CyberZone Internet Café
Denver, Colorado
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Sunlight streamed in through the café's windows, highlighting dust trailers over the tables and small coffee bar. "Karl Berg" took a circumspect look around, sipping his coffee and waiting for the laptop to boot. He noted the group at the bar, mostly older men huddled around newspapers and steaming mugs of their own, and a number of people in the smoke-filled and dimly lit back room who appeared to have been there all night. Looks of intense concentration dominated the faces he could see; he guessed, correctly, that he had arrived in the waning hours of an all-night LAN tournament.
There were a few others like himself at the tables, business types, working with laptops open. Berg glanced down at his machine, pulling a disk from the duffel bag at his side and slipping it into the drive. A notification appeared on-screen indicating a wireless connection with the café's network had been negotiated. He smiled. Everything, in a sense, came down to this: the months of programming, testing, and preparation; that interminable period of nervous tension crossing the border, the drive to Denver and his selection of the nondescript little café as the Insertion Point.
He opened a window and began sizing up the local security. Another quicksilver grin flashed across his features. The place was perfect. It wouldn't even require much prep work to do what he had in mind. "That's a nice system you've got there." Berg turned to see the man peering over his shoulder- and found himself staring at a Colorado State Trooper's badge. The conversational smile froze on his face. He forced himself to relax and tried to appear natural. How could they have traced his route so quickly? "Cost me a pretty fair chunk of my life's savings, but it's worth it," he said, crossing his fingers it was a chance encounter and nothing more. "It really comes in handy on these long business trips."
The trooper frowned, raising his mug, a vague thought tugging at the edges of memory. "You don't sound like you're from around here," he ventured. "What parts are you from?" Another trooper entered the café. Berg's hands felt damp; his heart was racing with the tension of the moment. He could only hope his nervousness wasn't showing. "Hey, Pete," the other trooper called. "Chief says we've got a situation downtown." The man shrugged, turned and followed his companion out the door without a backward glance. Berg breathed a sigh of relief. Willing his heartbeat and the surge of adrenaline to subside, he uploaded the files to the café's server with shaking fingers and executed them. He powered down the laptop, sipping his coffee, permitting himself a slightly reassured smile at the exclamations of the customers as their terminals went dark.
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The Overlook
Floating Point Park
Mainframe
It was a quiet, gentle day. Sitting on the rocks at the lip of the overlook, just as he had so very long ago, Matrix could see the lush greenery of Floating Point park spread out and melt into a beautiful and stunning vista. All of Mainframe lay spread out below him. Up here, away from the noise of the city everything looked so picturesque. A soft breeze whispered through the dewy grass. It was a high place, and the sky was close. The world was as it had been before Daemon – before Megabyte. The sun painted the city with a late-morning glow though the air stayed clean and cool, and far away the Data Sea glimmered faintly along the horizon. It was achingly beautiful. The moment touched something deep inside the renegade, shadows from passing clouds drifting across the land, across golden memories of the system he called home. Everything was as it should be, as it had been in the beginning. Life in Mainframe had been made new and whole once more. The world was innocent again.
His senses, though, were still as sharp and alert as they had ever been. He heard the faint padding of bare feet coming up the path behind him but didn't turn, knowing to which sprite they belonged. AndrAIa sank down on the rocks beside him. "Hey," she whispered. Just one word. Her arm went around him, strands of soft, silken hair falling across Matrix's shoulders. She laid her head to rest next to his, enjoying the feel of him, his closeness, sharing his silence. The two of them sat there for an eternal moment like gentle gods, gazing awestruck at the unexpected sheer beauty of their creation. Matrix turned his head then, away from the spectacular vista, to look into AndrAIa's eyes. To drink in her beauty, to pull her back with him onto the sweet spring grass. They stayed there together in that place at the top of the world, each wishing the moment could last forever, the renegade with a protective arm wrapped around the slender sprite at his side.
Their eyes traced the movement of clouds across the endless blue of the sky above, and the whispering wind carried the faint and musical sound of laughter from beneath the overlook. "That sounds like Dot," Matrix said. "And Bob." AndrAIa tapped the rim of one delicate and pointed ear. "Game sprite hearing, Sparky." "Can you hear what they're saying?" the renegade asked. "Does it matter?" AndrAIa twisted, planting a finger gently against his lips before he could say more. As the conversation drifted by below, words to the wind, she gazed deeply, deeply into the eyes of the sprite she loved.
"Glitch! Water gun!" "Bob, stop that!" Dot said, laughing, skipping backward out of the Guardian's range. "I shouldn't even be here. I've got that meeting with the software pirates to plan for, and these are my business clothes." "So reboot." Bob raised an eyebrow, grinning. "Besides, that meeting isn't for another cycle. You've got time, and Gavin will understand if you have to spend a little less time boasting about your profit margins." The notion of Gavin Capacitor, the Crimson Binome, giving her a knowing wink when she mentioned taking time off to be alone with Bob made her shudder and giggle a little at the same time. The Guardian sighted down the length of the transformed Glitch, his brow furrowed in concentration. He had Dot right where he wanted her. She stopped edging backward, her heel making contact with an immense rock formation. "Bob, no… stop that… my clothes… BOB!" He grinned mercilessly, stepped forward, and squeezed the trigger, jets of icy water soaking the "Oh, User, that's cold!" Dot sputtered, gasping as she booted into a different outfit.
"I win." Bob smiled, extending his hand. Dot took it. The two walked up the path toward Floating Point's famous overlook. "Where are Mouse and Ray today?" Bob asked. "I talked to Mouse earlier. She said they were going to take in some sights around the city, but knowing those two…" She trailed off as the roar of engines and a distant yell of pure excitement tore through the peaceful atmosphere of the park. Ship swooped low directly overhead, Ray Tracer and Baud flying patterns all around it, playing in the vessel's wake. It was a daring and graceful display, and Bob had to smile as he watched the pair soar off into the distance. "Knowing those two," he finished, "If they're going to do anything, it's got to be 'extreme'". Dot laughed as the two rounded the path's final bend, still hand in hand, approaching the steep rise below the overlook.
The held her hand out. "Shh," she said, motioning toward the pinnacle of the steep hill. "Look a those two. Isn't that the sweetest thing?" Matrix and AndrAIa, renegade and game sprite, lay side by side in each other's arms watching the clouds drift slowly across the sky… not a care in the world. Bob and Dot stood silent for a moment. The Guardian put his arm around her shoulders, and it felt good, it felt right for an instant before she remembered. He could feel her unease as she shrugged his arm away. A flicker of annoyance flashed across his features, not fast enough that Dot didn't catch it. "I'm sorry," she said. "Really. It's just…" "Forget about him. Please," he said, and the frustration and pain in his eyes were more than she could bear. "Can't you see none of that matters anymore?" She turned to face him, tears hovering on edges of her eyes. He gazed back, a worried but determined look. "Bob…"
A blinding flash of light erupted from the city. The Guardian shielded his eyes, then turned to look as the portal to the Net stabilized. "Gavin's early," he noted. "And he's been in a fight. Look at the Mare!" The portal vanished, leaving Capacitor's ship to limp into port, heavy battle damage marring the starboard side. "We need to get down to Port Authority and see what's going on," Bob said. "Are you okay?" Dot nodded, brushing her tears away. They could wait, she knew; they could always wait until there was time. The two sprites took to the sky on zip boards, hovering toward Kits Sector and their uncertain future. Spring, like peace, had finally come to Mainframe, but neither was to last.
