Daemon Rising, part 4b

[a1enzo]

[Due to the wonders of Millitime, this takes place the morning after this thread, yet at the same time is happening right now. Whoa.]


Contrary to his own expectations, Enzo slept pretty well last night. No nightmares, although he did have a weird dream in which Hex turned into a pile of nulls with Mike the TV's voice. At any rate, he's well rested and ready for some world-saving.

But first, breakfast. He's at the Bar, eating a large waffle with far too much Maple syrup. Frisket has a bowl of something you're probably happier not knowing about.


[Leading to a supply run, mass digitization and mission briefing, and divers excitement and alarums.]

[First two subthreads are plotlocked. Enzo, at least, would welcome greetings in the third.]

Comments

[a1enzo]

He heaves a deep breath. "His code was too damaged. They couldn't fix it the regular way. Not without deleting him. This way, maybe they can."

He opens his eyes again. "But it's not Bob now. It's just... ASCII."

(He can say that word when he's talking about the real thing, right? Like when a User is referring to an actual donkey.)

[ami_imperfect]

(Sure he can.)

Dani gives Enzo a sympathetic look, and gives his hand a little squeeze.

"So how'd the fight against Daemon go?" she asks, partially to try and take Enzo's mind off of Bob. "Did you kick her butt?"

[a1enzo]

(Yay for cussin' loopholes!)

Enzo sighs. "The truck just made her mad."

[ami_imperfect]

(Yay indeed!)

Her eyes widen and her jaw nearly hits the ground. "It didn't do anything else to her?"

Was there at least a nice explosion?

[a1enzo]

Oh, the explosion was awesome. She should ask Danny and Tucker for the video later.

"Not really. Everyone just started fighting her then but they couldn't really hurt her. But then she self-destructed."

He doesn't say it like it's a good thing, though.

[ami_imperfect]

Oh, she will after she makes fun of Danny and his ice packs.

"It's...not good when viruses self-destruct, right?" Dani guesses.

[a1enzo]

Enzo lifts his head enough to shake it. "They don't do it 'thout a reason. It was the second part of her function. First, she infected everything... then she just had to wait 'til her time ran out, and take it all with her."

[ami_imperfect]

"Whoa."

Dani is, effectively, stunned.

"But...you and the others came back, so you must have managed to beat her somehow. Right?"

If he tells her he's dead, she'll slap him.

[a1enzo]

He nods. "We didn't have to beat her after that, just her infection. But we had to do it before the countdown ended. Everyone who was still infected started counting backwards when she blew up," he clarifies. "And we had the cure, but we had to get it to the whole 'Net. And Dad said that a virus could go fast enough if we used his gateway machine. They'd pointed it at everywhere at once. They were gonna use it on Daemon, to rip her to pieces, before she infected Mainframe. But it was still up, so we could use it for this. And Hex..."

Enzo looks like he's about to cry.

[ami_imperfect]

Back goes the hand on Enzo's shoulder.

"It's okay, you can tell me. What did Hex do?"

[a1enzo]

He swallows. "She went through. With the cure."

[ami_imperfect]

"She did?"

[a1enzo]

Nodnod. "Hellboy said he'd do it, but Hex threw him into a wall and took the cure herself."

[ami_imperfect]

"So she sacrificed herself. Wow."

[a1enzo]

"Uh-huh. And we were just starting to be friends."

[ami_imperfect]

"I'm sorry, Enzo." Dani means it, she really does.

[a1enzo]

"Thanks." He looks down at his icon. "She did this first."

[ami_imperfect]

Dani looks at his icon quizzically. "Why'd she change the colors?" she asks.

Her hand drifts towards the icon, like she's going to poke it or something.

[a1enzo]

Enzo's hand automatically flies towards his icon - you're not supposed to let anyone touch your icon unless you really, really trust them - but it stops halfway there, because he does trust Dani.

"I dunno. She said it was a gift so I don't turn out like Matrix, but I dunno what she meant."

[ami_imperfect]

Her finger hovers over the icon, then falls as Dani lets her hand drop into her lap.

"Weird kind of gift," she comments. "So...everything's okay in Mainframe now?" Hex being deleted and Bob being decomplied aside, of course.

[a1enzo]

Just as well, she'd probably tap it wrong and he'd end up naked.

"Uh-huh. There's some damage from the fighting, but we're good at fixing that." He smiles weakly. "How're you?"

[ami_imperfect]

Would not!

"I'm doing okay," she replies, shrugging. "Still here, right?"

[a1enzo]

Enzo nods. Then his smile brightens as something occurs to him. "Hey, now that the 'Net's safe, you wanna visit? I mean, once they've got the atomizer working so you don't get stuck or anything?"

[ami_imperfect]

Dani's smile also brightens. "Yeah, that'd be fun!" Although... "'Get stuck'?"

[a1enzo]

"As a sprite. You can't come the way Danny did, not if you're still unstable, so we'd have to digitize ya. That part of the laser works fine, that's how we got everyone into Mainframe to help, but they're still fixing the part that turns you back into matter."