4.04: Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Word.

[nofileext]

There's a tiny hourglass on a choker around Daemon's neck. It's always been there. At the moment she was first compiled, the sand was all in the top half of the glass, and it's been slowly draining through ever since.

Now, as she stands at the threshold of Mainframe's Principal Office, the last grain of sand comes to rest.

Daemon stops dead in her tracks. As she speaks, her words seem to echo in the infected ground and sky around her:

"I am Daemon.
I am not an entity; I am a time.
My time is now.
The Word is CRON."

"NO!" Bob gasps. "Not a Cron virus..."

Daemon's body shimmers, blurs, then dissolves in a cascade of orange sparks. All that's left is a vaguely person-shaped mass of green light where she stood. (Is this really Daemon? Was the girl just another puppet, another vessel for the Word?)

The light flows upward and outward, losing its shape and coherence as it goes. It spreads through the system, through the open port, through the portals still open above the Principal Office. Every system in the 'Net is bathed in its green glow.

Throughout the 'Net, every sprite, binome, and numeral who remains touched by the Word stops dead in their tracks, just as their mistress did. They close their eyes and begin counting down.

"111100... 111011... 111010..."

Comments

Epilogue

[nofileext]

Welman collapses, breaking apart into a squirming pile of nulls. Hexadecimal is gone; there is nothing to hold the improvised body together anymore.

The binomes have stopped counting--good thing, too, since they had gotten down to 01 by the time Hex got to them. They look around, blinking in confusion, like they've just been roused out of a sound sleep.

The war is over. We won. All that's left now is to pick up the pieces.

Re: Epilogue

[mendanddefend_archive]

Like the Guardian who's still sprawled on the ground, for example.

Re: Epilogue

[command_dot_com]

"Bob? Bob?" Dot puts her hands to her face, is he...still with them?

Re: Epilogue

[mendanddefend_archive]

Bob's eyes flicker open. He tries to smile, but it comes out as more of a grimace.

"Hey."

Re: Epilogue

[command_dot_com]

"Stay with us, okay? You mustn't leave me. Not again. We need you." Dot leans over him stroking his chest, like she's scared he's going to disappear. "I need you."

Then... all of that pent up anxiety and emotion just breaks over the firewall, and she starts sobbing, crying onto his chest. "I love you. Please don't go. Stay... Marry me."

Re: Epilogue

[mendanddefend_archive]

Bob's having a hard time following her words. It's taking an enormous effort just to stay conscious. He's losing the feeling in his fingers, and what he can feel hurts like hell, and he's just so tired...

Wait.

Did Dot just say what he thought she said?

She did.

Bob looks up at Dot, and a genuine smile crosses his face. "I th-thought you'd never ask..."

Then he gasps as another surge of pain floods through his system, and--

and--

("But how will our love survive?")

and everything just fades out.

("It won't. I'm sorry.")

Bob's head sags back against the pavement. He's not moving. His body is becoming more and more transparent by the picosecond.

Re: Epilogue

[command_dot_com]

"Bob? BOB!!!"

No. No no nonono. Not Now. NO. Dot panics and starts freaking out. "oh SPAM. MEDIC!!!"

Re: Epilogue

[a1enzo]

There are just too many inputs for Enzo to process. Hex is gone, sacrificed - the 'Net is safe, we're all going to survive - Dad is gone again, for good without Hex to hold him together - Bob and Dot are engaged, finally - Bob is dying -

At his age he's never heard the term 'cognitive dissonance'. All he knows is that he feels like his brain is spinning, like his mind is dizzy but not his body. He shuts his eyes tight and presses the heels of his palms to his temples.

Re: Epilogue

[renegade-enzo.livejournal.com]

Matrix watched helplessly as everything played out. His hands slowly curled into tight fists as he realized there was nothing he could do to help.

Bob was dying, his dad came back and was just as quickly taken away again, everyone was worried...

These problems couldn't be solved with guns and fighting, and because of that, he felt completely useless.

Re: Epilogue

[notascreensaver]

AndrAIa reached for Matrix's hand, giving her lover a worried look. Bob and his dad both gone in the same day. Being infected and then being forced to stand back helplessly while the fight raged.

"Sparky?"

She felt she had a right to be worried about him.

Re: Epilogue

[renegade-enzo.livejournal.com]

Matrix turned his head to look at AndrAIa, giving her a sad look, squeezing her hand gently.

He wordlessly looks back to everything going on again. He didn't know what to say at the moment, so he didn't even bother.

Re: Epilogue

[nofileext]

The med team that Enzo had recruited is already outside, but fear of crossing Hexadecimal had kept them from coming to Bob's aid immediately. Now they don't have that excuse, and Bob needs help now.

Six binome feet pound the pavement as they sprint across to where the Guardian lies. "Stand clear, Ma'am," the lead Zero snaps at Dot as she straps the cuff of the energy transfuser to Bob's arm.

Re: Epilogue

[mendanddefend_archive]

As the energy flows in, Bob's body starts looking more opaque again. In a nano or so, he looks almost as good as new.

But he doesn't wake up. He's barely breathing.

Re: Epilogue

[command_dot_com]

Dot reaches out to hold his hand, hoping for some kind of response, part of her is so angry that this is HAPPENING... Her coding is scrambling to find some sense of order to arrange everything, fix things...but it can't find any way of doing so.

File not found. Command Error. Abort/Retry/Fail?

She has no idea what to do.

Re: Epilogue

[nofileext]

"Is he stable for now? Can he be moved?" Phong murmurs. The doctors nod. "Then take him to the medlab."

The binomes nod again and unfold from their medpack a stretcher, with small hoverdiscs attached at intervals around the frame. Gently, one takes Dot's hand to remove it from Bob's.

Re: Epilogue

[feminine-menace.livejournal.com]

A small portal appears on the scene, briefly displaying the chaos of the Web before two sprites step through. Both are Surfers, although one of them is usually a Kourier.

"Hey!" YT exclaims, grinning, as she steps through. "Look who I...oh, shit." She has, as one may surmise, just noticed Bob.

Re: Epilogue

[l33t-mouse.livejournal.com]

Right now, Mouse is not in the mood to show her usual enthusiasm at seeing Ray again. She just gives YT a flat, sadness-tinged look that seems very out-of-place on her, and embraces her confused boyfriend without a word.

Re: Epilogue

[nofileext]

"What's processing, love?" asks Ray, hugging her back. "We saw the infection disappear, isn't it all... oh."

Re: Epilogue

[l33t-mouse.livejournal.com]

Mouse nods. "We...we ain't got through clean, sugar." Pause. "An' it's partly on me."

Re: Epilogue

[nofileext]

"How's that, then?" he asks, pulling back to look her in the face. "Did she get you?"

Re: Epilogue

[feminine-menace.livejournal.com]

"Yeah," YT says quietly. "Me and her and Matrix. We went after Daemon on our own and got our brains washed."

Re: Epilogue

[nofileext]

"Then it ain't your fault," Ray says firmly, addressing his new colleage as well as his lover. "They wouldn't be risks if they all came out right, yeah?"

Re: Epilogue

[l33t-mouse.livejournal.com]

"But I was stupid about it, Ray," Mouse says. "I didn't tell Dot how t'change the codes for the firewall. There's takin' risks an' then there's bein' careless."

Re: Epilogue

[nofileext]

Ray can't really refute that one. It occurs to him that changing the password wouldn't have kept Mouse out anyway, but saying that probably won't help.

Instead, he asks, "Why'd you decide to go after her anyway?"

Re: Epilogue

[l33t-mouse.livejournal.com]

Mouse doesn't answer immediately, although she does before too long. "Daemon got AndrAIa. An' she might've got to Capacitor," she adds, gesturing at YT. "An' Turbo said...he said Daemon got t'you, too."