Author's Note: I do not own the rights to ReBoot and have no legal or moral right to create this story. I have written it purely for entertainment purposes.
CHAPTER THREE
Megabyte sat in his control room with a bank of vid-windows in front of him. Beyond that sat rows of viral binomes all wearing virtual reality goggles and manipulating console controllers. Each vid-window screen displayed a scene of Mainframe as if a camera was flying through it. Above the binomes an incomplete wireframe 3d map of Mainframe rotated slowly. Slowly, incrementally, more and more of the highways and byways of the city were filled in. Megabyte admired one of his bugs, holding it aloft on the end of one of his yellow claws.
'Soon,' he crooned, 'I will have complete knowledge of every part of Mainframe. There will be nowhere to hide, especially now Dot is so helpfully organizing everything for me.' He grinned and drew in a deep breath as if to start laughing triumphantly, but paused when he saw that one of the screens was filled with static. He beckoned the screen closer and slid a timeline pointer back until he saw the silvery lilac face of Ideal Diode the guardian fill the screen.
'A second guardian?' he remarked, incredulously. The virus brought up the stats for the camera drone and a pinging red dot indicated that the bug and it's unwitting courier were headed beyond the city limits and over the Gilded Gate Bridge to Lost Angles. Megabyte narrowed his eyes and summoned Hack and Slash. They arrived as promptly and noisily as usual, falling over each other to pledge their loyalty and willingness to do his unscrupulous bidding.
'I want you two to track down that new guardian and bring her to me,' Megabyte commanded. 'I want to know what she's doing here and then get rid of her.'
'You wouldn't hurt a lady, would you, boss?' Hack asked.
'But she's a guardian,' Slash argued, 'she can take care of herself.'
Megabyte sighed. 'Go!' he ordered.
Startled, Hack and Slash turned and scooted out of the room while chorusing their enthusiasm to excel at their task. Megabyte watched them go, and returned to his gloating over the map.
…
The Guardians and Enzo approached the twisted nightmare that marked the entryway to Lost Angles. Bob landed his zip-board and proceeded on foot. Ideal questioned this.
'Trust me – it's safer on foot.' Bob explained.
'Yeah, because Hexadecimal is totally random!' Enzo cut in enthusiastically. 'She can do all sorts of crazy stuff like...'
'Enzo, please don't.' Bob interrupted. 'You'll upset Ideal.'
Enzo cast a sideways glance at the second guardian who was peering behind a wheelie bin. She bent a little lower to investigate something, then leaped back suddenly when Frisket jumped out at her, barking defensively. Ideal glared at the dumpster dog for a moment, then lunged forward with a savage snarl, lifting her upper lip to reveal incisors of unusual viciousness for a guardian.
Frisket looked startled and stopped barking. Enzo and Bob raised an eyebrow each.
'Enzo, could you wait here while I search Lost Angles with Ideal? I've got a feeling she might make it out okay on her own.'
Enzo nodded in agreement.
Ideal folded her arms and tapped her foot impatiently on the floor until she had regained Bob's attention.
'Excuse me.' She interrupted. 'But my sister is in that place and I would appreciate it if we got a shift on to rescue her from this place which is apparently "too dangerous" even for zip boards.'
Bob bridled at being scolded like a slothful adolescent by a sprite who looked barely into adulthood herself and felt it was necessary to use air quotes, even if she was a guardian. 'Could you tell us what your sister looks like, so we know who we're looking for?'
Ideal sighed. 'She's called Zenna, wears a lot of black, has pigtails and it a bit smaller than him.' she said, pointing at Enzo.
'My name is Enzo.' Enzo pointed out crossly.
'Enzo, mind you manners.' Bob rebuked him. 'Now wait here for us – I know you can do this.'
'Yes sir!' Enzo smiled, standing to attention as the two guardians embarked on a journey across the Gilded Gate Bridge. They disappeared over the brow of a rise in the path, only to reappear significantly further along their journey… sideways.
A small part of Enzo was rather glad to not be going with them.
'Now we wait here and see if this Zenna kid makes her own way out of Lost Angles.' Enzo told Frisket. 'Then I can prove to Bob that I can look after other people as well as myself.'
Frisket whined questioningly. Enzo patted his shoulder. 'I know, we'll always look out for each other.'
…
Zenna stared, glassy-eyed at the pile of empty plates and tower of used teacups in front of her. Hexadecimal clearly enjoyed baking and having tea-parties, which Zenna found baffling since she did not witness the virus consuming a single bite of cake or sip of tea during the entire feast. The girl gingerly manoeuvred herself out of the seat, hoping to make a quick exit. As Zenna waddled towards the door, Hexadecimal burst through it carrying a box of mint chocolates labelled "0x08++".
'Where do you think you're going?' Hex asked, glaring right into Zenna's eyes.
'I need to go to the bathroom.' Zenna hiccuped.
'Don't you want a mint first?'
'No thank you, I'm quite full.'
'It's wafer thin...' Hex smiled coyly.
'You have been so generous already,' Zenna smiled back. 'But I really do have to… you know...' the girl danced on the spot to reinforce her point. 'It's all the lovely tea you made.'
Hexadecimal looked unimpressed.
'It's that way.' she stated, pointing at a door behind Zenna that she could have sworn was not there earlier.
'Thank you very much,' Zenna nodded and disappeared through the door as fast as her full stomach would let her.
Hexadecimal snapped her fingers and the door disappeared.
Zenna gazed around the extravagantly decorated bathroom complete with roll-top bath help up by a great many little legs. On closer inspection, the hot and cold water spouts turned out to be little porcelain replicas of Hexadecimal's apocalyptically mad and desperately sad masks. Zenna crouched behind a gilded basin with a petrified binome in the centre that perpetually squirted a stream of perfume up into a graceful parabola that cascaded down into the basin below. When she was sure that she was alone, Zenna fished around in the pockets of her coat and brought out a guardian's key tool.
'Lexie,' she whispered. 'System scan.'
Zenna peered at the tiny circular screen and squinted.
'Widen scan area.'
This brought Mainframe into view as well. Zenna smiled, showing neat, but distinctly pointy, teeth.
'Lexie. Short range portal.'
A portal opened in front of Zenna and she stepped through, searching the horizon for the Principal Office while a bug buzzed directly in her face. Zenna flapped at it with her hands, and the insect settled in one of the folds of her coat where it was instantly forgotten. Zenna spotted the distant spherical form of the Principal Office and set off at a run, managing to cover quite a lot of ground before the sound of heavy, furious paws approaching from behind gave the sprite cause for alarm. Zenna glanced over her shoulder and saw Frisket galloping up behind her, with Enzo following close behind on his zip-board. Deciding not to wait to find out if the teeth and lolling tongue indicated that this was the dog's playing face, Zenna launched herself vertically at the nearest building and clung on to the drainpipe.
Enzo hovered up to Zenna's height, curious about the unfamiliar sprite that Frisket had taken such a dislike to. The he recognised her.
'You're Zenna!' Enzo called out triumphantly. 'Bob and your sister have gone into Lost Angles to look for you!'
'Who's Bob?' Zenna asked.
'Bob is the guardian of this system and, um... I'm his assistant, Enzo Matrix.' the sprite grinned, enthusiastically.
'Does he know there is a crazy virus that calls herself Hexadecimal living in Lost Angles. She tried to take me prisoner!'
Enzo laughed. 'Sure he does. Bob can handle Hex any slot of the cycle.'
Zenna looked dubious. 'I hope you're right.'
…
Hack and Slash studied the map of Mainframe as they flew towards the point in the city marked by a flashing red dot.
'I can't believe we found her so quickly.' Slash remarked.
'I know!' Hack replied 'Aren't we clever! Megabyte is going to be so proud of us!'
'I don't think we've got the right person.' Slash admitted.
'Of course we have!' Hack retorted, throwing his arms up in exasperation.
'How come the lady in the second picture has got little plaits in her hair, but the lady in the first one has got a ponytail?'
'Women are always changing their hair.' Hack pointed out firmly. 'And there she is!'
Hack and Slash slowed and hovered a short distance from where Zenna clung to a drainpipe while Enzo tried to talk her down.
'Frisket won't hurt you – I promise!' Enzo implored.
'I don't like being barked at.' Zenna admitted. 'I'll just stay here until you've gone and then I'll find my sister so she can take me home.'
'Frisket! Stop barking at Zenna! You're scaring her,' Enzo commanded. Frisket stopped barking and looked slightly sheepish. 'Are you going to come down now?'
'I really would rather wait on my own.'
'Why? Don't you like your sister?'
Zenna took a deep breath. 'Has anyone in your family… um… done something that's really, horribly, devastatingly bad?'
'Oh yes.' Enzo agreed, sighing.
'I can't go back to my home system. My mother bit my father's head off again.'
Enzo laughed. 'Dot does that to Bob all the time! That's no reason to run away...'
'It didn't grow back.' Zenna stated, carefully keeping her voice from quavering. 'Not this time.'
Enzo boggled. 'Not this time?' A series of horrifying images loomed large on the imagination of the young sprite. They would never leave him.
'My sister wants to take me back to our mother and I'm afraid that I'll be next.'
A shred of compassion moved in Enzo. 'If you tell Bob, or my sister Dot… or even Phong – any of them can help you. We'll think of some way to help you.'
'They won't believe me. Ideal told me that nobody believes kids.'
'I believe you.'
'You're just a kid too, though.'
'Fine, wait by yourself then.' Enzo huffed. 'Come on Frisket.'
Zenna watched as Enzo and Frisket travelled out of earshot, then whipped the key tool out of the folds of her coat. She needed to open a portal to another system and travel to somewhere her sister could not find her.
'See?' Hack pointed out, 'She is the right one – she's got a key tool, so she must be a Guardian.'
'Unless she stole it,' Slash pointed out.
'What?' Hack snapped. 'You can't steal a key tool off a guardian. If you could, don't you think the boss would have tried it by now?'
'Hmm,' Slash mused. He looked over at Zenna, who was engrossed in the tiny circular screen of the key tool. The metal meathead had a sudden flash of inspiration and extended one of his arms and grabbed Zenna by the hand that was holding the key tool. Too late, Zenna kicked and screamed but was powerless as Slash retracted his arm, bring the girl with him.
The commotion alerted Enzo, who could only watch as his new acquaintance was carried off to Silicon Tor. He considered following on his zip-board, but then Bob would not know where he had gone. He also considered venturing into Lost Angles to tell Bob what had happened to Zenna, but he had been told in no uncertain terms no to follow. Normally, this would not have stopped him, but Enzo still smarted from Zenna's "just a kid" comment and he decided to sit and wait.
A shameful, spiteful part of Enzo's psyche hoped an encounter with Megabyte's minions would teach her a lesson.
…
Bob and Ideal sat at a prettily decorated table, laden with cakes and biscuits.
'Look, Hex, this is very kind of you, but we really need to know if you have seen Ideal's sister Zenna here.' He glanced at the other Guardian, who was gazing around the throne room. 'She's so young to be wandering around on her own – she's smaller than Enzo – and Ideal is really worried.'
'Yes.' Hexadecimal intoned, wearing the most sarcastic mask she could find. 'I can tell.'
'It's much emptier than I had imagined,' Ideal remarked. 'Zenna would like it here.'
Hex brightened. 'She did! She ate up so many cakes and sandwiches!' the virus sighed and looked wistful for a brief moment before snapping back to low-level aggression. 'So you had better eat up before a bug lands on them...'
'A bug?' Bob questioned. 'You've got them here too?'
'Like this thing?' Ideal asked, bringing the crushed remains of the bug she had caught earlier out of her pocket and showing it to Bob, who instantly recognised the insignia on the back.
'What's Megabyte doing with bugs?' he asked, not really expecting an answer. 'Glitch – analysis.'
Glitch clicked, whirred and transformed into a microscope.
Bob nudged the teapot out of the way to place the microscope on the table. The teapot scuttled behind the jam pot and hid. Bob peered down the eyepiece of the microscope at the bug and fiddled with the focus knob.
'What's it doing?' Ideal asked.
Bob looked perplexed. 'It's transmitting visual data of everything it flies past and positional data of where it was.'
'How can you tell that?' Ideal asked.
'All the components are labelled.' Bob explained, and invited Ideal to look at the squashed bug. Sure enough, each tiny component was labelled "ze camera", "ze internal navigation", "ze transmitter" and, of course, "ze switch".
'What would this Megabyte character want with a bug like this?' Ideal asked.
'Who knows,' Bob shrugged, returning Glitch to his forearm. 'But I'll have to go and stop him, then we can get on with finding your sister.'
Ideal was indignant. 'How can you be so sure he needs to be stopped? I thought the priority was finding my sister?'
Bob sighed and tried be as tactful as he could. 'Whatever that virus up do, it's bound to be bad news for Mainframe, and that means bad news for everyone, which currently includes your sister.'
Ideal massaged her temples as she tries to process this.
'So… you've got more than one virus in your system and you let them run around uncontrolled? How come all of Rainframe...'
'Mainframe.' Bob corrected her.
'Mainframe, whatever, doesn't look like that chaotic twisted wasteland we just walked though?'
'That's my home!' Hexadecimal interrupted, crossly.
'Will you two let me finish a sentence?' Ideal snapped.
'It's not a sentence, it's a monologue.' Bob calmly pointed out.
'What would you do if the Guardian Malpractice Committee caught up with you?'
Bob looked uncomfortable.
'He has to stay here!' Hexadecimal grinned triumphantly. 'Bob here has got a case statement that specifies that while me and Megabyte are in Mainframe, he has to stay here and keep us under control!' at this point the virus could no longer control her mirth and erupted in a peal of cackling laughter that echoed around the hall.
'Is that true?' the young guardian asked.
Bob shuffled awkwardly and rubbed the back of his head. 'Yeah.'
'What if you wanted to leave Mainframe?' Ideal asked
'Not going to happen.' Bob insisted. 'Wild trojan horses couldn't eject me from this place.'
'You had better hope they don't.' Ideal remarked ominously, putting her teacup down.
'Leaving so soon?' Hex asked, appearing directly in front of the two Guardians as they got up from the table to leave.
'Er...' said Bob.
'What's that up there?' Ideal asked, pointing at a faraway spot on the ceiling. As soon as Hex turned to look, Ideal grabbed Bob' wrist and made a dash for the door.
Realizing she was alone again, Hexadecimal donned her most melancholy mask and slumped in her throne.
Scuzzy began licking the cream off the scones.
...
Thank you for reading. If indeed, you still are... ;)
