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Surprisingly, it wasn't Bob's voice that awoke me. He wasn't even awake himself. It was someone else… someone familiar. I was aroused in the dark of Bob's unconsciousness by its signal.

"Glitch? Glitch? Ya in here?"

I took a moment to try and parse the input. I hadn't heard signal in so long… all voices and sounds… that it took me a moment to even translate what was being said. I pulled just enough of my energy to become fully aware. Bob was still very weak after all. "Who is it?"

"Glitch! You're processing! Perfect!" The signal came closer, I locked on, and found to my surprise that it was another keytool. Not just any keytool, but Copeland, Turbo's keytool, existing in pure energy.

I took a start. "Copeland? What in the Net are you doing here?"

"Glitch, you're talking like a sprite."

"I'm sorry," I said, "I've gotten a little quasi-logical since the merger." Why was I apologizing! There were more important things to think about. "But Copeland, how are you here? Inside Bob?"

"I had nowhere else to go." He replied.

I leveled my signal, trying to sound pointed. "What happened to Turbo?"

Copeland paused. I sensed the worst, a keytool would never abandon its guardian, they shared code. Something awful must have happened. It was the only explanation. "You've got to understand, Glitch, Turbo was only one sprite. He couldn't hold off the strength of Daemon's power alone. He succumbed to the infection, I couldn't stay with him anymore."

"The infection drove you out?" I asked. I remembered our last meeting in the bar with Matrix. Turbo had been infected then, but Copeland had remained loyal.

The keytool replied negatively. "No matter what my code details, I can't be used for evil. If I stayed with Turbo, I would have been used to further Daemon's plan. I can't do that. I had to run."

"But what about your physical form?"

"I snuck off in a firefight." Copeland explained. "I needed to find a physical body to stay in. I recalled the message we received when you merged with Bob. I thought that if I came here, I could possibly help you and stay out of reach of Daemon. As long as Daemon can't get me, I can rest easy."

I felt a little defensive about letting someone else live in my guardian. I mean it was my body too after all, Copeland may have been pure energy, but it was my code linked into Bob's data not his.

I recognized the emotion as sprite-based and tried to tamp it down. Perhaps Copeland could be useful. In any case, it was someone to talk to. "Okay, fine, you can stay. But Bob is running low on energy. Will you be willing to donate some so that he can still use our powers?"

"It would be an honor."

"Deal."