Sheentastic Voyage

by Gary D. Snyder

Chapter 4:

"'To win the game'," Libby repeated, reading the answer on the viewscreen once again. She shook her head. "Why does that not make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, Sheen?"

Sheen shrugged. "Beats me. I mean, winning is what Ultra Lord is supposed to do, right?"

"This isn't Ultra Lord, Sheen. It's a program." She looked worried. "Why didn't it say something like, 'Defeat the Supreme Muckamuck' or 'Find the Lost Broom of Whazoom' or something?"

Sheen merely laughed. "That's crazy, Libby. There's no such thing as the Supreme Muckamuck or Broom of Whazoom." He stopped laughing and gave her a questioning look. "Is there?"

"I don't know. All I know is that we're supposed to be the players. We're the ones who are supposed to win the game. Why did it say that Ultra Lord is supposed to? How can a program beat itself?"

"Is that important?" Sheen looked as puzzled as he sounded.

"It is if we want to shut this thing off before Jimmy gets back."

"But all we have to do is get through the game," Sheen argued. "That's what the one of the guys who wrote the program said."

Libby was still not convinced. "Yeah, I know," she said. "But we don't know the game, we don't know the computer…" Her voice trailed off and she stood for a minute chewing her lower lip. At length she came to a decision. "I'm sorry, Sheen. I think that we should just leave this alone until Jimmy gets back and let him work on shutting the program off. He's a genius, right?"

"But I can't let him know that I broke his computer!"

"You didn't break his computer," Libby pointed out. "All you did was try playing a game. And he said you could. Right?"

"Ye-e-es," Sheen answered slowly.

"And we didn't touch anything like he told you – I mean, us – to. Right?"

Sheen's face brightened somewhat. "Yeah. We didn't."

"So why should Jimmy blame you?" Libby concluded. "It's not your fault, is it?"

"No, it isn't." Sheen now looked offended. "How dare he blame me for something I didn't do?" he demanded.

Libby was taken aback. "Uh, Sheen…"

"By golly, I take that insult from no one! No one, do you hear?"

"Sheen…"

Sheen didn't seem to hear her. He was instead pacing back and forth, waving his arms and smacking his fist into his palm to emphasize his words. "I shall have my full measure for this affrontery! That blackguard! I'll lay waste his lands and holdings! I'll leave his house barren!" He threw back his head and shouted, "Vegeance shall be mine!"

"SHEEN!"

The tone and volume of Libby's voice snapped Sheen out of his tirade. "What?"

"Get a grip!" she snapped. "Jimmy hasn't done anything."

"Oh, hasn't he?" he retorted.

"No."

"No?" Then, as the situation dawned on him, he replied, "Oh. Right. I guess I should stop watching those late night movies."

"Gee, you think?" Libby asked. Before Sheen could answer, she added, "Come on. Let's go before things get any worse."

Sheen sighed. "I suppose we should. Although I don't know how they could get any –"

The sound of a warning buzzer and a flashing red light cut him off before he could finish. At the same time Vox announced, "Warning. Virus detected in system. System lockdown initiated. Containment protocols initiated."

"What's that?" Libby asked, alarmed.

"Things getting worse," Sheen replied. "Vox! What's going on?"

"System has been infected by an unknown malignant process. Automatic protocols to contain and eliminate Threat process have been initiated."

"What?" Libby grabbed Sheen by the front of his shirt and dragged him down towards her. "You uploaded an infected file into Jimmy's computer?"

Sheen sounded irritated. "Will you please stop that? You're stretching it all out of shape."

"I'll stretch you all out of shape!" she snapped. "Answer the question! Was that an infected file?"

"It seems so," he answered miserably. "But I ran all the standard checks. I swear. There shouldn't have been anything in it."

"Analysis of standard anti-virus protocols predict system responses to be ineffective. Estimated time to total system failure is sixty-three minute and fourteen seconds," Vox announced.

Libby abruptly released him and, caught off guard, he dropped to the floor. "All right," she said, pulling out her cell phone. "This is definitely something we have to tell Jimmy."

Even to Libby, who had come to know him fairly well, Sheen's reaction was surprising. He immediately crawled on his knees towards her and wrung his hands. "Please, Libby!" he begged. "Don't do that! Don't tell Jimmy!"

"What?" she asked. Sheen's desire to avoid the blame, especially with Jimmy's prized computer in jeopardy, both disappointed and angered her. "I can't believe that even now you'd let your friend –"

"Yes," Sheen said, his voice calmer but still choked with emotion. "He is my friend. He's the only one in my whole life who ever trusted me with anything important. When we were on Yolkus he trusted me with getting the ship so that everyone could get away. Since then, even when everyone thinks I'm a complete loser, he's still my friend and trusts me with important stuff. If he finds out about this, everything will be the way it used to be. He'll never trust me with anything ever again." His voice sank to a hoarse whisper that she could barely hear. "No one will. Just like before."

His words stunned Libby. Was that really the way it used to be? she thought. She let her mind drift back to the time before the Yolkians had kidnapped their parents and Jimmy had organized a rescue party to save them. Jimmy, Carl, and Sheen had been outsiders whom the other kids had always laughed at and called "wierdos" and "losers". She realized with a start that she had once been foremost among the children who had cruelly mocked Sheen. Before Yolkus everything had been different, but now…

With an effort she fought to get words past past the lump growing in her throat. "That's all the more important that this needs to be fixed, Sheen. If Vox is in danger then it has to be fixed before it's too late."

Sheen didn't look up. "I know."

"So that's why I have to call Jimmy so that he can –"

"No!" Sheen's voice was uncharacteristically determined. He climbed to his feet and looked her in the eye. "Not Jimmy. I'll fix it."

"You? But…but you don't know anything about fixing computers. And even if you did, only Jimmy really knows how all this stuff works. How can you possibly fix it?"

"Vox!" Sheen called. "Can the virus be fixed with the virtual…in-your-face…whatchamahooey?"

"There is insufficient data to evaluate the chances of success for this application of the virtual digital interface."

"Well, how about in theory?"

Vox took longer than usual to answer this question. "The virus can theoretically be manually eliminated using the interface," the computer announced at last.

"That's good enough for me." Sheen walked over to a platform on one side of the lab. "Prepare to activate the interface."

Libby hurried after him. "Sheen, wait!" she called out.

"There's not time for mushy good-byes, Libby," Sheen said as he mounted the platform.

"This isn't some mush good-bye, Sheen," Libby objected. "Jimmy told us not to touch anything!"

"I know. But desperate times call for desperate measures." His eyes took on a faraway look as he continued, "Libs, I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take a genius to see that the problems of two little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. But if I don't do this, I'll regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, or maybe not even next week or next month. I may not even regret it next year. In fact, I may not even regret it when I'm retired and playing bingo and trying to remember why anyone ever thought that Larry Fodder was cooler than Ultra Lord or tried using Windows ME. But I do know that I'll always regret losing my Ultra Lord Deluxe Utility Belt. You'd think that someone on the playground would have found it and turned it in to the Lost and Found, but no. That's what comes from going to a school that's nothing better than a den of thieves and never-do-wells and –"

Libby's expression had gradually changed from sympathy to bewilderment to impatience to outright annoyance. "Sheen!"

Her shout startled Sheen out of his diatribe. "What?"

"You're rambling again."

Sheen nodded his head. "I know. But desperate times call for –"

"Sheen!"

"Okay, okay." Sheen looked momentarily defeated but quickly resumed his defiant stance. "But don't try to stop me. This is something I have to do."

"I'm not going to try stopping you."
"You're objections are useless," Sheen went on, not realizing at first what Libby had said. "I'm doing this despite your impassioned pleas and womanly concerns for my safety."

"I'm not objecting," Libby reiterated.

Sheen finally got the point. "You're not? Really?" It was hard to tell whether Sheen was puzzled, delighted, or somehow disappointed.

"No." Libby shook her head and then took her place on the platform next to Sheen. "We're doing this together."

"Really?" There was no question that Sheen sounded delighted this time. "Not that I'm complaining, but why?"

Libby thought back again to the time before their adventures on Yolkus. "Let's just say I owe it… to an old friend."

Sheen considered this. "Do I know this old friend of yours?"

"No." Libby shook her head. "Not any more."

End of Chapter 4

Author's Notes:

I have to apologize for being so late with this chapter. At this time of year there are always things to occupy my time so that most of my spare time is on the weekends. I'll do what I can to put in more effort on the weekends to make up for the missed weekdays, but be assured I haven't abandoned the story. After having kept Sheen and Libby in the background so much I feel that I really owe it to the two to give them their 15 minutes of fame.

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