Nanoseconds: Seconds

Microminutes: Minutes

Millihour: Hour

Second: Day

Cycle: Week

Minute: Month

Hour: Year

Day: Decade

In the dim light of the interrogation room, he can't help but fiddle with the cuffs of his uniform. He's been here so many times in the past, but never for something like this. He is not sure what he is waiting for or how long he has been waiting. He might have been sat for eight millihours or just two microminutes, he's not really sure. What he is sure of, is he cannot take the waiting any more, and he feels his stomach twisting and turning as it threatens to release his breakfast onto the floor.

He's ready to bolt towards the door when it swings open and a tall woman with pink skin and red hair tied back into a tight bun steps into the room, dressed in a silver guardian suit. He doesn't know her personally but he's seen her a few times, here and there during his time in the supercomputer to know who she is. Echo Volt. One of the highest ranking members of the Guardian Collective, right under Turbo. Yellow eyes narrowed, and a pursed look on her face, she waits no time sitting down across from him, dropping a thick folder of files across from him.

She says nothing as another man, dressed in a bronze uniform, likely her subordinate, steps into the room, holding a box labeled "Mainframe" on the side and what has to be a .wav recorder. The man leans down to give the box and the recorder to the woman who murmurs a small thank you, taking it without hesitation and depositing it onto the table. Neither pay him any mind as she flips through the file she already set down before opening the box. He realizes now, he can see written on the side is not only the word Mainframe but "Box 1 of 236". His tongue feels heavy.

"You are Guardian 40 of the 52nd Division, Level 3 Systems Officer, Robert Syntax, correct?" she asks, not bothering to look at him.

"I-...it's Bob, actually." he says. Why was he nervous? He had never been nervous about meeting with his superiors. It wasn't like it was the first time he had ever been in the hot seat; User knew how many times he had been reprimanded and written up for dumb things he did during Cadet school. But this wasn't like cadet school, he wasn't being interrogated because he and his bunk mates had teepeed the Dean's office. This was….indescribable. She looks up sharply, eyes narrowing further.

"Soldier, this is an official Guardian investigation which directly involves you and that little backwater system of yours. We are not friends, I am your superior. I've read your record and I know you have a tendency to be smart mouthed. I am going to ask you questions, and you are going to answer to the best of your abilities, with no backtalk, understood?"

The confident part of Bob that was quick witted and calm under pressure had shriveled upon and died in the last few cycles, leaving behind a cynical man in his place.

"...Understood."

"Good, now I will repeat: You are Guardian 40 of the 52nd Division, Level 3 Systems Officer, Robert Syntax of the Guardian Collective, correct?" she says, pulling a pen out from her breast pocket and marking something down on a sheet she has pulled from the file folder on the desk.

"…Yes."

"Good." She notes something else, from his position across the table he can't make out the notes she's writing but can see a sheet sticking out of the folder with the name Dot Matrix on it, the 'atrix' part covered by the folder. It made sense, they probably interviewed everyone in Mainframe at this point, or at least anyone remotely related to the incident the council was now calling the "Matrix" incident.

She stops writing, setting her pen aside and grabs the recorder; he realizes now that it's already on, the red light blinking. She moves it closer to the middle of the table, fussing with the placement for a few minutes before she's finally satisfied with where it's sat. She rises for a moment, readjusting her chair as she sits again and crosses her legs and turns to look at him directly for the first time truly since she walked into the room.

"Right. Now, I have already interviewed your friends, and your fiancé, as well as the accused and the... .well him, since Turbo insisted. Give me, in your own words, a recount on what happened here tonight. And please don't lie, I am many things but I am not an idiot and I have ways of finding out the truth." she says, fingers tapping the table. He shudders because she knows what exactly the council is capable of, even if they liked to pretend their more inhumane methods of extracting the truth were mere rumors rather than fact.

"I…I think if you want to know what happened tonight, you need to go back to the beginning, to the wedding when this all started." The lump in his throat which had been small and easily ignorable was now growing and tightening as emotion threatened to spill from his lips. He fought to push it down; he couldn't cry, not now.

"Then by all means, go ahead. I am in no rush, we want to get to the bottom of this and any information that can help shed light on what happened would be appreciated." She leans back in her chair, eyes forward and hands in her lap, silently gesturing that the floor was his. He licks his lips out of nervousness and tries to push out the anguish he feels.

"I don't…I assume I don't need to tell you about the wedding, or about what happened right after. It started when Megabyte announced his intent over the intercom: he wasn't back to take over the Mainframe or infect the supercomputer. He was back to enact his revenge against us; to hunt us down one by one in the confines of the Principal's Office. It was to be our coffin."

"You know…ever since this all started, I keep thinking what would have happened if he chose someone else. If he decided to go after anyone else instead of her. Maybe we wouldn't be sitting here right now; maybe we would all be dead…something tells me though, we were going to end up here regardless."

"Either way…. I don't think anyone could have predicted what was about to happen next."