Taryn: darnnit! It's still way too short. *smacks head on wall* But I don't have time to make it longer… I gotta finish the next chapter to one of my Yu-Gi-Oh fics before I go away on vacation on Friday. I promise that the next chapter will be longer! Now for response to reviews!

To Trance: thankies! And you're first reviewer! *gives her cookie*

To andraia: yes, it's really original. ^__^ I had the idea at like two in the morning… that's when I get all my brilliant ideas! *hands her cookie*

To SimQueen: I thought it was perty believable too. Thankies. *gives her cookie too*

To Mrs. Snape: Dun cry! *gives her a tissue* Here! *gives her cookie* have a cookie! Don't cry please!

Taryn: I always say something to all the lovely reviewers so yes, on with the fic!

Disclaimer: I do not own ReBoot. Believe me, if I did then there'd be another season. With more romance. Darnnit! There needs to be more kissing! And there'd be spoofing of Monty Python! The dead parrot! *keels over laughing* Okay, so I don't own it!

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Chapter 2:

The next system was different. From the moment we entered it I thought that there was something wrong. It almost seemed like it was deserted. I looked at my surroundings. There was no one there. I searched even more, even using my special eye to see through the walls of the surrounding buildings. Frisket couldn't smell or hear anything either. Something was wrong.

"What do you suppose is happening so that nobody's out?"

Woof. Never got much of anything else out of him.

"Glitch, scanner" Glitch whirred and buzzed and brought up the menu. There were faint spots in various places. Either there was no one here or else everyone could hide from me. Whatever it was, I didn't like it. Not one bit.

After a nodded agreement we moved on walking through the deserted streets. It was eerie. We had come across some pretty devastated systems but never a deserted one.

Glitch bleeped

I looked down at the screen. There was something there. A virus! That might explain why there was no one. There was a virus. Not for much longer though...

I headed off in the direction that Glitch was telling me that the virus was. It wasn't much further. 12 sectors away… nine sectors away… four sectors away…

Something behind me moved. I spun around and pointed Gun.

"Who are you?" I asked.

A rather scared looking sprite stood staring at me. He was fairly tall and wore the uniform of a guardian?!?

"I'm err… nevermind… What are you doing in my system?"

"Why are you dressed as a guardian? Are there ports to the net?"

"There were. And I am a guardian… Or at least I was, once. But you still haven't answered my question."

"You have a virus."

"I know. This system was an experiment. But everything went wrong. It went so wrong… I wanted to warn everyone else, but there was no time. No time!"

Matrix stared at him. There was something definitely wrong here. And what did he mean by experiment. I knew very well that experiments were dangerous. Since my father had destroyed a whole system because of one but in this case it could have had something to do with the guardians… How I hated them now… Turbo, he had ruined everything.

"I'm going to stop this virus, and you're going to help." I said and walked over to the trembling sprite. I grabbed his arm and tried to drag him with me.

"NO!" he was stronger than I thought and he firmly placed his feet on the ground and wouldn't move "Then the experiment will be over! I can still fix it! I must! For the sake of everyone I failed. Everyone I let die. And for the sake of the others."

"What do you mean others? And what's this experiment?"

"I'll explain, but not here!"

I don't like this. He's too cryptic. I want my answers, now. But I'll wait. This one time I'll wait. He might have something interesting to say. Something that I should listen to. But then again, he might not.

~*~*~*~

He took us through a maze of tunnels underground. I was always watching in case I needed to make a quick escape. I was always watching, and because of my special eye I saw everything.

Frisket was even less trusting. He seemed to sense something wrong. He had ever since we had gotten to this system.

"We're almost there. When we get there please don't shoot anything." The former guardian said. I smiled at this.

"Will you at least tell me who you are?" I asked. I was getting annoyed by these games.

"When we reach there. It isn't safe to talk outside the secret place. The walls have ears and eyes you know."

I followed in silence. Once we got to a crack in the wall he stopped. And after uncovering a hidden keypad he punched in a code and a doorway opened.

"Follow, quick!" The former guardian said.

I followed him in and Frisket followed me, and just after we came through the door it closed. We went down a dank poorly lit hallway and then came to another door. He pushed it open and we entered… an underground city? H-how could this bee? There were sprites and binomes everywhere.

"Welcome to the underground city. We are protected by different shields so that we can not be traced or found by the viral forces. Viruses can also not enter here without being fried. It's a neat technology that we created just after the battle for control of the system started.

I stood there in awe of everything. It was a magnificent underground city. There were lights and grass and everything. Frisket seemed to be just as amazed as I was.

"We had some help from a hacker. We met when my partner arrested her for trying to hack into the Super Computer. I wonder where she is now." The former guardian said.

I stared in awe, drinking in the amazing sight before me. "Will you answer my questions now?" I then asked him

"Yes, but let's walk" we headed off into the city. "My name's Demetrius, Guardian 437. What's your name?

"Matrix, and this is Frisket" I said and pointed at Frisket who looked up at the guardian. Frisket seemed bored. Maybe he was hungry. Hell, I was pretty hungry too. "How long ago did you attend the academy?"

"I attended the academy a long time ago. I was part of a special movement group that wanted to try to figure out why viruses were the way they were and to see if there was a way to convert viruses into sprites. We were lead by a young guardian named Bob. He-

"Wait! Bob, as in guardian 452?" I was shocked. Could this guardian have known Bob? And if Bob lead a movement then maybe Mainframe was an experiment too… that just gives me another reason to hate the guardians.

"Yes, that is him. Did you know him?"

"I did." I pulled out Glitch for Demetrius to see "I have his key tool"

"Dear user. What happened?"

"A web creature entered the system and then the guardians decided to intervene would have blown up the whole system too, anyways, we had to work with the viruses and viruses being viruses they decided to  double crossed us and shot Bob into the web."

"Oh my. So Bob made you a guardian?

"Yah."

"What are you doing out of your system then?"

"Hey, I'm the one asking the questions. And what is it hat you were saying about these experiments?"

"Let me start from the beginning. Bob had been pressuring Turbo to allow him to conduct research about viruses and then after Bob's partner god deleted and Bob wound up in some small out of they way system the guardians decided that they'd conduct an experiment. They chose about ten of us. We were to go off into secluded systems with viruses. We were there to study them and determine weather or not they could be changed to be good."

I couldn't believe this. All along, Bob coming to Mainframe had been just an experiment, an experiment that could have resulted and had resulted in many deaths. I hated them even more for that. The viruses should have been deleted, viruses are pure evil and the only thing they cared about is power. I hated them. I hated them all; the guardians the viruses and even, in a way, Bob.

"As far as I know, my system was the first to fail. It wasn't too long until things started to go wrong. The virus, Demosthenes, had more powers than I thought he had. He started to infect binomes but you couldn't tell hat they were infected, then he was able to cloak where he was. Then finally, he tried a full scale attack. He took control of the Principal Office and deleted our command dot com. But before he took control we destroyed the command center so that most of the surface of the system shut down and everyone that wasn't viral that was left alive came to the underground cities." Demetrius said. He sounded pained from recalling these memories. He had probably lost someone dear to him but I didn't say anything.

I couldn't believe that the guardians would not have come to help. Why would they just leave a system under their protection there to be taken over by viral forces? Not like they hadn't done that other times too. But this had happened earlier than the battle in Mainframe. Could it be that the head guardians had had not interest in what happened in their experiments?

Who was the hacker that you spoke of earlier?" I asked Demetrius. I could be Mouse. But if it was, I'm not quite sure how I'd be able to tell him what had happened to her.

"Her name was Mouse. She was an interesting girl. She had a tendency to kiss anything that breathed and to disappear. She also had a thing with Bob back in the Super Computer. I always wondered why the broke up. Did you know her?"

"I did." I felt slightly uncomfortable now. He wasn't going to like what I was about to say. "She was game hopping with me. She died a while ago"

"She did." He looked pained, "And what do you mean by game hopping?"

"Mouse and Frisket and I, we lost a game so we put our icons into game sprite mode and were traveling from system to system using the games as roads to move by"

"How did she die?"

"She died saving my life." He was obviously pained by this news. I still regretted Mouse's death. I always wonder if there is a way that I could have saved her too. I wonder if I am just doomed to let everyone that I care about down.

"She was a good friend, and, as I said, she was quite close to Bob at one time."

I nodded. I had always thought that there had been something up between those two. Mouse always seemed so comfortable with Bob, and they acted in that way… Dot really had had something to contend with.

Demetrius began walking again. I followed him. He seemed to be heading somewhere.

"It's too bad I didn't get to see her again. I wanted to thank her… and tell her I loved her."

I felt bad now. I was the reason that she was gone. I'll make a promise then, I'll save this system. I'll make sure that any system that I go to from now on I will try to help. If I try and I fail then it won't be my fault, but if I don't try and I fail then it will be entirely my fault. I'll have killed everyone. [1]

"Why wouldn't you let me kill that virus?" I asked.

"I already told you. As far as I'm concerned, the experiment is still being conducted."

How stupid! The system had nearly been destroyed and he still wanted to go on with his silly little experiment! I didn't let my rage show, I had become very good at hiding my emotions, but I still wanted to destroy something. Maybe smack his head against something hard, see if I could knock some sense into him. It might be worth a shot.

"I can tell that you don't think that it's worth it trying to change this virus once the system has been nearly destroyed. But it is. I know it can be done. I just need more time."

"Time may be something you don't have. With how powerful the virus was before, he could have grown even stronger in the past while, especially if he was able to look through storage in the principal office."

"I know. That's why you'll help me. I need somebody to help me with my plan. I don't really have anybody brave enough to help, except for Valyn but she isn't going to be much help since she got hurt…"

"What happened?"

"We tried to take out Demosthenes about three cycles ago, we didn't fair too well. Valyn was the worst injured… besides those that died. We swore then that killing Demosthenes was not an option."

"Ahh, but now you have something you didn't have before."

"What's that?"

I smiled "Me"

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Taryn: kay, so the [1] was like a foot note, and it's at the bottom of the page.

AndrAIa: HI! *waves madly at the reviewers*

Taryn: uh… so how much sugar did you have?

AndrAIa: 12 cookies!

Taryn: right… I wanted a ReBoot cast member to join me and AndrAIa was the only willing one… I thought that Matrix was going to shoot me…

AndrAIa: oh, he's just a big ol pussycat

Taryn: I'm starting to thing that sugar is a bad thing to give TV characters… So just R&R otherwise I'll send a hyperactive AndrAIa after you. No, I wouldn't but it'd be funny ne?

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[1] This is very similar to a quote from Ender's Game By Orson Scott Card. The actual quote reads "If you try and lost then it isn't your fault. But if you don't try and we lose then it's all your fault. You killed us all." This was said by Ender's sister Valentine when she was trying to convince him to continue his training with the I.F.