Chapter nine.

Kamador took his leather coat and laid it over Biblioboone and Boekbhav and took Sanitea's body and laid it in her cabin. It sounded malicious but researchers like Boone would want to study how Smith hacked inside of her. Sanitea would have wanted, even in death, to put a stop to the raging war.

"For now we are going to need a new Hybrid Hacker, Lorelai, will you?"

Lorelai rubbed her eyes and let the tears dry. She nodded.

"We will need to replace her as an operator. Olivio, are you up for it?"

Olivio, who was still staring at the leather cloak but with an identical nod of the head, accepted her new position. She sat down at her monitor and punched in her details and readied herself, only to realise that she was at the wrong monitor but still under some hypnotic force, browsed the late Boone's computer. There were various files and icons on her desktop on her research into Big Brother and the mysterious signal from other colonies in the sewers.

Olivio searched the discs that towered on top of the computer tower and read the spines that reflected the dead researcher. Then something caught her eye. A disc that read: Biblioboone repliKATE (Hehehe).

"Kamador! Quickly, over here!" Olivio shouted and the shout attracted her trusty companion, Martyn and secondly Lorelai and lastly their captain, Kamador.

She held the disc in front of their eyes. Their eyes darted to the words printed upon the disc.

She opened the disc drive and inserted the disc and watched the monitor as the matrix froze in its tracks and a head erupted from the green symbols, made out of the green symbols themselves.

"Is this thing on? Hello. My name is Biblioboone, programme number: Ln2niner654. Self developed no creator. In the event of my destruction and deletion from the matrix, I wish for my fellow crewmembers to revive me from this copying programme saved on this disc. I saved a replica of myself on that programme known as Spoekboone. To upload me take the signal from the matrix, indicating my death and upload it into this file. You will find the signal on my vital signs monitor above my body. On doing this, you must get rid of my previous body as errors could occur, possibly manipulating the ship's electricity, computers and weapons control. Do this by deleting Biblioboone from the matrix. So as soon as you have uploaded Biblioboone's signal into Spoekboone delete it from the history. See you soon."

The matrix returned to its normal state and the programme that Boone had talked about and sure enough there was a file named Spoekboone. Kamador rushed to Boone's body and tapped the screen above her head and just as the programme had promised a signal was there, floating in the matrix. He dragged it out of the screen and carried the signal over to the other monitor and printed it in.

Suddenly, the computer tower jerked.

"Quick, delete it!"

Kamador rushed back and hit the delete button on the monitor and the signal rushed away from existence. He ran back to the other monitor and on it Boone had appeared with different clothes on, scarlet streaks in her hair and piercing green contacts.

The monitor screeched and whined and a siren went off down in the deck. It was using a lot of electricity. It was amazing that the four of them were reincarnating one of their fellow crewmembers through a computer. Life goes on after death, the four of them thought simultaneously.

Suddenly the monitor exploded into a flash of emerald light and billions of green symbols of the matrix flowed out of the computer at dazzling speed and wove themselves into a body of Spoekboone, who stood taller than ever in the centre of the room.

"Bib-I mean-Spoekboone, your alive!" Kamador shouted, in disbelief.

"Thank you so much for bringing me back. It was really weird for a second there. I felt like I'd been sucked down a giant plughole. I suppose heaven doesn't exist for programmes." She said, chuckling.

"It's amazing." Olivio said, struck by the awe that had captivated her once before.

"Does this mean that you can resurrect Boekbhav?" Martyn asked remembering Boone's amazing necromancy techniques.

"Sadly no, when I created myself, I couldn't upload my abilities. I'm just a kung fu expert now." And with that she kicked him in the head and he spat blood onto the floor and he retaliated with a powerful jab in her side.

"What was that for?" Martyn screamed.

"Nothing." She laughed. "Just wanted to see your reaction. Do you know it's not very sportsman of you to hit a woman."

"Well being on this ship, I've learnt one thing. To stay alive you need to kill, no matter if it is man, woman or agent."

She smiled.

"One second. I've just remembered something. Didn't we have an argument about programmes dying, Boone?"

"Yes we did. And now you can see that I was the victor in that argument as I have cheated death, yet was destroyed."

Olivio sneered at her. She hated Boone being right. Just because she had managed to worm her way out of eternal shutdown. It really pissed her off.

"So, where is the bitch that killed me?" Spoekboone said.

"In her cabin. And you should know, it wasn't Sanitea, it was Smith. Smith hacked the hacker and controlled her to kill us. Luckily, I managed to get back on board with my self-operating device that Kamador insisted I leave here. So yes, I am to thank for our lives." Lorelai bragged.

"Okay, great. I can examine her body to see how Smith hacked into her."

They all strolled down to where Sanitea's cabin was. The corridor was dimly lit as the electricity still flickered on and off due to the power surge to Boone's monitor. As they stood talking outside her door for a minute as Kamador searched for the key to her cabin, Lorelai noticed the slippery floor and looked down to see that it was moist with what looked like water.

"Look." She pointed to the floor and terror sank into their hearts.

Kamador found the key and inserted it into the lock and turned the stiff door. It creaked open and they all held their breath, thinking the unthinkable.

Sanitea's body was missing and the lights flickered out and behind them, Olivio jogged to an EMP gun holder fearing that if she ran she would slip into a cold puddle that was Agent smith in his metamorphosed matter and prey on her as he had done to their dear friend. She grasped the gun and held it close only to hear the ghostly whisper of Sanitea's song drifting amongst the halls.

"Where has my heart gone
Trapped in the eyes of a stranger
I want to go back to
Believing in everything

I still remember."