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

[first-sixth.livejournal.com]

After a long and considered look at Hex, Tommy nods again. Not that situations like this were what he had in mind when he signed up for all those biology classes in undergrad, but hey.

"Exactly. It'd be like throwing antibodies into the mix. If we could get something with a virus's speed and capacity for spreading to function like an antibody for Daemon, that would theoretically halt the process of infection.

There's a "but" coming, and it's a big one.

"But antibodies can only neutralize viruses and toxins. They can't reverse damage that's already been inflicted; that's why treatments that involve them, like administering antivenin to someone who's been bitten by a snake, have to be done quickly." He gives a wry grin. "Daemon was all about time, and to beat her, I think we're going to have to be all about it, too. Think fast, and act as quickly."

You know, before that creepy countdown finishes.

[bprd_agent_red]

Hellboy listens as the others discuss, taking the time to catch his breath. Daemon knocked him around pretty good, not that he'll admit that of course but this pause in action is good for getting his second wind.

"So whadda we gotta do to make one cancel out the other?" He asks, doubting it'll be as simple as setting Hex and Daemon at each other in a cat-fight, as entertaining as that might be to watch.

[first-sixth.livejournal.com]

"Well, that's the problem, isn't it? Viruses aren't like fighting fish, throw two of 'em in a tank and hope yours wins. What we need really is more like an antivenin, and those are more or less manufactured. Inject an organism with the target venom, it'll produce antibodies, and then you harvest those antibodies for use.

"Meaning that we'd have to give a virus, or whatever, the equivalent of a neutralizing agent. Kind of like an expedited manufacturing process."

Tommy sighs and shakes his head. "Of course, I don't exactly have something like that tucked away on me, so unless someone happens to, this is all just a pretty piece of theory, really."

He serious hopes that Mainframe has something in its arsenal.