4.04: Touched by a virus.

[nofileext]

The task that Daemon lays out for Mouse and YT is simple enough: allow the Word to spread to its fullest extent. To that end, YT is sent off into the 'Net carrying a list of IP addresses and a copy of Mouse's encryption codes.

One by one, YT visits the systems Mouse has firewalled off. One by one, the firewalls drop, allowing the Word to spread to the systems beyond them.

Soon, only one firewall remains.

This one is special. What lies within this system is too important to be entrusted to an underling. There have been too many false starts already.

Surrounded by a fleet of Guardian transports, Daemon and her new entourage fly toward System Mainframe.

Comments

[command_dot_com]

Dot turned to the Null creature at the controls. "Dad, standby. When she enters the gateway hit send."

"Phong," she said turning to the old sprite. "You're with me. Let's greet our 'guest'."

She looked over at everyone gathered. "Everyone...stay calm."

[nofileext]

Phong looks up at the approaching virus. When you know them for what they are, the ones that don't look scary are somehow even scarier.

"Ohhh dear."

[nofileext]

Daemon slows to a stop in midair and regards the assembled programs curiously. "Hello," she says, turning to the green sprite on the ground. "You must be Dot. Matrix has told me all about you."

[command_dot_com]

"Then you know what I think of Viruses." The tone of her voice is more than JUST a little angry. Her opinion of viruses is so low, you wouldn't even be able to limbo under it.

[nofileext]

Daemon is unfazed by Dot's anger. It's nothing she hasn't heard before. No one understands the gift Daemon brings until they have received it.

She addresses the next sprite. "Phong. The wise one. It is an honor to finally meet you."

[nofileext]

Phong folds his arms, glares at the virus, and says nothing.

[nofileext]

"And there is my messenger, with--" suddenly her serene expression turns into a scowl. "Hexadecimal! You have turned into an abomination! You are a disgrace to your kind!"

A virus changing its format? Unthinkable!

[red-cg-insanity.livejournal.com]

It's not like it was her fragging fault. This was embarrassing and rather annoying, now she is being treated almost nicely and she was being belittled by a young whippersnapper of a viral.....

Hex was not happy, let's leave the ranting out.

She would have been blushing if it were possible. She hung her head a little. Partly to hide her shame, and partly to hide her need to power up and strangle Daemon.

[mendanddefend_archive]

"She's not your kind anymore," snaps Bob, glaring at Daemon.

[nofileext]

Daemon's scowl is gone as quickly as it arrived. "There is no need for anger," she says. "Soon we will be one, joined in the Word."

She resumes her descent toward the Principal Office--and the Gateway standing in front of it.

[nofileext]

Welman holds his 'hand' just above the Gateway console, waiting for just the right moment to hit Send...

[nofileext]

A moment which never comes.

Daemon touches down just in front of the Gateway's opening, and when she does, the Word radiates out of her like a shockwave. Everything in the system, living or not, on the ground or in the air, is touched by her infection.

Mainframe is hers.

[nofileext]

Back in his cell, Turbo falls to his hands and knees, screaming as Daemon's infection spreads through the system.

"She's here..." he says to himself, breathless. He gets to his knees and looks up as the infection starts to take hold. "User have mercy on the 'Net..."

The Divine Invasion

[hiroaki_protagonist]

Not far away, Hiro is in the lab, trying to patch the single-bit errors left by Bob's damage, when the Word reaches him.
"Wow. Spread through that population even faster than smallpox."
For a moment, he remembers that he ought to be fighting it... but then he feels the Word in all its power, and he looks on that desire to resist it as the naïvete of someone who didn't understand it nearly as well as he thought he did. Liana, Lady rest her, was right; you can't understand the Word until you've experienced it for yourself.
"It's like we have religion receptors in our brain cells, or something, and we'll latch onto anything that'll fill that niche for us."
His hacker format may not have come with a protocol, but simply by being a sprite, he had a space where a protocol ought to have gone. Now, that place is filled, and it takes nothing away from his own reason. It merely gives his reason a purpose.
"Do you believe in God or not?"
He remembers wanting to fight the Word, and even remembers his reasons and that they made perfect sense to him at the time, but they don't matter to his new understanding. When you don't have direct experience of a deity in your deep structures, it makes sense to call this sort of experience "prerational" or "postrational". But once you hear the Word, the only rational response is acknowledging your debt to the Lady who brings it.

Re: The Divine Invasion

[mendanddefend_archive]

Sprites don't have any native concept of religion, and Bob only has a very general notion of the human definition of the word. There are no words in his vocabulary for the new protocol that suddenly overwhelms his system.

Bob understands. He understands why his fellow Guardians would die and kill for their Lady--now his Lady as well. He understands that the Word is more important than any function of any program in the 'Net, and more important than the life of any one individual.

And he knows, now, that the purpose Daemon has set for him is what he was born to do.

He is the Messenger. She is the Word.

Re: The Divine Invasion

[red-cg-insanity.livejournal.com]

Hex is probably the most sac religious of all. She has no patience for such things, and she would rather make fun of them.

But now, she is overwhelmed with an emotion she has never felt before. It is a feeling of rapture and her heart swelling to overflowing.

For the fact that this is a super virus that is doing this, this is VERY BAD!!!!!

She had only read a little about said experiences in the User's read me files that bar had given her. She now had a little empathy. She felt shame at the anger of Daemon towards her. Why? It wasn't her fault that she was now a sprite.

She lowered her eyes.

Re: The Divine Invasion

[nofileext]

Phong has long found that the best way to process was to seek harmony in all things: with one's friends and associates, with one's surroundings...

Now he realizes how small were the steps he had made in that direction. This feeling, this serenity, this is true harmony. Harmony with all sprites everywhere, with the entire 'Net. Harmony with the Word.

Re: The Divine Invasion

[command_dot_com]

For the last two minutes Dot's life has been nothing about stress and worry, her comfort coming from cold hard reasoning, the satisfaction of seeing something get done right and... spending time with Bob at Milliways, with no distractions.

All of this pales in comparison to the Word. For the first time since that fateful cycle hours ago, Dot has felt complete and utter peace and serenity. All things will be in order, the Word tells her protocol and functions...and she believes it.

"My lady, Mainframe is at your service." Whatever her lady shall need, it will be at her disposal. Just like the rest of the Net.

Re: The Divine Invasion

[nofileext]

Daemon nods. This is as it should be.

"It is time you were reunited with your friends and family," she says, and with a gesture summons a zoom-room which deposits Mouse, Matrix, AndrAIa and Mike onto the pavement in front of the Principal Office.

"Oh, there's no place like home!" crows Mike the TV. "Mainframe has heard the Word!"

Re: The Divine Invasion

[red-cg-insanity.livejournal.com]

"Forgive me, my lady," she said pouting at the floor.

Re: The Divine Invasion

[nofileext]

Daemon fixes Hexadecimal with a hard stare.

"No."

Another gesture, and Hexadecimal is flung against the wall, cracking her mask and knocking her out cold.

Daemon turns, her face serene once more, and walks into the great double doors of the Principal Office. The rest of the assembled sprites follow in her wake, leaving the little lost ex-virus alone.