was a melted green stain on the chest of the beast.
The sprite thing wrapped its slithering tendrils around itself once more before uttering the beeping language of Web creatures.
As the ball ascended, the other Web creatures lashed out. Tendril after tendril arrowed in and struck each one of the passengers. Gurgling deletion cries were soon followed by the static tinkling sound of a binome or a sprite being deleted.
Zaider's own mother exploded in a shower of glitter as she was deleted. A nano later, Zaider felt a tendril puncture his body. He didn't scream or even whimper. He raised one hand and touched the tendril. Zaider marvelled at the warmth of it. The tendril seemed to change density, for it was hard at one instance and soft a nano later. In the brief nanos before his deletion, Zaider examined the veins beneath the semi-translucent red-purple exterior. He didn't like how they glowed neon green for it reminded Zaider of the stories he heard of Daemon's infection
Zaider felt himself delete. It was an interesting feeling, painful but interesting. He felt his body break apart and then he felt nothing.