Chapter five.
Boone led Martyn and Olivio up to the entrance of Titanoleon. She was an amazing ship, beautified with splendour. As they walked up to the opening of the ship, like a huge gaping mouth on the rear of the ship, somewhere inside a lesser being had fallen into the hands of corruption.
Sanitea was a small programme. If she had been human she would have been soon coming out of her teen years. She had smooth, dark, skin and appeared to be utterly innocent as she stared at the amazing screen, dotted with the matrix symbols, flashing here and there.
Her job as the Hybrid Hacker was to scour the Matrix in search of any units that may be flickering nearby, preferably agents, bastards that were out to annihilate the remaining numbers of the human race.
Typing on her virtual keyboard, silently, she spotted one. It was a Smith agent.
The pale man dressed in a morbid black swam through the sea of green symbols and a ripple affect occurred on the monitor of the Titanoleon mainframe. It was a pattern that she had never seen before. Then she was drawn into the pattern under a hypnotic force and she encountered a virus. A new virus, a virus that she had never seen before.
It flailed around on the computer screen and for a fraction of a second the Titanoleon firewall failed and opened a doorway to the second matrix.
Smith swam forwards at the speed of light through the monitor crashing over her like a wave of death. He shoved his bulky, ever-white hand into her chest and smiled a sinister smile.
"Smith will suffice!"
Biblioboone led them through the gateway into Titanoleon. The corridor was long and spacious and every few feet an EMP charger was attached against the wall with a case containing a gun, a new type of gun.
"As I was saying, the Smith agents have got yet another upgrade. Do you remember the last upgrade, just before the Sixth One, Neo was killed, the way they could duplicate themselves?"
"Yes, I remember. They used a new type of programme to overwrite programmes." Martyn recalled.
"Well there new upgrade has caused them to become hosts, to take over the body of another. It is how we have lost some of our greatest ships and crews. So now ever ship has been equipped with a Hybrid Hacker to make sure no Smith agents are close by. Our programme is called Sanitea and she has the ability to transmogrify into liquid. We have made a joke; a cup full of Sanitea."
No one seemed to be laughing accept the esteemed telekinetic necromancer. They walked up to a junction and down to the Control Room. The first body of Titanoleon.
"Sanitea will be down here now, the operator, Lorelai and our on board researcher Boekbhav are both sleeping. Our captain will join us later.
This hallway holds the cabins where you will be sleeping."
Sure enough there were cabins as they got loser to the control room.
As they neared the room, they saw a small figure lying on the floor, motionless.
"Sanitea!" Boone screamed and broke into a run.
They erupted into the Control room and tested Sanitea's pulse. There was a pulse and she was happy to see so. Even if she was dead, Boone could bring her back with a wave of the hand.
"Awake!" she shouted and a flash of green light filled the room.
Sanitea awoke with a minute difference in her eyes. She was frightened.
"Where is it? An agent! An agent! Biblio, kill it! Kill it!"
She rose to her knees and then to her feet and peered behind Boone.
"Where? Where was the agent, Sanitea?"
"It came…I was…sleeping…it came for…" Sanitea trailed off. Her eyes glazed over and she looked back up at Boone.
"Oh my god, how embarrassing. I was sleeping; I must have had a nightmare. I feel awful to have worried you Biblio. I am so sorry. I think I just need some rest. Will you take over for me now?"
Boone didn't register quickly, but she noticed an odd stance in Sanitea pace away towards her cabin. She had looked different also. Like a new programme.
She looked so frightened, as if she had seen a ghost. But it was worse, she had seen an agent, invited it even, to control her body and take her hostage. And what was worse. Every single crewmember overlooked it as Sanitea walked away and let the virus develop inside her brain, crushing her from ever existing. Corrupting the ship before it had ever taken off. Here the story begins.