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

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..."

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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.

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.

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.

AndrAIa wrapped her arms around his waist, gently squeezing.

It was really the only thing she could do. At least she was here to give him even this small amount of comfort.

She tried to tell him it would be alright, but she didn't think it would be.

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

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