Bob was in terrible condition when the ambulance CPU arrived, accompanied by
Matrix, Enzo, Zipp, AndrAIa, and Dot. He lay in the spot where the game
cube had rested, predominantly motionless, though every so often a flash of
electricity raced through him. He appeared to be partially erased, yet some
sort of deadly energy could be seen rushing through his code. Fortunately,
he was unconscious.
"See?" declared Enzo.
Matrix dodged several binome medics carrying a stretcher. "This just
happened to him all of a sudden," he said, gesturing at Bob. "One minute,
he's fighting giant ants. The next..." His voice trailed off as his sister
knelt down beside Bob.
He looked horrible, half deleted. Dot stroked his cheek, ignoring the
slight shock that ran through her code. "Oh, Bob, what happened to you?"
she whispered. What if it was something irreversible? And what had her
last words been? You brainless jerk?
The binomes picked Bob up, dumping him on the stretcher. Dot walked
alongside, squeezing Bob's hand inside her own, until a binome suggested
that it might be easier to get him into the ambulance if she would let go.
Dot watched the ambulance fly off. I'm so sorry, she thought.
Enzo walked shyly up to Dot. "Is Bob going to be deleted?" he asked softly.
In spite of herself, she smiled and shook her head. "No, no, he probably
won't."
"We need to find out exactly what happened to him," said AndrAIa, jumping on
her zipboard. "They're taking him to the Principal's Office."
"Then let's go!" yelled Matrix. He grabbed Enzo's wrist and sped off.
Dot watched them leave. She should probably go, too. She sighed and walked
over to her zipboard.
"Are you okay, Dot?"
Dot spun around. "Oh, Zipp! You scared me. You've been so quiet; I forgot
you were here. Why didn't you leave with the others?"
Zipp smiled. "I wanted to make sure you're all right. I'd feel terrible if
I were in your shoes."
Dot wiped away a new tear. "It's just, well, we were fighting earlier, and
I didn't get a chance to apologize. It's situations like these that hurt
the worst. I don't think he'll be deleted or anything."
Zipp nodded understandingly. "He won't," she said cheerfully. "It was some
sort of freak act of the User. I'm sure Bob will be fine." So Dot was
hurting. Dot didn't know the definition of the word. But she'd know soon
enough, if everything went correctly. "Come on. I'll prove it to you."
They had been in the waiting room for several seconds. No news of Bob's
condition had come yet. Dot had spent the time running back and forth
between the waiting room and various errands, which according to her, were
absolutely necessary. But everyone knew it was just to keep her mind off
Bob. Matrix sat in a chair, occasionally taking out his gun and fiddling
with ti before putting it back. Once he gave it to Enzo. But AndrAIa saw,
took it away, and returned it to Matrix with a warning. AndrAIa, Zipp, and
Mouse sat on the couch, chatting a little, but the conversation never got
anywhere.
After what seemed like an eternity, the door burst open, and Phong rolled
into the room, hands clasped, head bowed.
"I am sure you are all desiring to know how Bob is doing, my children," he
said.
Dot ran into the room. "How is he? Is he okay?"
Phong raised his head slightly. "Dot, I'm sorry..."
Dot shrieked and fell to the floor. Zipp leaped from the couch.
"...For not assuring you earlier," he continued. "Bob has been fine for
about a second. He is still unconscious and drained of energy, but whatever
had happened to him is over."
Zipp now collapsed to the floor.
"Bob is fine?" echoed Dot, climbing to her feet.
"That's... that's wonderful!" exclaimed Zipp, still on the floor. "What
went wrong?" What went wrong?!
"It seems that Bob was attacked by some sort of magnet," replied Phong.
"One edited into energy."
"A magnet?" Enzo's eyes went wide. "Alphanumeric."
Matrix stood up. "A magnet wouldn't do all that."
"Perhaps it had some other command stored into it," Mouse suggested.
Phong nodded. "You are correct, Mouse. It appears that a deletion command
was encoded into the magnet energy. Somehow this was released."
"But from where?" asked AndrAIa.
"It is unknown. Fortunately, the game cube warped the signal."
"Strange," said Zipp. She was now sitting in lotus position.
"Ya' got that right, sugah," said Mouse. She frowned at Zipp. The
cartridge Zipp had given her flashed into her mind. Should she mention it?
"Surprise!" Hexadecima. appeared in the doorway, her mask depicting a
cheerful yet clueless smile, typical to Hex. "I heard about Bob. Is he all
right, the poor dear? Anyway, I baked brownies!" A platter of something
that smelled delicious materialized in her hands.
Zipp stared at Hex. What was Hexadecimal doing here? She crouched low on
the floor, hoping she wouldn't be noticed.
Hex skitted about the room, handing out brownies. "And Zipporah! You need
one, too." She picked up a brownie to hand to Zipp. Then she froze, her
face switching to surprise. "Zipporah! What are you doing here? Oh, never
mind! It's so nice to see you again!"
Zipp forced a smile, praying Hexadecimal wouldn't say too much.
Everyone in the room turned to stare at Zipp and Hex.
"Zipp, you know Hex?" asked AndrAIa.
Hex laughed. "Well, I only met her once, but Zipporah is my..." A binome
doctor walked down the hall, past the open door. "Would you like a
brownie?" She dashed after the binome. Zipp gave a sigh of relief.
"That was interesting," declared Mouse, watching Hex leave.
"Quite," agreed Phong. "Pity Zipporah has also met Hexadecimal." He
cleared his throat. "Perhaps we should all leave, as that Bob will not be
disturbed."
"I could show Zipp around Mainframe," AndrAIa volunteered. "Now that we
know Bob will be all right."
Matrix sighed and shook his head. "Not another shopping escapade."
AndrAIa only smiled.
Zipp stood up. "Shopping? Why not?"
The two girls ran off.
"Those two get along well," Mouse observed. "It's kind of nice for AndrAIa
to have a female sprite closer to her one age around."
"Who am I supposed to be with?" Matrix whined.
"You can go do some target practice, darlin'," replied Mouse. "Or play with
Enzo."
Matrix looked down at Enzo, who stood smiling up at him. "Wanna go to the
Data Slides?"
Matrix groaned.
Dot smiled faintly and rolled her eyes. "I guess everyone could use a
little break after that scare."
Mouse nodded. "Amen, Dot. Howabout..." She stopped talking as Dot,
apparently not listening, followed Phong out of the waiting room. To see
Bob, no doubt. Mouse shook her head. That was an odd little byte of
hypocrisy. There was no way to get that sprite to relax. Her eyes shifted
over to Enzo, who was still bouncing around with excitement. Well, the Data
Slides sounded like fun.
***
"I can't believe you, AndrAIa! User, I swear..."
"Zipp, don't you even dare pity yourself. You're going to be deleted for
this one!"
"All right, all right. We can delete each other. We'll come out at the
count of three: 1; 2; 3!"
AndrAIa and Zipp walked out of their dressing room stalls. They looked at
each other, smirking,, but too embarrassed for actual laughter.
"How often do you do this again?" asked AndrAIa. She took a step, trying to
keep her balance while wearing 9-inch hot pink platform sandles. She wore
an unbelievably tiny black mini-skirt topped with a pink sports bra with
little white bunnies embroidered on it.
"Actually, I haven't done this for about a cycle," admitted Zipp. "So how
do you like what I picked out for you?"
AndrAIa pretended to gag. "How do you like yours?"
Zipp stared at her. "It's red." Zipp wore a bright red, midriff-baring
tube top and a floor length skirt slit open on both sides. It was also red.
"I hate red and I feel like a slut. Is this revenge for the Victoria's
Password ensemble?"
"Yes," AndrAIa replied angelically. She titled her head and batted her
eyelashes.
That was too much . Both girls burst out laughing. They changed into their
own clothes, dumping the outfits on a rack.
"That's enough of that," said AndrAIa as they headed out of Demo into the
crowd of mall crawlers.
"You're right," agreed Zipp. "Besides, The Space doesn't have the right
clothes for that game anyway. We could always stalk people, if we need
something else to do."
"How about him?" AndrAIa pointed to a binome zero who was walking out of a
comic file shop.
"Good choice."
They followed the binome, keeping at a short distance behind him. He didn't
seem to notice for some time., but then he stopped and turned around to
stare at the girls, who pretended to look at a display window. The binome
turned around and practically dove into a unit store. Trying hard not to
giggle, Zipp and AndrAIa went into the store, where they stared at the
binome over the shelves. He pretended not to notice, but after about five
nanos, he left the store.
As soon as he was clear of the store, the binome broke into a run. But he
couldn't loose him. Panic seemed to shoot through him.
He turned another corner, one that led into Giga's. He could loose them
there.
But Giga's was closed.
He slid into the wall, falling to his knees. Zipp and AndrAIa slowly
approached him.
"Why won't you let me be?!" he suddenly cried, his arms reaching towards the
ceiling. Then he dropped his face to the floor and began to sob loudly.
Laughing, the girls walked off. "Now he was interesting!" acclaimed Zipp.
AndrAIa nodded. "It was nice that he was so paranoid. Want to go to
Baudstrom's, buy something on clearance just so we can get the bag, and walk
around acting like snobs?"
"Definitly!"
They entered Baudstrom's, and were immediately welcomed by a flock of
binomes armed with bottles of perfume. Somehow they managed to escape, only
to find themselves at the cosmetics counter. "Help," Zipp murmered.
A binome in a white jacket held out a tray of makeup samples. "This is our
new collection for this cycle," she said, offering Zipp a sample tube of red
lipstick. "This is Fire Wall. It will flatter your particular skin tone."
Zipp grimaced.
AndrAIa took an eyeshadow sample. "I need some more eyeshadow," she mused.
"What other shades do you have?"
The binome ran off, and AndrAIa turned to Zipp. "Do you need any eye
makeup?"
Zipp shook her head. "Nah. I don't wear the stuff."
"Oh, come on," said AndrAIa, grabbing a mirror. "All the more reason to
start now. Here, take off your glasses." She reached for the shades.
"No!" Zipp turned her face away.
AndrAI yanked her hand back, startled.
"No," Zipp repeated, calmer. "I mean, I'd rather not take off my glasses.
It's too bright in here."
AndrAIa nodded automatically, her eyes still on Zipp. "Oh. Sure thing."
***
"Bob?"
Bob groaned and struggled to open his eyes. They felt so heavy... He felt
like he had been hit by a CPU.
"Bob?" The voice was strange. Familiar. It sounded far off, but he was
certain it was nearby.
"Bob?" the voice repeated. "Are you awake?"
He was sure he recognized the voice. He turned his head.
A face blurred into focus. "Bob?"
"Dot?" He rubbed his eyes. Yet, it was Dot.
"Bob!" Dot shrieked with delight and bent over to kiss him. Bob willingly
complied.
"What happened," he asked, as soon as he could get a breath. He sat up,
pulling Dot into his lap. "We were in the game, and I remember some jolt,
and after that, nothing."
Dot repeated what Phong had said.
"A magnet? But where did it come from?" he asked.
Phong wheeled over. "It is good to see you awake, my son. You seem to be
in perfect condition, though you probably feel weak. As for your question,
I have Hack and Slash working on it right as we speak."
"Dot!" Enzo called from outside. "Matrix pushed me down the Data Slide!"
"That's the idea!," yelled Matrix.
Enzo entered the room. "But he- Bob!" Dot had barely enough time to move
before Enzo bounded onto the bed, crushing Bob.
Matrix and Mouse entered, smiling as soon as they saw Bob.
"That was a quick recovery!"
"Good to see ya conscious, sugah."
Hack and Slash then came in. "Phong! Phong! We found it!"
Everyone turned to look. Hack and Slash were carrying a small cartridge
between them.
"I saw it first," said Slash.
"No, I did."
"You did?"
"No, I did."
"But I touched it first-"
"Thank you!" said Phong gratingly. He took the cartridge and examined it.
"Yes, I think this may be what we are looking for. I'll have someone run it
through some tests for absolution. Now where did you find it?"
"Here!" they said in proud unision.
Enzo snickered and Phong shook his head.
"It was in the Main Room," said Hack.
"Yes, in the room where Dot works."
"But we work there, too."
"The Main Room," echoed Matrix. "You were in there this morning, Dot."
Everyone looked at Dot, who's jaw dropped open. "What...?"
Bob's eyes flashed with rage. "You did this? Oh, I see. It was during
that fight." His voice dropped. "I didn't realize you were mad enough to
delete me!"
"But I..." Dot began. "That... that thing. I radioed it out this morning,
after one of my meetings."
"I didn't know you would to that," said Enzo, horrified.
"But I didn't know what is was!" she said. "Mouse gave it to me and..."
All eyes flashed at Mouse, who paled. "I..." She had been right.
"Hi, everyone!" AndrAIa skipped into the room, loaded with shopping bags.
She jabbed a bottle of lotion into Matrix's face. "It's from Download and
Code Works. It's that new Tangerine Spice flavor." The seriousness of the
room hit here. "What's going on?"
"Mouse tried to delete me," Bob muttered. "Only I can't see why she would."
"I..." Mouse stuttered. What was she supposed to say? She didn't know what
it was either? She was innocent?
"It wasn't Mouse."
Zipp stood in the doorway, trembling. Shopping bags lay at her feet.
"What did you say?" asked Phong.
"Mouse didn't try to kill Bob," Zipp repeated softly. "I asked her to radio
that cartridge out for me. It was me who tried to delete him."
Bob's eyes narrowed, and with a surprising burst of energy, he leaped from
the bed. "And why?"
Zipp sneered, baring her teeth. Fangs. "Because you killed my husband!"
she screamed.
She took off her shades.
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