Bob paced restlessly. Dot would never permit this, but Phong had said that he would do nothing more than stabilize the virus unless he received Dot's permission.
His friends would never understand why he wanted to heal the virus. He was a monster to them, a cruel being to be feared and mistrusted.
Bob saw the other side of the coin. Megabyte was a genius, a guitar master, and capable asking for help. He was very much a person.
Megabyte had his faults, but he was a virus. Viruses had to obey their code.
Bob was sure that if he could transform Megabyte into a sprite, the virus could become a member of society. Megabyte wouldn't be grateful, of course. The virus just wasn't that kind of guy.
Bob stopped suddenly. Dot would never agree to his plan, but Mouse would. Mouse always got her way, and Dot was one of Mouse's closest friends.
Bob left the empty conference room with a bounce in his step.
***
"No way in tha Web," Mouse said coldly.
"But Mouse...." Bob knew he was whining, but it didn't matter.
"Bob, ya didn't watch him casually destroy Mainframe. Ya were here for the weddin', though. Ya know how bad he is."
"But...."
"He's just a virus, Bob."
Bob looked at her sharply. He'd heard those words all too many times as a cadet. Of course, his partner had never admitted that viruses were people.
"You sound like Dixon," he said testily.
"Now, there's no need ta be insultin'." Mouse frowned. "I'll ask Dot, but don't expect much."
"Thank you, Mouse. You have no idea what this means."
"Ya got that right."
***
He was still processing.
It was another simple thought. Any suprise he might have felt didn't make it through the pain, though.
Oh User, it hurt!
The Web had burned, inside and out of his body. That pain had been a sign of his continuous injury. He had never stopped being changed long enough for the healing codes to kick on.
As Bob, he had not been damaged. When he had been forced to reveal himself, each new trasformation, each new influx of code had injured him. But that final trap had distracted him too much; he had gone in as himself and had not changed at all.
The healing codes had finally had a chance to kick on.
It was agony.
***
"Have you gone completely random?" Dot asked increduously.
Mouse leaned back in one of the plush guest chairs. "It ain't a smart idea, but Megabyte is brilliant. If he was on our side..."
"We've got no one else to fight, Mouse. And get your feet off my desk."
"That's what General Turing said right before the Second Battle of Aldrea in VW2, sugah."
"That's what who said right before the Battle of what in what?"
She frowned at Dot's confusion. "That was a fairly important battle in the Second Virus War. And the Second Virus War is almost the first thang they teach ya in school."
"Oh, Net history." Dot dismissed it with a wave. "We don't need Megabyte around as a sprite. We only have the User left to fight."
"We may, but there are plenty of war-torn systems that can use someone like him, sugah."
"To finish destroying them?" The bitterness in her voice would have shocked Bob. "He and Hexadecimal have been destroying this system ever since they were created. Hex willingly destroyed herself to save the Net. Megabyte would never do that."
"Some of tha wars are pretty bloody, sugah. And when you're on tha front lines..."
Dot looked speculative for a moment, before shaking her head. "No, Mouse. Megabyte is Mainframe's problem. We'll deal with him ourselves." She stood up abrubtly. "And that means not healing him and not making him a citizen."
***
Dot found Bob pacing restlessly in one of the many waiting rooms in the Medical Sector. He stopped when he saw her, smiling brightly. "You agreed?"
"No," she said curtly. "I'm here to pull the plug on the bastard." She ignored the way his forlorn expression tugged at her processor.
"I am not sure that would work, my child," Phong said as he wheeled in through the inner door. "While running a comparision between Megabyte's current scans and the scans I took before stablizing him, I came to a distressing conclusion." He paused to adjust his glasses. "The virus seems to be improving."
"What?!" Dot yelled. "I thought all you did was stabilize him!"
"I did, my child. However, none of us know all the tricks of his code. Perhaps he has some sort of healing mechanism?"
"That is bad." Dot said slowly. There was no way she could justify to her conscience deleting him in cold blood. If he had started healing on his own, turning off his processing support would do nothing. There was nothing she could do to stop that monster from rising again. Except....
"All right, Bob. You can do it. Make him into a sprite."
***
The pain had taken on a new quality. Before, there had been the pain of his closed wounds being re-opened and his mishealed supports being re-broken. Before, his wounds had been slowly cleaning themselves and closing up again. Foreign code that was not part of his Trojan Virus system was expelled. Broken supports had aligned themselves properly and were healing together.
Now, though, there was the pain of transformation.
Had the sprites been so merciless that they had sent him back to the Web?
No, this felt like he was changing shape. It was so much slower than normal. He could feel the change from metal structural supports to delicate sprite bones, from strong metal armor to soft sprite flesh. The complex internal mechanics that allowed him to function were changing into the unreplaceable internal organs of a sprite.
This should not be happening. He had never transformed without a conscious command.
The agony of his CPUs transformation from the small, armored object in his head to the double-lobed energy-pumper in his chest hit him hard. Consciousness fled; he was reduced to agonal writhing.
***
Silver handed her personal cookie over to the Customs binome smoothly.
Privately, she was hoping that he didn't recognize the system she came from. There was too much riding on this visit to waste time in quarantine.
The mistress would be displeased if the system was not prepared for her arrival.
"Everything looks fine, Miss. Welcome to Mainframe." The binome said cheerily, as he handed her back her cookie.
* * *
CONTINUED IN CHAPTER II: REBIRTH