~Chapter Thirty-One~

Location: Distant Unknown Cybersite:

General Biff walked into the secret entryway of Abaddon's hideout.

"General did you find anything at Penguia?" a soldier asked.

Biff looked at his soldier with an annoyed face. "Get back to your training and mind your own business!"

The soldier saluted and left immediately. Biff went to his room and sat on his bed, rubbing his temples.

"Eileen," he said aloud, "Her eyes were just like Eileen's... Could it have been? No! Impossible! There's no WAY they could've survived out there!... Ooohh... Eileen!"

Ever since that night in Pompadoria ten years ago, he had been secretly growing more and more depressed. Yes he had wanted revenge. He was angry over everything that had happened. But he never meant for it to get this far...

And now he couldn't turn back...

There were many reasons he couldn't turn back. First and foremost was that he would be given the death sentence upon revealing himself. That is, if Abaddon didn't go after him and kill him first. And every now and again, a voice in the back of his mind would remind him of his past, filling him with homicidal anger once again. He would remember how she rejected him that day years ago. His one true love.

His beautiful Eileen.

Flashback

Biff was the second in command of the defense team at Control Central and had been so for about five years now. He had always been very dedicated to his job. But things were changing now. A year and a half ago, Sir Dalhart had recruited a new political advisor. Her name was Eileen Ruby Matrix and she was, by far, the most beautiful creature Biff had ever laid eyes on. After just two months of knowing each other, their friendship had turned into a romantic relationship. And now he was ready to make the next move.

Biff knocked on the door of Eileen's room in Control Central, flowers and a small box in his right hand. Eileen opened the door, her sapphire eyes glowing with love upon seeing him.

"Hi Biff," she said sweetly, "Come on in."

Biff stepped into her room and handed his girlfriend the flowers.

"For you, my queen," he said smiling.

"Oh Biff," she said smelling the bouquet of roses, "They're beautiful. Thank you. But what ever is the occasion?"

"This," Biff said getting down on one knee and opening the box to reveal a diamond ring, "Eileen, there is no other woman in Cyberspace I would want to be with. Will you marry me?"

Eileen's blue eyes filled with tears of joy.

"Oh Biff," she said, "Yes. A million times yes!"

End Flashback

Biff smiled and clenched his fists at the same time. He didn't know what emotions to have over the memory. More importantly, why did they never get married? Why weren't those two children they'd gone after ten years ago his children?

Flashback:

Even though Sir Dalhart was less demanding than the cyber-rulers before him, Biff and Eileen's jobs were still quite time consuming. It would be a while until they could hold the wedding or even begin preparations for it. But they were engaged and very much in love which was all that mattered to them right now.

Still, not everyone was excited about the engagement. Eileen's older sister, Alexa, firmly believed the couple were rushing into things too quickly, not that she'd ever approved of the relationship to begin with. Ten years older than her sister and having gone through a series of failed relationships, Alexa Matrix seemed to think she knew everything about romance and was more than ready to compare Biff to several of her exes.

"I've seen your type before," she had said to him at a party once while Eileen was out of earshot, "You may have strung Eileen along, but you can't fool me. I'm watching you."

The woman was obviously just jealous of Eileen. Yes, Biff knew he wasn't perfect. He had quite the temper and often said cruel things that he didn't really mean. But he always admitted he was wrong, apologized, and found some way to make it up to Eileen. He wasn't like the men of Alexa's past. He loved Eileen and he would give her everything she deserved.

But as time went by, their romance seemed to be dwindling. Seemingly out of nowhere they were arguing constantly. And one day, Eileen had had enough.

Biff had come to visit her at her apartment in Memoryville. Things were fine at first. They were still engaged and he had come mainly to talk about wedding preparations, since both of them were on leave for the next two weeks. But somewhere in that visit another argument ensued. What it was Biff could not remember. All he did know was that he had done the one thing he never would've dreamed of doing.

Biff struck her.

"Eileen," he said guiltily as she held her cheek where he'd struck, "I'm so sorry. I-"

"Get out!" she said in a mixture of anger and hurt.

"Honey-"

"Don't you call me honey!" she yelled, the anger flashing through her eyes, "We're through!"

Eileen pushed him towards the door and opened it, throwing her engagement ring out into the hallway.

"You can keep that!"

"Eileen-" Biff tried to say.

"NO! Alexa was right about you all along!" Eileen screamed, "You're toxic scum and you're not welcome here!"

With that she pushed him out the door and slammed it behind him.

For months all he could think about was Eileen, especially with them working in the same facility. He would run across her at some point every day but she refused to even make eye contact with him. Eventually it just hurt too much. He was hardly able to do his job correctly and became extremely irritable with the others on the defense team. And Sir Dalhart, with all his patience, eventually had to fire him.

That was when he met Abaddon, a cyborg whom was abandoned at birth and went from foster home to foster home throughout his childhood. Believing he was the only one who could understand, Biff confided in the older cyborg. What he didn't know was that Abaddon was using Biff as a pawn. After seven years of knowing each other, Abaddon told Biff that he wanted to overthrow Sir Dalhart and become the new ruler of Cyberspace.

"Everything will change Biff," Abaddon had convinced him, "And with you as my right hand man, we'll be unstoppable! The two most powerful cyborgs in all of Cyberspace!"

"I don't know Abaddon," Biff had replied uneasily.

That was when Abaddon used Biff's past against him.

"Come on now Biff," he said pretending to care, "You don't really want to keep Sir Dalhart in office after what he did to you. Not once did he stop to think about how you were feeling. He was just USING you to protect himself."

"Do you really think so?" Biff asked feeling very worthless.

Abaddon nodded. "And what about Eileen? I think she oughta' suffer greatly for what she did to you."

"No!" Biff argued, "I still love her. I would never want to do anything to hurt her!"

"But she hurt you!" Abaddon argued, "She left you and married someone else even though you still had feelings for her."

Biff was silent for a moment. "Eileen is... married?"

"You mean you didn't know?" Abaddon asked in fake shock, "I thought you would've known!"

Biff shook his head. Abaddon pulled out two photos he had somehow gotten his sickly hands on. One was a photo of Eileen in a bridal gown next to a tall blue-haired cyborg in a tuxedo. Another was a photo of the same two people with two young children, a girl and a boy.

"His name is Clyde Samuel Benson," Abaddon explained.

"Clyde? It can't be!"

"You know him I presume?" Abaddon asked, though he already knew the answer.

"He's Sir Dalhart's top spy," Biff explained, "I've never actually met him, but I've heard a great deal about him.

"I see," Abaddon said trying to hide a contented smile, "Well, anyway, these are their two children."

"Two children," Biff said more to himself than to Abaddon, "One girl and one boy. Just like what we had wanted. What we had planned on having after we got married."

"She's happily married while you're alone and unemployed," Abaddon taunted, "After all these years don't you think its time you got back at her? Come on! Show her you're a force to be reckoned with! Show Sir Dalhart he never should've fired you! Make the cyber-world regret the day they thought they could mess around with Biff Cursor!"

"YES! I'LL DO IT!" Biff said, his feelings of betrayal evolving into anger.

Abaddon smiled evilly. He had his first victim and hopefully within a year or two, he would have enough to overthrow Sir Dalhart.

End Flashback

As the years passed, Biff had become so full of hatred that he killed without mercy. Until that night. When he had come face to face with his former lover. The woman he still loved to this day. The screams of pain echoed through his mind each night since it happened. And he was still trying to accept the reality that it was by his hands.

"Biff!"

The general looked up to see Abaddon with his usual frustrated expression.

"Biff did you find out anything interesting at Penguia?"

"No sir," he answered still in his own world of guilt, "There was nothing that could suggest they were looking out for us."

"Good," Abaddon said with that evil grin appearing once more, "We will attack in the morning."

Biff inhaled deeply. "I don't want to sir."

"You'll do as you're told or you will die!" Abaddon stated sternly.

Biff sighed. "Yes sir."

Location: Cyber University:

"Motherboard? That was my idea!" Ada said to Melissa, or rather Motherboard, through her end of the line.

It was Sunday and Motherboard had just gotten out of church, as had Marbles, Ada, and Archimedes back at the Academically Gifted campus. Melissa was talking to Ada on her cy-phone while she rode her bike over to Antoine's dorm.

"I know," she said on her end of the line, "But there's something about when Antoine mentioned it that just..."

"Made your circuits spark?" Ada finished for her.

"Yes exactly," Motherboard said as she locked her bike to the bike rack, "Well I'm at Antoine's dorm building now so I have to go. Good-bye Ada."

"Good-bye Mel- I mean Motherboard," Ada replied and then ended the call.

Motherboard put her cy-phone back into the side pocket of her purse and went to Antoine's dorm.

"So where did you get all this soup from Antoine?" Brian asked after having opened the fridge.

"Melissa made it for me," Antoine explained before sneezing, "She says it was her father's special cure for cyber-flu."

"But how did she manage to go home, make it, and then come back here in one night?"

Antoine froze in his bed. If he didn't think of some explanation, his girlfriend would be busted, as the Radsters would say.

"Um... well she... made it at one of her friend's campus apartments. Yeah she used their kitchen," Antoine lied as he grabbed a tissue.

Before Brian could say anything else there was a knock at the door. He opened the door to find none other than his roommate's girlfriend.

"Oh hey Melissa," Brian said opening the door more so she could come in, "Antoine's still in bed as you can see."

"Hello dear," Antoine said nasally as Motherboard walked over to the bed, "How was church today?"

"Very moving as always," Motherboard answered smiling, "How are you feeling today? Is my father's soup helping at all?"

"Oh definitely," Antoine coughed, "I think I should be able to go to class tomorrow thanks to you."

"Mind if I have some Melissa?" Brian asked.

"Oh do help yourself," Motherboard answered, "We don't want you catching his illness."

"So what is the secret darling?" Antoine asked as he grabbed another tissue.

"Nothing special really. Its mainly the garlic and ginger. But the amount is what makes it work."

"I see," Antoine said then turned in his bed to Brian's direction, "Brian can you heat up a bowl for me too?"

Brian sighed. "Sure thing bro."

"I've been driving Brian crazy ever since he came home this morning," Antoine explained, "I think he's glad you're here to take care of me."

"Very much so," Brian replied, "I'm more than thrilled to leave the job to Nurse Melissa."

The couple laughed.

"Actually," Antoine stated as his friend brought him the bowl of soup, "Her specific nick-name is now Motherboard."

Brian smiled. "Motherboard huh? I'd say that's a perfect name for ya."

"Thank you," Motherboard replied politely, "And I believe I shall make it my alias in the near future, once I've made my inventions public or find myself a stable career in the political field."

"Well we better get used to calling you that all the time then?" Antoine suggested.

"But why do you need an alias?" Brian asked, not having been let in on the girl's past.

"Its personal," Melissa answered simply.

"Oh okay."

The three of them continued talking until Brian decided to go outside and practice some of his skate-boarding.

"So my dear Motherboard," Antoine asked his girlfriend once Brian was gone, "Have you thought about campaigning for student council? I know you said you were quite involved in high school and we could use a more... nurturing touch."

Antoine winked at the last two words and Motherboard couldn't help but laugh.

"I've considered it," she said, "But I don't know how well I'd be able to balance it with leading the debate team, tutoring the freshmen, and keeping my grades up. Plus I want to do more research on ways to bring a programmed cyborg back into their original body."

"Well you've got over 150 cyber-years to figure that out," Antoine replied hoarsely, "But you only have two more years of college, and it looks great on resumes."

"This is true," Motherboard admitted, "But then again-"

"In fact one of the students from last year got into the Poddleville city council fresh off graduation."

That sold the young woman.

"Where do I sign up?"

A/N: This still isn't how governments work, but hopefully its a bit more realistic than the original. I hope you all like it and if you have any ideas for more realistic ways for MB to climb the political ladder, please leave them in the reviews. Please just review either way. I love your reviews. As Digit would say:

See you in Cyberspace!