The Worlds Beyond: Part 2
Megabyte looked around the large stone chamber. The game sprites couldn't enter it, and snarled, frustrated, from the entrances to the room. "You'd like to get in here, wouldn't you?" he muttered under his breath. He turned to inspect the operation. About fifteen binomes stood around the device, which was sucking up the portal's energy. The portal didn't have a specified location-it was a swirling grey color, twisting and blending shades before their eyes.
"Well?" the virus said impatiently.
"All is going according to plan, your imenseness. The energy transferred to the game walls *should* be transferred to the parts of the Firewall touching it, and break through."
"Let's just hope the User takes a while to get here, then," the virus replied. He frowned. "How long will it take?"
"I would guess... about a cycle, perhaps more."
"Fine. Proceed."
"Yes, sir."
The virus walked towards one of the entrances a bit. The game sprites growled at him.
"Really," he muttered again. "What pathetic creatures. They have no intelligence or thought at all. Just a mindless, permanent killing directive stuck in their memory." he paused, and said thoughtfully, "I wonder if they're infectible?"
A dragon tried to bash its head through the transparent wall.
"No, that wouldn't work, they'd still be stuck in the game. And I hardly need another Hack and Slash. Most of these can barely think for themselves."
"Sir," one of the binomes said from where he was working on a computer terminal. "We have the game stats online. There are twenty-five levels. The User is halfway through level two so far. He's... wait a nanosecond... there's another User in the game!"
"What?" said Megabyte, walking over, interested.
"This User is in the third level and almost done. A multi-player game. This shouldn't have any effect on the energy conversion, but..." he frowned.
"I do hope that the program won't have to be *aborted*." the virus said, the faintest hint of menace in his voice.
"No, Lord Megabyte! Really!" Babbled the binome, hastily. He knew that subtlety like that would be an open threat from anyone else. "It's just that the game now imposes a time limit with multiple players, so we might have to step up operations a bit. Er, I'll get on it right away!" he scampered off.
Megabyte rolled his eyes. Honestly, he wouldn't mind having someone with a backbone around for once. At the slightest pressure, most binomes tended to fold in to his slightest whim. Mainframe had very few sprites. When he broke out of here, perhaps a main priority of his would be infecting some.
"Sir! We've fixed the problem!"
"Good," Megabyte replied shortly. "Where are the User's now?"
"The first appears to be in level three now, and the second hasn't proceeded any further than the beginning of level four. Something appears to be holding it up..."
* * *
"How many stupid skeletons are there?!" Jill screeched out loud. "This is really going to screw up my time." She smiled unpleasantly. "You want my blood?" she unleashed an acidsnake aimed at the undead, a creature that lunged onto your opponent's throat and exploded, showering them with the snake's corrosive insides. It splattered all over the skeletons, dissolving them.
"Come and get it!" she yelled triumphantly as she cleared off the rest of horde.
"That'll teach you to mess with... hey!" A small figure had just snatched something from her belt. It was gone in a flash.
"Great..." she muttered. "Pesky thieves... that was my Nova spell. Now Jay can try to get it later..."
Thieves were sprites designed to quickly snatch a few valuable weapons and/or potions before you could react, then vanish. They were then transported to the final chamber. Inside the chamber, they hid, and occasionally popped out of the shadows. Once you were inside, you could try to kill one for the items it stole, and sometimes get a rare artifact your opponent had. It was a sort of final chance for a power-up. Luckily, there were only a couple per game.
"Well, I'll get you later..." Jill said to herself.
* * *
Miyu panted in exhaustion, but triumph. He held up the sparkling spell globe in the dim light of the chamber. The pink game sprite with pale green eyes and mohawk put it in his pack and sighed. Well, time to wait for the Users.
"Freeze!"
It was then he noticed the binomes with the filelockers.
* * *
"You found him in here?" Megabyte asked, curiously.
"Correct, sir!" said the lead binome, snapping to attention.
"How interesting. A game sprite." The virus turned to the trembling sprite, and asked in a deceptively soothing voice, "What's your name?"
"M-Miyu..." he got out, eyes wide with fear. "Are-are..." he swallowed and went on. "Are you really a... vi-rus?" he said the word virus oddly, as if he hadn't really used it often.
Megabyte raised an eyebrow. "What does it look like?" he said, gesturing to the binomes with the same color coding and un-happy face symbol as him.
"Bu-but... You don't exist! Viruses are only a myth... like the evil Users who made them..." the shocked sprite trailed off.
"Made us? I suppose they did, and yes, we do exist. And now..." he picked up the startled sprite by the shoulder, "I'd like to perform a little... test."
The viral binomes, aware of what was going to happen, stepped back quite a bit. Miyu found himself alone with the virus, his shoulder gripped firmly to make sure he didn't bolt.
"Test?!" the frightened boy squeaked. "What test?!"
"I want to see if you can be infected or not."
"In-fected? What is in-fecte...wait, I've read about that. That's when a virus takes over someone's PID and make them into their slave..." he stopped as cold horror washed over him.
"A rather simplistic way of putting it, but it's basically right..." the virus purred. "Although, since you game sprites are different from regular sprites, I'm not sure how it will affect you, if at all..."
"No, wait! Please, stop!"
Megabyte tightened his already strong grip on the sprite. A whine filled the air, and his eyes glowed as he tried to infect the sprite. A green glow spread up his arm to the terrified child's.
Miyu's eyes widened as he felt a wave of something flow through his body, trying to force its way into his code. He screamed. It wasn't exactly painful, but felt horrible, like his whole will was being stripped away, and something else, something alien, was replacing it.
Miyu could only stare in horror at Megabyte. He felt, though, that the virus couldn't break through. Something was blocking him. Miyu's colors flickered to match Megabyte's viral's a couple of times, then went back to normal. The small sprite collapsed. The virus simply sighed and dropped him on the ground.
"No good. The game's copyright is protecting him. Perhaps if he was in the Tor, we would have the equipment to break through his code, but only that other game sprite knew how to escape games."
Another game sprite? Outside the games? There had were always rumors of few that escaped, but he didn't care to try it himself. He had a home, friends, and family in the maze, few that they were. What would convince a sprite to leave the games? They had multiple lives here, and they were always resurrected when the User left.
"Filelock him for now."
Miyu coughed pitifully. How could the virus be so calm about what happened?! This had been perhaps the strangest event in the sprite's life, and the virus acted as if it were nothing! It proboably was to him, the boy thought bitterly.
Things like this must happen every second wherever he came from.
That was his last thought as the binomes closed in.
* * *
Dot was standing in the Principal Office. Phong stood by her. "The energy levels are fluctuating within the game! I believe he's trying to divert game energy into the firewall!"
"What in the Net will that do?"
"Weaken it, or perhaps even destroy it."
"Oh great."
Dot moved away, then wobbled slightly. Phong noticed this.
"Are you alright Dot?" he said, worried. "Only, you haven't been getting that much sleep lately..."
"Oh..." Dot replied, voice suddenly becoming light. "No, Phong, I'll be fine..." she smiled at him and took a few more steps before crashing to the floor.
* * *
Hack and Slash were in the front lines, waiting for the gamecube to leave. They received looks of pity, and a few of contempt, from the binomes there.
Hack and Slash were not happy. They might not want to do any of the things they were being forced to, but they certainly didn't want to be deleted either.
"Great. So now what do we do?" Slash asked.
"I don't know!" replied Hack furiously.
"Geez, don't be so grumpy."
"Then what am I supposed to be?! We-are-going-to-be-ERASED!!!"
"I like to look on the bright side."
"Bright side? What bright side?"
"Well, that game cube looks nice..."
"You idiot!!! When that game leaves, the boss is going to start the attack again!"
"Aww, I don't like war. Why can't we just all be friends..."
"Because the boss is a virus, and viruses and sprites DO NOT get along very well, because they want to do different things."
"Like what?"
"The boss wants to rule Mainframe, and the mainframers want to be left alone. Since they don't want to be ruled over, they are trying to fight us off. That is why...", Hack concluded patiently, "we have to have a war. So the boss can rule over Mainframe."
"Oh."
They stood in silence for a while.
"Hack?"
"Yeah, Slash?"
"I don't want to be deleted."
"Me neither."
They stood in silence some more. A germ of an idea was starting to sprout in their brains.
"Hack?"
"Yeah?" "What if we..."
"What?"
"What if we... DIDN'T attack Mainframe?"
"You mean the army?"
"No, I mean us."
"What? But that would mean disobeying orders! We'd be deleted!"
"Yeah, but Hack, I mean, if we're going to be deleted in the attack anyhow..."
The idea took root.
"Then we could run away, because that way..." said Hack slowly.
"We could still have a chance of surviving." replied Slash.
And spread.
"And...and..." said Slash, becoming excited. "If left, and the boss caught us, we could just say we survived the attack and came back!"
"Hey, yeah!"
"It could work!"
They looked at each other.
"Let's do it!" they chorused, and zoomed away as fast as their cruisers could carry them. They heard the angry voice of a superior shouting at them to come back, but it was too late. Hack and Slash disappeared into the gloom of the lower levels.
"Sir!" said a binome to the commanding officer. "Should I order someone to follow them?"
"No," the officer replied. "The cube could leave at any moment. Don't bother wasting any manpower on those two. We'll find and delete them after the attack."
"But what if Megabyte finds out they left?"
The binomes collectively shuddered. "Let's just hope he doesn't." he replied. "Anyhow, I'm sure he had more important things to think about than those two."
* * *
"Final level."
"Groovy," Gil said, quoting her favorite line from "Malicious Corpses." Her character was nearing the gates that lead to the last chamber. The time limit for this level was very short, to make sure that she wouldn't have to wait that long for Jay. In fact, the time limits for all the levels were shortened now.
Jay would also move it, to give Gil less time to prepare.
Jill started to hack away at the monsters waiting at the gate.
* * *
The doctor binome paled.
"S-sir! There's been an unexpected development! ALL the time limits have been shortened! One of the User's is in this level!"
Megabyte's head snapped around. "What? That's impossible! How could it have gotten here so quickly?! It must be the new User. Where's the other?" he snapped out quickly.
"Uh... two levels below us."
There was a loud boom at one of the gates, and it was now apparent that the User was only a few nanoseconds away from bursting in.
"How much energy do we have stored up?"
"Not enough to breach the wall, but enough to do some damage."
"Then do it. Now!"
* * *
Phong looked over the screen. He wished Dot was here, but she had been totally exhausted, and needed to rest. Mouse was still working on the game energy, saying she had found something important. He would have to be in charge, for now.
"Well..." he said, unhappily. "The game energy is being transferred. Luckily, there's enough to do some damage but not enough to break through."
A huge sigh of relief swept through the room.
"Well, at least that's O.K." a binome commented.
Suddenly, the sky above the city flickered once or twice, and a second line of energy attached itself to the game cube.
"What?" exclaimed Phong, starring at the vid-window and then he charts. "Oh dear... oh no... a third User has illegally broken into the game!"
"Illegally?" gulped a small zero binome. "You mean it's a... bad User?"
"I'm afraid that might be the case."
"I thought all the ports to the net were closed!"
"They are, but this isn't exactly over the Net. It's over a LAN system."
"Well, what does it want with *us*?!" another binome asked, almost hysterical.
Users were mostly held as powerful but unaware beings that generally didn't mean to do harm, and in fact sometimes protected cities from viruses and crashes. Most Users took care of their systems, even though the games were a puzzle. But other Users were evil. They hacked into things illegally and tried to destroy innocent places. They were the ones who programmed bugs and viruses, for this purpose.
"I do not know, my child. We must hope that our User detects this User before it's too late."
They watched the game cube swirl and pulse on the screen.
* * *
"Yes! Contact! And they haven't noticed!" Kevin grinned.
Hacking his way into the game had been relatively easy, since Jill and Jake were both concentrating on playing. He wasn't sure what he would do from inside the game, yet. Several possibilities flitted across his mind. His character was on the first level.
Kevin stared up the hack that allowed him to become invisible and be teleported instantly to the final level. After all, he wasn't going to be killed by a silly time limit.
* * *
"There! Done sir! The damage percent we've done to the firewall is about-" the binome was cut off quickly as the User dressed in colorful sorcerer robes strode into the chamber.
"It's here," Megabyte said, taking a step back and unsheathing his claws.
* * *
Jill strode into the chamber- And stopped. A tall, metallic blue figure, a bunch of smaller, round and cube shaped metallic blue figures, a thief suspended in what looked like a pale green transparent cube, a complicated looking machine, and a swirling grey ball in the center of the room...
"What the-" Jill said as she blinked a few times. She simply leaned back a bit then said, "O.K, who's been screwing around with my computer?"
A small *bleep* noise caught her attention, and she looked at the bottom of the screen. She cursed. It had the number of players there, and what she saw didn't add up.
"A *three* player game?! Who's the third player?" she growled. "Kevin! What's he doing now?"
A high pitched whine filled the air, and the ball convulsed a few times, then started to grow. The blue figures scattered. Jill wasn't sure what to do about them. If they were something of Kevin's, they could kill you if you touched one, for all she knew.
The ball cleared and showed a picture of a strange looking city. It suddenly grew enormous and swallowed up her character in a flash of light.
"What the-" Jill said, as the light grew so bright it was painful to look at. A huge surge of electricity from her computer shocked her. Jill shouted as she was jolted into unconsciousness.
* * *
A similar scene happened at the other two Users homes. A surge of energy, a flash of light, then unconsciousness. They would never guess what they would find when they woke up.