Chapter 5: Into the Fold

They ran out into the hall, following the other sprites who were manning defense and repair stations. Bob followed Patch as he wound around through various rooms and stairs, until they came to the control deck. Inside, Bob counted five sprites at various control boards, and Blackadder standing at a central station, his face tight.

"Clunk, on screen!" he commanded. A large VidWindow appeared and a view of the web lit up the room. Inside the window, three small craft were bearing down on The Escape from the rear.

"Tower, report."

"Villanova attack squad, sir. Three lightweight bombers, minimal crew. They are gaining speed."

"Scrolloc, status."

"All weapons stations armed and ready for your command, sir."

"Numbloc, status."

"All repair stations online and standing by, sir."

"Estimated time to contact?"

"3 nanos, sir," Tower answered.

"Very well. All stations stand by."

Patch stepped up to the center console, allowing himself to fall into Blackadder's view, but saying nothing. The red sprite turned his head slightly, the faintest of smiles appearing as he caught sight of his medic. Then the golden eyes spotted Bob, and narrowed.

'Great.' Bob tensed, waiting for the order for his apprehension. He watched a silent exchange between Captain and Medic, and with a short nod, Blackadder returned his eyes to the main screen.

"Sir, incoming fire!"

"Brace for impact! Dolby, conduct evasive maneuverings!"

Patch turned and ran to Bob, grabbing his arm and pulling them over to a wall with a short bench. "Lock yourself in, Lad, this is about to get interesting."

Bob barely had time to tighten his restraints when the ship picked up speed and began swaying in highly erratic patterns. Bob watched the screen as it tracked three inbound missiles.

"Release seductors!" Blackadder commanded.

The ship rocked forward as something launched from the back. "Port seductor launched!" Scrolloc confirmed. On screen, a large bobbing object caught fire and shot away from the ship, drawing the fire of one of the missiles and exploding in a burst of light. "Seductor one, successful."

"Status of starboard seductor?"

"Failure to engage, sir! Attempting alternate firing circuit!" Another rock of the ship signaled its launch, and a soft burst from overhead alerted its successful deployment.

"Second missile destroyed, third missile inbound!" Tower updated the control room.

"Open fire!" Blackadder ordered.

"All stations, fire at will!" Scrolloc repeated. High pitched whines filled the air as laser fire aimed for the incoming missile and the three small attack craft.

"Sir, confirmation that all three craft have been hit and erased, but missile has reached impact parameters!"

"Stand by for repair reports, brace for impact!" Blackadder ordered as he grasped his console. All sprites leaned into their stations, and Patch brought his hands over his head, Bob quickly following his example.

Boom! "Direct hit, starboard side, storage room 3, 5, and 7 are damaged! Hull breech, pressure decreasing, possible fires, 10 sprites in impact area!" Tower reported.

"Repair station 3, begin evacuation of storage rooms 3, 5, and 7. Commence space lockdown, don web gear, prepare tools to mend multiple cracks along hull," Numbloc shouted over the klaxon alarms and the ship status updates of other sprites.

Bob felt a hand on his shoulder. "Let's go!" Patch yelled at him, getting his restraints undone and running for the door with his bag in tow. Bob followed, bumping along with other sprites running towards the damaged areas. Lights flashed and he could see smoke coming up from the stairwell. Patch ducked into a compartment that had an access ladder going down to the storage room decks, and Bob slid down the rails with him.

"All right, we can't go any further than this because of possible atmospheric contamination," Patch shouted at him, "but we're going to separate walking wounded from severely damaged. You get those that can walk to climb up the ladder and go for sickbay."

"What about you?" Bob yelled back.

"Don't worry about me, just get those sprites out of here!"

Three sprites in web gear ran past them, and soon returned with two sprites looking hurt but processing. Bob directed them up, and was soon caught up with helping three more that climbed out. Patch had run off but soon returned in his own gear, and grabbed Bob with his free hand.

"When they get out, you go up with them, and treat what you can. I'll be there soon!" At Bob's nod, he put on his helmet and ran into the smoking fray.

Over the next few nanos, four more sprites were dragged out, but were soon able to move on their own. Bob mentally checked off the numbers, and realized that one sprite hadn't come out. If 10 were down here during the blast, where was the other one? He grabbed a passing sprite and asked if there were any other injured, and the male shook his head. Pulling a portable light from the wall, he moved to the accessible storage rooms to confirm. In the last one, Storage 11, he found half the room caved in, but no hull breech. On the floor, the tall, gangly sprite he had fought with numerous times was unconscious, a gaping wound near his head.

Bob ran back out into the hallway, shouting at the top of his lungs and waving his arms frantically at the sprites trying to repair the forward rooms. Unsure if he got their attention, he grabbed the victim's arms and proceeded to slide him out the room. Just as he got past the door, he heard a soft groan, felt a rumble in the floor, and registered the sound of crumbling metal.

'Breech!'Bob thought just as a crack broke at the weakest point of the damaged metal. Thunder roared in his ears as the sudden suction of the atmosphere formed a small hole and lifted the injured sprite horizontally, attempting to pull him into its toxic embrace. Bob barely had time to grab onto a support bar in the hallway with his right arm, his left hand latched around the sprite's wrist as both were pulled into the room.

"Help!" he screamed, but his voice was sucked out into the web. His eyes caught sight of the button that would close and seal the door, but if he tried to close it now, he would lose his arm. If he let go, he could pull himself in… but only himself.

Digging deep into his format for strength, he took a deep breath and pulled as hard as he could, but the atmospheric pressure was too great. He could feel his body digging into the door frame, cutting through his clothes and into his skin. At the same time, his fingertips could feel the sprite slowly being pulled from his grasp.

"No!" Bob screamed, pulling again, to no avail. 'User, help me!' Bob prayed as his hand began to lose its strength, his grip began to slip, the sprite drifted closer to deletion…

A heavy weight settled on his shoulders, followed by vice like grips around his waist and arm. Suddenly, he was being pulled backwards into the ship, the injured sprite with him, and nanoseconds later, he was lying on his side, the sprite to the right of him, and the roaring thunder dying under the hiss of the door sealing shut.

"Get them up to sickbay, now!" Bob barely managed to hear over the ringing in his ears. He looked up at Patch, his helmet gone and his face set as he gave orders to three suited sprites that moved Bob and his companion onto small stretchers. As Bob bounced along the smoky hallway, he drifted away into darkness.

/

Bob woke with pain and dizziness. He groaned as struggled to open his eyes, confusion setting in when he didn't recognize his surroundings. As his vision cleared, his eyes roamed from the white pillow up to the ceiling with dim lights. This didn't look like his cell, and the softness of the mattress confirmed his assumptions. He turned to his right, wincing at the pain along his right side, and counted three other beds, currently unoccupied.

He was in the sickbay, and it looked like he was alone. "Patch?" he whispered, unprepared for the hoarse and weak sound.

"He'll be back shortly."

Bob looked back to the left, shocked to find the bed next to him occupied by a crisscross-legged companion sitting on the sheets, looking rather bored.

"Surprised to see me?" Blackadder asked lightly.

Bob eased himself back down onto the mattress. "To say the least," he muttered.

"Not as surprised as I am to see you."

Bob's hand covered his eyes, rubbing at them as if it would stop the pounding in his head. "Alive or outside of my "quarters"?" he asked, too tired to keep the sarcasm from his voice.

"Still on board." The captain examined his hand, picking at some dirt under a fingernail. "There you were, on your own, the crew running rampant to save the ship, and you didn't make a run for a life boat. Seems like odd behavior for someone so eager to get home."

Bob remained silent, realizing for the first time that the thought had never crossed his mind.

"You saved Backup's life, you know. If you hadn't found him when you did, he'd be deleted in the web right now. And that's the second time you've saved him." Blackadder stopped his inspection and settled his gold eyes on Bob. "Why?"

"You know why," Bob answered tiredly. "It's my format, and I can't go against my programming."

"Horse shift."

Bob looked at the captain, thrown off guard by the strong out burst.

"The User may have given you a format, but he also gave you free will. You are just as capable as any other creature to make your own decisions. So spare me this "I am bound by my code" shift." He leaned forward on the bed. "Why did you save Backup? Why save those sprites the first night you tried to escape?"

"Because I don't believe in deleting others." Bob stared back at Blackadder, his voice as strong as he could manage. "And because it was the right thing to do."

"You'd do it again?"

"Yes."

"At the cost of your own freedom."

"Yes."

Blackadder whistled softly and shook his head. "You are different from the other Guardians."

"I've been telling you that from the start," Bob argued, his voice rising in irritation. "Though I still don't believe what you're implying about the others."

"You'll find out, Guardian, probably sooner than you think. Certainly sooner than you'll want." He swung his legs out and they dangled just above the floor. He bowed his head as he leaned his hands into the mattress, looking more like a young sprite than a mercenary captain. "You've proven me wrong, Guardian. I thought all of them were the same, but you've given me hope that they are not." His golden eyes turned up to meet Bob's brown ones. "You have shown a strength and dedication to your morals that has shocked me over and over again. It's rather refreshing, and is welcome as part of this ship and crew, if you wish it."

Bob frowned. "What are you saying?"

"I am offering you a place here, an honorary position as our Guardian."

"How do I put this delicately? No," Bob answered flatly.

Blackadder stared at him, his lip twitching slightly at the callus rejection of the offer, before he burst out into a long laugh. "You are strong, resourceful, bull-headed, and cocky to a fault, but your intentions are noble. I have no right to be so selfish as to keep such a fine gentleman as yourself here when your system needs you. We will be at our next port within a second. There, we will help you in whatever way to get you home. I give you my word."

Bob stared up in surprise at the versatile sprite. "Thank you."

He shrugged and picked up some fruit off a nearby table. "It's what I had been planning to do, anyway, if you didn't want to stay," he responded, his tone flippant as he started to juggle the fruit.

Bob was almost distracted by the playful display. "What?"

"When I knew you were clean. I had no intention of letting you into a system if you were just going to abandon it."

"Clean? I don't understand."

"Yep, we don't really, either. We've only received bits and pieces from the systems we've ported, but the rumor is Guardians are becoming sick, and that is why they are going back to the SuperComputer." He missed a fruit, became disoriented, and dropped the others. He glared at them, the offensive fruit obviously to blame. "Some are even whispering that it's not illness, but infection."

Bob's gut tightened at the word. "Guardian code is meant to resist that." 'Unless it was something big. Something very big'. "Is that who attacked us? Infected Guardians?"

Blackadder looked up at him, and his attitude shifted from casual to serious. Placing his elbows on his knees, he leaned closer to Bob. "We haven't come across any Guardians in the web, except for you." He shook his head. "No, those were guards, from Villanova."

"A system?"

"A prison. The largest prison I've ever heard of, and tucked away in some dark corner of the web."

"I've never heard of it."

"Most people haven't. It's a place where you go, and never leave."

"That nice, huh?" Bob cracked.

"No," Blackadder countered softly, all joking gone from his voice. "That bad. They say it's a living hell, and that those who escape are never the same."

Bob couldn't help but feel skeptical at the dramatic description. "Have you been there?"

Blackadder shook his head. "No. But I know someone who has."

Bob picked up the subtle shift in the Captain, sensing the subject was not an easy one. "Why did the guards attack? Are they after you for raiding a system?"

The mood lightened as the Captain laughed. "Once again, we are not pirates, we do not raid anybody. But our line of work is not why they attacked."

"Then why?"

Blackadder shrugged. "Because they can." At Bob's confused stare, he continued. "They operate outside of systems, Guardian. They operate outside of the SuperComputer, away from any kind of jurisdiction. No one is patrolling the Web… except for them. And what they say and do is law.

"We stay out of their way, and we carry on. It's worked for hours, it will continue to work after you leave." He hopped off the bed. "And until we get to that system, you should rest, let that gash in your side heal." He placed a hand on Bob's shoulder. "Captain's orders."

Bob nodded.

With a smile, he turned and walked out.

Bob leaned back into the bed, closing his eyes with a sigh. He pictured Mainframe, pictured his friends, pictured his Dot running into his embrace upon his return… and drifted into a restful slumber.

/

It was several microseconds later that he awoke, his body stiff and needing a stretch. Carefully, he eased himself from the bed, taking a moment to look for Patch while he rotated his right shoulder. Again, he was alone. Swinging his legs over the edge, he stepped to the floor and stretched out his back. He groaned at the pain in his back and left arm, the muscles strained from his earlier heroics. It occurred to him he didn't know how long ago "earlier" had been, and decided to head to the dinning hall to see about getting something to eat.

Perhaps if everyone was asleep, he wouldn't have any problems with the crew. Just because Blackadder welcomed him, didn't mean the rest of them did.

The lights were on, and noises from the room gave him warning that he wouldn't be alone. Looking around the corner, he could see several crew members sharing drinks and telling stories. The Guardian looked for the medic, but had no joy in his search. Electing to head back up to the sickbay, Bob smacked his head into something solid.

More precisely, someone solid.

He looked up into the smiling white face of Backup, the sprite who's metal knuckles he had come to know quite well, and who he had helped in the storage room after the attack. Bob smiled back, his fists tensing at his side in preparation for battle.

He wasn't prepared for the bear hug he received, the long arms applying enough pressure to his ribs to crack them.

"Sleeping Beauty awakes!" Backup yelled and allowed Bob's feet back on the floor. He clasped the Guardian's shoulders. "You look starved. Cooky!" He spun Bob around and pushed him into the room.

Bob's world went chaotic as he was swept up in multiple hugs, hand shakes, pats on the back, and roaring cheers. Before he could process what was happening, he was pushed down at a table, and a hot plate was pressed in front of him. His ears exploded with questions and compliments.

"How did you know where Backup was?"

"What took you so long to get down here?"

"You are a lot stronger than you look, boy!"

"Eat up, there's a lot more where that came from!"

"I won 200 chips that you would knock out Tower in one hit!"

"And I won that 200 back when Tower returned the gesture the next second!"

Bob held up his hands, trying to get some clarity on who was talking when. The gush of attention was overwhelming, and he didn't know where to look first.

"Hey, hold it down, men, the boy's trying to speak!"

The room quieted at Centrino's command, and Bob looked at him gratefully. He opened his mouth to speak, and found he had no idea what to say.

"Looks like you knocked the speech out of him," Dolby remarked to Tower, and everyone laughed.

"No, I think it was just my sanity," Bob replied. He looked around in confusion, his hands in a wide gesture at the crowd around him. "Why…"

The men looked at each other for a moment then burst into laughter again. "I think he would feel more comfortable if we were beating the shift outta him!" Clunk shouted, and the others cheered in agreement.

"No... well, yeah, maybe…" Bob denied, then agreed, then scratched his head.

"Not tonight, he's been through enough." The crowd parted as Patch came over to sit down across from him. "And I'm not wasting anymore medical supplies on this rookie."

"Rookie?" Bob's indignant response was lost again in the noise, but he could take no offense by the lightness in Patch's eyes. The medic waved at the large sprites, shooing them away from the table. "Let the sprite eat in peace!" he scolded.

Again, Bob was amazed as the sprites let them be, but not before each passed him with a pat on the shoulder, a light punch to the arm, or a ruffling of his hair, a gesture he struggled to avoid, much to the amusement of the crew. When the medic and Guardian were alone, the old man encouraged him to eat.

"What is going on?" Bob asked.

Patch shrugged. "They are just welcoming you to the family. Congratulations, you are one of us now."

Bob paused in his eating. "But I'm not staying here."

"I know. They know. But you are still one of us, and always will be."

"Because I saved a sprite?"

"Because you did a lot of things, and saving Backup's bitmap was one of them."

Bob shook his head. "You are a random group of sprites, you know that? You keep me prisoner, you play games with me, now you treat me like a guest of honor. How did you survive the Web for so long?"

Patch only smiled at him with that same patient, annoyingly unhelpful smile that was beginning to drive Bob mad. "How's the food?"

Bob rolled his eyes. "Fine, thank you."

"Your head?"

"Getting better."

"Your arm?"

"I'll live."

"Your patience?"

"Wearing thin by the nano."

Patch grinned at him. "I couldn't tell."

Bob scoffed at him, hiding a smile as he finished his drink. He pushed his plate away. "Now what happens?"

"I want to show you something."

/

A sinking feeling developed in his stomach as he stepped back into his cell. "So, is this the part where you slam the door shut and tell me this has all been part of this mysterious "game" of yours?"

"No," Patch countered, "this is where I tell you to lay down and figure the game out yourself."

Bob shot the medic a bewildered look. The old sprite leaned casually back on the bench with his feet crossed at the ankles and arms across his chest, staring back at him. "You're serious."

"Yep. Here," he handed the Guardian a small light. "Look under the bench."

'Well, you've done stranger things,' Bob thought as he got down on the floor and shinned the light up at the wood. "What am I supposed to be looking for, exactly?" Silence greeted Bob, and he sighed. "You know, it wouldn't surprise me if this is some random joke you play for kicks-" Bob stopped as his light passed over a carving.

Not just a carving. A name.

Scrolloc.

Below it was another one. Numloc.

Bob's light went up, his fingers tracing the wood as he read the names. Dolby. Centrino. Clunk. Tower. Patch.

And below the medic's name was his own.

"It's not a joke, Bob. It's a rite of passage."

Bob slid out, his eyes locking on the medic.

"You are not the first sprite who's been found in the web. There are many strange things out here, and strange people. It would be wrong to leave anyone to the mercy of the unknown, but we can't put our crew at risk. Blackadder won't do that to his family."

"So you, what, test the people you find?"

He shrugged. "You can call it that. We didn't know your intentions, or your programming, or your level of sanity. Now we do."

"And if my intentions were otherwise?"

"We would have turned you in a long time ago at any one of the ports we visited."

Bob shook his head. "It's not right."

"It's survival."

"For who?" Bob argued. "These men aren't struggling."

"It's always a struggle in the web."

"Then stop living here! You go to systems all the time, yet you don't stay. Why?"

"Because we made this our home, when we had no other home to go to." Patch leaned forward. "These sprites were lost, Guardian. Like I told you from the beginning, we have no homes to go to anymore. Each sprite here was found, tested, and welcomed into a home he earned. Every sprite on board has experienced terrible pain and loss, but in the darkest depression, found the will to survive, and the drive to keep fighting, no matter the cost. They found a place among those who understand. There is a bond on this ship, among this crew, that you won't find anywhere else, not even among your Guardians."

Bob looked sharply at Patch, softly denying him. "How would you know?" He stood and walked over to the bars.

"If you were to stay, you'd see that," Patch ignored him. "But you are lucky that you can return to your home. It is true that we could stay at any system, if we wanted. The point is, we don't."

"But why?" Bob turned to him, leaning against the bars. "Why not start over?"

Patch stared at him for a long moment. "Because sometimes starting over is nothing more than another chance to fail."

No further discussion continued as their voices were drowned out by the klaxon alarm. The two raced from the cell up to the combat deck, where Blackadder was barking commands to prepare for the inbound attack of a surge of Villanova ships. Upon seeing his medic, the red sprite whispered something urgent in his ear, and Patch nodded. Turning, he pulled Bob from the center and led him down to the sickbay.

"Patch, what's going on?"

"Give me your icon," he pressed as he rifled through his desk.

"Why-"

"Don't argue." Patch pulled a square icon from a drawer and held out his hand. "Now."

Bob disconnected the black and gold icon, handing it over silently. He watched as Patch brought the two discs up near each other, and a data stream was transferred from his to Bob's. When the exchange completed, he tossed Bob's icon back.

"Change, now." Bob stared at him, confused. "Your clothes, change to what I just gave you."

Two taps to his icon left him in a brown and black leather outfit, the shirt long sleeved and the pants tucked into knee high brown boots that no longer bore the Mainframe icon on each side.

Patch waved his hand at Bob, gesturing for the icon to be given back. "You can't wear the gold and black icon," he explained when Bob hesitated, "just like you can't wear your Guardian uniform."

"You want me to lie about being a Guardian?"

Patch nodded. "Bob, did you see the number of ships out there? We can try to out run them, but we can't out gun them. If we are boarded, you need to be one of us."

"What? They'll arrest me right along with you! At least as a Guardian I might be able to talk them out of it."

"They will arrest you either way," Patch hissed. "This is not the SuperComputer, Bob, justice and morals are not in abundance out here!" He again motioned for the icon. "But if you show up announcing yourself as a Guardian, you will become their special guest of honor, and I guarantee, you will never see your system again."

The ship rocked with a sudden blast. Patch locked eyes with the Guardian, silently pleading with him to trust him.

"What's going to happen to us, Patch?" Bob asked.

"We are going to survive."

Another volley of fire hit the stern, and objects crashed and lights flickered as the ship shook. Suddenly, the engines died out, and the ship began to list. Patch looked around then back at his companion.

"Bob. Please."

Bob's grip tightened on the icon in his hand. What if Patch was wrong? What if telling them he was a Guardian allowed him faster passage home? His heart sank as he realized how close he had come to back to Mainframe. His dream from just that second came back, the image of Dot running into his arms, her hands stroking his face as she looked up at him with such relief, her gentle fingers pulling his head down to hers...

… now to cruelly be ripped away from him again. As the despair began to grow inside him, he realized he couldn't let himself give up hope of getting back to her. He would do whatever it took to survive.

Just like Patch said.

He handed him his icon, which Patch hid under his own on his belt.

"I'm sorry, my friend," Patch whispered. "The fun and games are over. Now the real fight begins."