Today, for example, a young and unsuspecting hacker is going to release some of the past. And it’s not too sure what she’ll think about it yet. But let’s go to her now...

* * *

Cail.

Hacker, aged 15.

Human.

She was wandering around the hall of what had been converted into a museum-historical plaques ran across the walls, pointing out sites of interest.

It was nearly empty, since it was noon on a weekday. The city of Mainframe buzzed busily, but inside here, it was almost deserted. The place seemed like an island of calm.

If, by some strange fluke, a binome or sprite from 500 years in Mainframe’s past had see a picture of it today, they would have been almost shocked beyond belief.

It had grown almost 25 times its original size. There were ample ports to the Net. Boats thronged the docks, proof of its thriving industry and economy. Its capacitowers were huge, and coated with a special glass that made the light from the energy sea bounce off in strange and dazzling ways that made them gleam like jewels, especially during the night.

This change had to do with many things. One was that, as time passed, the city would have had to expand. It had to be upgraded to fend off obsoletion. (Although no one would even dare to talk about destroying an obsolete computer these days. At least, in the case of the less pleasanter individuals, not out loud.) Another was that, after the war with Daemon, a trade had been set up between Mainframe and the Supercomputer. This had allowed it to flourish, and, because of its fame and special connections with the people there, given it an edge. It was truly a changed world. But a small part of it *hadn’t* changed.

In the very middle of the city, the core long since removed to the new principal office, was the original city center. It had become a museum of sorts-a shrine to the heroes that had worked and lived there. The center of the city, as the system had expanded, wasn’t very highly populated. And no one lived inside the PO. It was mainly visited by historians who wanted to browse through the files left (all the equipment and useful programs had been taken out, but a vast range of .txt and other files remained, giving clues to Mainframe’s history.), tourists, and the occasional luckless school group. Security was at a minimum-after all, what was there to steal or damage? The majority of it was old, deserted corridors and near empty rooms. No one except scholars and interested sightseers ever showed up. There were only a few token guards scattered widely throughout the building.

Therefore it was incredibly easy for Cail to slip behind a security barrier and into the even quieter, dusty interior. She traveled for a while, then stopped and listened for any sounds of pursuit. None came. She seemed to be safely inside then.

"Hmm hmm hmmm..." she hummed triumphantly. The human wandered the place, craning her neck to peer back at the rafters.

"Wow-this place is bigger than I thought-drat. I need a map." She took out her most coveted tool-her laptop. Looking for an outlet, she spied one and plugged it in. A window popped up, and she logged in her hacker name and number.

"Identification accepted." It chimed. "Accessing files."

It wasn’t a *true* laptop in the sense that we know it. It didn’t contain a system with people inside it. (A curious fact-the sprites inside human computers had computers themselves-yet none of these had systems within them. Many scientists had theorized that somehow sprite-built computers, while most of the time identical in make to humans, were an extension of the sprite’s system themselves.) It didn’t have any physical substance except from the vidwindow, pop up keyboard, and the link to the Hackers icon. (Where it was really stored. Humans didn’t have icons like sprites did-this was just a handy place to store her laptop.)

A map popped up, with all the locations neatly labeled.

"There!" said Cail out loud, jabbing her finger on the spot she wanted to access. "The read-only room!"

* * *

The blue glow from the table spread across Cail’s face, outlining it eerily, giving her a strange look.

Perhaps this would be a good time to describe her appearance.

She had black short, almost shoulder length hair. Her eyes were grey. She had a beige rucksack that she dropped carelessly to the floor. It had all her traveling possessions-she didn’t live in Mainframe itself.

"Welcome to th-the Mainframe-ame read-only ro-ro-om." A voice stuttered. Cail had done a simple check on the equipment-it was, considering its age, in excellent condition. The wav. files had become a bit corrupted, along with some txt. and bitmaps-but the docs, movs, avis, jpgs, and gifs were all there as far as she could see. And since this would most likely be the files that she’d find what she was looking for in, that was fine.

Cail sat down cross-legged on the floor, pulled her laptop to herself and looked thoughtful.

"There has to be *something* left." She said out loud hopefully. She did a search for any files under "viruses."

What had happened was this: After the virus Megabyte was sent into the Web, Mainframe enjoyed some calm. During this, a hacker had gone into the archives and deleted almost all information pertaining to Megabyte. The reason? Some say it was a request by the heroes. Some say that she had a personal vendetta against him. Whichever it was, they had simply wanted to forget about him and what he stood for. So Mouse had deleted all extraneous files, and any she wasn’t authorized to access she hid. (At the bequest of Dot-she hadn’t wanted Mouse to go into the more sensitive area’s so soon after the system crash, and besides, she was aware of Mouse’s mischievous streak.) The point was, these files had been hidden by one of the most famous hackers of all time. (At least to the guild)

Mouse! If she could access something hidden by *her*, it would be a personal victory of sorts. Cail’s eyes glowed at the thought of that. It would be also a big status symbol in the hacker world. She was still pretty young, but THIS would show them.

Hmm...some files found pertaining to Megabyte, but no pictures. That was what she really wanted-solid proof. The only thing they about his appearance was the green "un-happy face" emblem-his viral symbol. It made it hard for plays, books, and TV shows to accurately portray him-he had been represented by everything from a drangon-esque monstrosity to an almost sprite looking creature. Cail reflected that they must have really *hated* the virus to almost deny his existence like this.

She started to search for Megabyte himself more specifically. Cail became absorbed in her work.

Unknown to her, a long-dormant file had just awakened.

* * *

Blink.

Click.

Whir.

Search.

Person detected. Preparing operative mode.

Program initialization-

Simulation-on.

* * *

Cail sat back and wiped her brow.

"Oh geez-what was she ON when she did this-morphine?! Ugh..." so far she had isolated some files that she believed contained what she was looking for, but not much luck in breaking in.

A small blip appeared on the screen.

"What the-" Cail stared. It appeared for a nano-second, then vanished. "I found something! For a sec...drat. Where did it GO?"

"Hello." A deep, smooth voice purred into her ear.

For a second, Cail’s spine froze. Then slowly, she turned around saying-"Uh, gee, heh heh, I know I shouldn’t be here, I can explain, real-ly..." she trailed off as she looked into a pair of red on green eyes that peered back at her. The person stepped back to reveal a huge, shiny, metallic blue figure. A red crest adorned his head and there was a green symbol on his chest and silver torso.

"Thank you *so* much for getting me out of there. I’ve been stuck here for User knows how long. I wasn’t exactly awake yet I could still feel time passing-but where are my manners?" He smiled, eyes half lidded. "I’m Megabyte. And you are?"

Cail made a strangled sound in the back of her throat. She calmed herself down long enough to say "Uh, Cail. Did you say-are you-you mean you’re-" she looked at the symbol-identical to the one of Megabyte, and managed to croak out "Megabyte? As in the virus that fought against Bob and Dot and Matrix and...and everyone?"

"The same." He said, inclining his head. "So my memory lives on-how gratifying."

"Well, yeah, I mean you’re famous, you’re a legend along with the others," she babbled, stepping back a bit. "But-you, you were pulled into the Web! 500 years ago! You’re DEAD!"

The virus blinked. "500 YEARS? Has it been that LONG? My word..." he looked faintly disturbed.

"But," Cail asked him. "What-what are you DOING here?"

"I suppose I owe you an explanation." The virus said. "I’m actually a simulation-well I’ve become somewhat more than that. During my little system crash, I left a simulation to taunt anyone who came far enough into the Principal Office. Of course *Bob* showed up. He thought he got rid of me but I merely staged my own "death". During the re-initialization of Mainframe, I was brought back as well. As simply a simulation, the system didn’t read me as a hostile file." He smiled thinly. "My only bit of luck."

"Wow." Said Cail, interest overcoming fear. She tentatively swiped at the virus’s arm. A tingling sensation went through her hand as his arm seemed to turn to liquid metal and run through her fingers. It immediately reformed. Megabyte frowned at the probing girl then rolled his eyes and stepped back.

"Neat. But if you’ll excuse my saying you seem a bit too, well, smart for just a simulation. Didn’t you mention something about that?"

The virus sighed. "After being trapped in the Web for a while..." his lip curled back in a snarl that made Cail suddenly want to be far away. "I decided that my chances of...surviving would be better if I were in some way here. I left a small link to the simulation open, and when it was re-initialized-" His voice became a bit more distant. "I simply had to download my mind and core into the simulation from there."

"What happened to your body in the Web?" asked Cail. "You couldn’t have kept your mind in two places at once."

The virus narrowed his eyes and tried to sum up the small child in front of him. "Did you just guess that?"

"I learned it from a hacker." She replied, trying to cover up the fact that SHE was a hacker.

"I see. And also how to break into here I presume?"

"Well, yes."

Megabyte crossed his arms and leaned slightly against the table.

"So-" Cail said leaning forward. "What you’re saying is that you’re not just a simulation, you’re really-you?"

"Exactly."

She was getting even more nervous when she pulled herself together. Get a grip, she told herself.

She coughed. "Well then." She said. "As the first person to meet you in 500 years, welcome back to Mainframe."

The virus raised an eyebrow. "Formal sprite, aren’t you?"

"Sprite?" she blinked. "*I’m* not a sprite!"

"Pardon?" He looked at her askance.

"I forgot-there weren’t any humans in the cyber world back when you were alive." She thought. "Um. You had a different name for us back then..."

The virus waited politely.

"You know..." she snapped her fingers impatiently. "Starts with a U...um."

A shadow of suspicion entered the virus’s mind.

"What? Don’t tell me you’re a User?" he asked, almost jokingly.

"Oh yeah. That’s it." She looked pleased. "Thanks."

Blink blink.

"Are you trying to tell me-" the virus said slowly. "That YOU’RE a-"

"Oh, no no-not the way you’re thinking of it." Cail sat down and started to tell him about her race. "We’re not *divine* or anything. I mean, sprites thought we were but we just didn’t know what we were doing, that there were worlds inside of our computers..." she outlined a bit of the history of the Net for the silent virus.

"I do have quite a bit of catching up to do, that’s clear enough." He said in his strangely silky voice. Cail had at first been surprised at the contrast between his appearance and voice but after a while saw that it actually fit him quite well.

"Out of curiosity-" he began. "How would people react to my...reappearance here?"

"They couldn’t touch you." Said Cail automatically.

"What?"

She suddenly sensed what discussion was looming up. The one she had been trying to avoid.

"Well...viruses are almost...extinct."

* * *

Cail told the virus what had happened to his species. But with all the questions asked and exclamations, it would just be easier to give a clearer version here.

In the beginning of the human invasion, sprite, binome and all and in between had fought side by side. Only one species remained neutral: The viruses.

They didn’t really know what to make of humans-this species that resembled sprites in looks yet themselves in thoughts and deeds. While an individual human might be rational and pleasant, when put together in groups often corrupt leaders floated to the top and therefore the whole group had to act corruptly under their control. But the viruses didn’t take the humans seriously.

Still, they had worked together at the beginning. More than a few times had a virus and its army or powers been employed in helping destroy the sprites and their defense. And after they had mutually co operated, the virus would go back to its lair chuckling, preparing to double cross the humans and kill or enslave them all.

And more than once it had awoken to a fleet of tanks and been shocked, angry, and grudgingly admiring at the fact that the humans had double crossed it first.

The main mistake the viruses had made, the survivors later reflected was assuming that the "Users" as they still called them were like sprites. They weren’t. They were considerably nastier and arroganter and had "God complexes" that freed quite a few of them from any guilt and mirrored their own way of thinking. But the virals had learned not to trust any humans. While not helping the sprites they stopped interfering with them. And then the genocide started.

Many of the top human commanders of the invasion regarded the viruses as their main competition for Net domination. But they had an advantage-viruses were scattered and didn’t often work together. When they began to retaliate the humans started sending their elite to take care of them. Assassins, trained psychopathical S.W.A.T teams, sometimes large fleets-the viruses came under nasty and relentless persecution. Only a few hid or fled but the majority spat and cursed the humans and resolved to stay, thinking that they couldn’t be taken down.

They were so wrong.

The only humans who helped them escape and tried to protect them were their programmers. But this was risky since programmers could also be used to find their viruses. A link DID exist between programmer and virus-the few that had met felt so uncomfortable, seeing something of the other in their faces...

In certain lab conditions a programmer’s mind could be bent and twisted until it echoed its viruses completely. A complete mind link would then exist between the two. When thus linked, everything the human felt the virus did and vica versa. Sympathetic injuries also existed-if the User was scratched, the scratch would appear on the virus.

When this was discovered the human government did one of the many dark and unfortunate things in the war-it linked up and killed human hackers to get to their viruses. Some of the most powerful ones that couldn’t be touched were deleted by a gunshot to their creator’s heads.

After this was leaked out many human hackers sought asylum with the underground. The underground, being the only accepting group and realizing that it would be much harder for the invaders to kill off the viruses this way took them in. Some programmers and viruses fled the Net, even past the Web some rumored and had vanished into the unexplored regions of cyberspace. So few had gone that none had bothered to look for them.

Basically, the viruses and humans hadn’t gotten along because they had so much in common.

* * *

"So I’m an endangered species?" The virus mused. "I never thought I’d live to see THAT."

"I’m sure." Said Cail, hastily, looking at her watch. "But this place closes early today and we’re almost out of-"

"The building will be closing in 5 minutes." A voice chimed, piped through the Principal Office. "Please start to leave. We hope you have enjoyed your stay..."

Cail closed her eyes. She needed to think about this. Opening them she picked up her knapsack and said, "Look, this has been-very interesting but I REALLY do have to go. I don’t think the security measures will let you sneak out of here so I’ll come back tomorrow. Is that okay?"

The virus opened his mouth to say no, he had been stuck in here long enough thank you very much and he wasn’t going to spend another *nanosecond* in this blasted place, but then closed it and reconsidered. He smiled to himself as an idea came to the front of his head.

"Why yes...that’s fine." He said insincerely. "Thank you again. Do come back soon."

He faded out. Cail closed her laptop without looking at the screen and made her way to the front. If she HAD looked she might have noticed a small button at the bottom of the taskbar blinking.

* * *

Cail walked into her dormitory room. She closed the door and leaned on it. Grinning, she said "Wow."

A virus! Megabyte *himself*! She wasn’t sure if it had been a dream or not but if it wasn’t...

All those varying stories about the hero’s lives could be cleared up to some extent. And they knew almost *nothing* about viruses-considering his source codes were still intact he could be the only physical and medical example of his kind. They could gather information on how to fight viruses off if they ever came back. (Cail had a feeling that viruses didn’t really care for each other too much, so that would probably be okay with Megabyte). And *she* had found him.

"This absolutely GREAT." she said out loud to no one in particular. "*I* found him! I-uh oh. What if they ask what I was doing there?"

Suddenly the unpleasant facet of her discovery came to light. But brushing that aside for the moment Cail locked her door then tossed down her bag.

Cail went to an all girls’ private school. It was in a small system-in fact, all the system really contained was the school, several stores and offices, some houses and Net ports. She had been sent here when she was 13. She didn’t mind it but had had no choice in going. It had been stated in her parent’s will.

Her parents had died when she was 14. They had been diplomats and traveled often. She had been fond of them in a dutiful way and remembered them as nice people, but there had never been a strong bond between them. Their deaths hadn’t been much of a shock (they had been in a rioting area). She had been sad and cried and gone to the funeral feeling grief but deep in her heart suspected that it hadn’t been as intense as it was for other people. She probably hadn’t truly *loved* them.

That was the odd thing about her life. She got along well enough with everyone but didn’t have any *close* friends. And the thing was that she didn’t seem to need them. Just knowing people well enough to be able to sit and eat with them at lunch or go to a movie was all she craved in terms of closeness. She didn’t *need* people.

Mind you, learning how to hack took a lot out of your social life.

* * *

When she was 14 Cail had been walking in Mainframe (one of the cities that she visited on a regular basis). She had turned down a few wrong streets and found herself in a less than perfect area. Curious and feeling a bit exited, she went down an alleyway when she almost tripped over someone lying on the ground.

"Ack!" he said, snarling. He moaned in pain and scrambled away from her. "Jeezus-watch it!"

"You’re bleeding." Cail said, fascinated. She had never seen anyone bleeding before. Well, obviously she had seen cut fingers and scrapes, but this was a serious nasty slash on the side of his head. Cail could be somewhat morbid.

"I am?" the man felt his forehead. He sighed and wearily said "Oh *shit*." then fainted.

"He looks like an Anthro." she thought. She came closer and saw she was right. Strange looking ears, a sort of mane of fur, pointed face...

Cail wasn’t a speciesist. Her school pandered, in the new spirit of co-operation, to all races. As long as they had money. There were slightly more humans than Anthro’s and more sprites than humans, but anyone who had stayed there long enough got along. It became so that Cail didn’t even think of the species difference anymore. It was more obvious when you stepped out into a city but she spent a lot of time in her school anyway. The human way of raising children by their culture’s standards had passed her by. She had never been exposed towards biased material, (except for the occasional bit of TV) and never developed feelings of superiority or hate. And besides, on the slowly recovering earth hatred propaganda was being stamped out. Well, was trying to be stamped out.

So she felt quite fine in calling a hospital number and going with the ambulance.

"He’ll be fine." Said the brisk doctor inside the hospital. "We cleaned the wound and gave him a bandage. He should wake up soon." The sprite gave her an odd look. "Friend of yours?"

"No, not really. I just tripped over him by accident so I called."

The sprite was puzzled. Looking at Cail’s earnest eyes she couldn’t bring herself to ask the question "Why would you care?"

"Oh. That’s nice." She said absently. A groan from the bed made them both look around.

"Oh *God*..." the Anthro moaned. Opening an eyes, he looked around and panicked. "What?! What the hell am I doing here?!"

"This young lady brought you in. You fainted." The doctor explained.

The Anthro snarled at Cail.

"Thanks a *bunch*. You landed me in a hospital? Great. I’ll probably get shots."

"You’re free to leave after an hour." Said the doctor stiffly, disliking his attitude. "And she just helped you. You could set and example by being grateful. Now-" she looked at her watch. "I have other things to do. I’ll be back in an hour." The sprite left. Cail and the Anthro were left alone in the room.

"Hi." Began Cail. "I’m Cail. And you’re...?"

"Nevermind." He said frowning. "I was fine-why’d ya bring me here?"

"Um-you were bleeding and passed out?"

He glared again. "Yeah, well sorry to sound ungrateful," he brought a hand up to his chest, "But I have to get out of this system before-" he froze. "No!"

"What?"

"My icon!" he said urgently. "It’s gone!"

Cail held up an object.

"You mean this?"

The Anthro snatched it out of her hand.

"Damn, *yes*! Where did you find it?"

"I searched around. It was at the alley entrance. I saw it because it was blinking."

"Yeah." He muttered. "I gotta fix that-makes it too easy to spot." Slightly more friendly, he said "Don’t get me wrong-I’m grateful and all here, but I just need to leave this system."

"Without me you’d probably still be unconscious though, so you have a better chance of leaving earlier now."

"Yeah." He relaxed. "Aww, they’d never think I’d come here though." He stuck out a hand. "Name’s Peter."

"Pleased to meet you."

"So, why’d ya save my ASCII? Most humans think Anthro’s rank under nulls."

"Not all of us are like that."

"Like you?"

"Yes."

"Huh. A polite human. Weird. You must be a fluke."

She ignored that. "Why were you bleeding?"

Peter looked shifty. "I-got into a fight. Let’s just say I’m in trouble with a few less than friendly people. The kind that break your heart. Or your legs."

Cail was thoughtful. "Actually, I thought I saw something just when the ambulance came. A few people at the other end of the alley."

"Crap." Peter swore. Almost frantically he asked "How many?"

"About...three or four? One of them was really tall..."

"That’s them." he moaned. "They probably know where I am then." His voice becoming urgent. "You’ve got to get me out of here! Now! Otherwise I’m so SCREWED."

"Well," Cail started. "I don’t know."

"I can make it worth your while." Peter replied. He looked at her thoughtfully. Cail leaned back a bit. He seemed to be judging her.

"Yeah." He muttered to himself. "She seems like an okay one. And I have a pretty decent sense for this sorta stuff."

"What?" Cail stared at him. Had he gone nuts?

"Kid," said Peter, grinning for a second. "How’d you like to enter a different kind of profession?"

* * *

Somehow she had snuck him past security and to the Net ports. Once there he took her into a secluded part of the docks and explained what he was-a hacker.

"The best definition of a hacker is someone who takes information, puts it together and uses it in unconventional ways." He had told her. "Don’t let anyone else tell you different."

Cail had been open to the idea of learning to hack. It seemed something interesting and useful to do. Peter told her about freelancers and the Underground. He was a freelancer. He taught her a few basics, and how to recognize and get in touch with other hackers. He also showed her how to hide your laptop as an icon.

"No one recognizes it for what it really is." He chuckled. "They think it’s a fake PID- a "fashion statement". They don’t realize it’s really a laptop. Cute huh?"

He had left but had started Cail on a path of learning how to hack. Over the months she had met with other people and learned from some of them. Most had been willing to share the basics with her after a while. Cail didn’t know where she stood in terms of the underground, but she was fairly sure she was semi-competent. Of course she hadn’t ever really had a challenge before.

* * *

As she opened up her laptop again, Cail frowned at the blinking light.

"File downloaded? But I didn’t download any fi-" she stopped as suspicion came over her. She pressed the unzip function. The file expanded and seemed to disappear.

"Ahh-it was getting cramped in there." A deep voice said. The virus materialized out of thin air, brushing an imaginary speck of dust off his arm.

Cail sighed.

"Hello Mr.Byte." she said. "You know you could have ASKED."

"Oh but I thought it would be simpler this way." The virus said, smirking. A puzzled look came to his face. "Where am I?"

"You’re in my dormitory." Cail told him. "We’re in the system Lodos. It’s where I go to school. You know if anyone finds you I am in TROUBLE."

"Why?"

"I wasn’t exactly supposed to go into the Principal Office. Or search for anything. Or download any files. Agh..." a bell rang out. "I have to go eat supper. Um. Here..." she pressed a few buttons on the laptop. "It’s set on voice control now. Feel free to look up anything." She told him.

"Very kind of you, I’m sure." The virus said, intrigued. He looked at her room and raised an eyebrow. "Interesting décor by the way."

Cail’s room was hard to describe, but it helped to think of the following things: Black, grey, and posters of weird looking monsters that seem to be about to rip your face off with a talon.

"Great. He hasn’t been here a minute already and he comments on my taste." Cail thought. Out loud, she said defensively "*I* like it." and left, locking the door behind her. The virus sat (or appeared to sit because if he let go of his concentration he’d sink through the furniture.) on the bed and the laptop lazily followed him. Shaking his head Megabyte thought about what he had gotten himself into. Deciding there was nothing else to do until that strange child came back he started looking up the past 500 years on her computer.

* * *

Cail picked at her meal. Her mind was inside her room, wondering what she was going to *do* with the virus. She hoped he had the sense to hide if anyone came in. (Which, judging from his manner, he probably did.) Sighing, she pushed her plate away.

"Are you going to eat that?" asked Lis from across her. "Cause if you’re not, there’s a hungry F’val over here."

"Huh? Oh yeah. I don’t like seafood surprise too much so help yourself." Cail handed Lis the plate. The Anthro devoured the food hungrily.

"Gross." Said Tanya wrinkling her nose from beside Lis. "Are you sure you’re a fox and not a pig?"

"Shut up carrot girl."

These jokes, while cutting insults anywhere else were just lighthearted banter here. Tanya’s skin was a bright orange, almost the shade of a carrot. The sprite rolled here eyes theatrically.

"Gee." Commented Cail. "That’s what I love about this place. The comradeship."

"Hey, did you hear? Sinthia beat Mainframe’s Jetballing team!"

Sinthia was at another table, surrounded by people as she told them about her victory. The teal sprite was enthusiastically describing what had happened. The athlete brushed her light purple hair away from her face as she chattered away.

"Wow." Said Cail impressed, forgetting about her problems for a moment. "Aren’t they the number one champions or something?"

"Were." Replied Tanya. "They *were* number one. Oh dear God, is that a tentacle?!"

"Ah, another thing I love about this place. The food."

"Oh stop it." Lis playfully smacked Cail’s arm. "There’s always junkfood."

"True. But I’m not hungry."

"I can never understand it when people when they say that."

Sinthia wandered over to Cail’s table.

"Hey guys!"

Greeting and congratulations came from the table.

"Thanks everyone. Hey Cail-"

Cail raised her head.

"Yes?"

"Just wondering-were you in Mainframe today?"

"Uh huh." Replied Cail, surprised. Everyone knew it was one of her favorite systems. "Why? Sorry I didn’t come to watch the game but I didn’t know and anyways I can never seem to watch for too long and-"

"Oh it’s not about that." Sinthia said with a wave of her hand. "No, I mean, did you hear about what happened in the Principal Office? The old one I mean."

An icy feeling washed over Cail.

"Um, no." she croaked. Coughing, she cleared he throat. "No. Why? What happened?"

"Someone broke in!" declared the sprite dramatically. If there was one thing Sinthia loved it was telling news. "They only found out because one of the barriers was tipped over and they followed the footprints in the dust to where the person went!"

"Uh-really?" said Cail, trying to sound surprised. Inside she screamed at herself at how idiotic she had been.

"They don’t know what the person did though." Sinthia continued. "They think it was just a hacker fooling around. What do YOU think?"

"Uh-I don’t really know." Mumbled Cail. "I just guess it *was* a hacker. I mean, what’s in there that could be worth anything?"

"Oh, you never know." Said Lis philosophically. "Maybe stuff on the heroes. What they were like, what really happened, if they existed or not..."

"They existed." Said Cail with conviction.

"We don’t know that for sure." Said Tanya.

"Yes I do." Thought Cail. "Only I can’t tell anyone because now I KNOW I’d be in trouble. Damn." She tried to steer it to a less dangerous subject. "But how come we always focus on the hero’s?"

This got the attention of the whole table. It was a weird question.

"Well who ELSE is there to focus on?" asked Sinthia.

"The villains." Said Cail promptly. "We know less about them than we do about the sprites. I mean, they’re always portrayed in most books and stuff as so one dimensional. No personalities. It’s the same with Bob, Dot, Ray and AndrAIa actually...Matrix and Mouse are always given a bit of an edge. But that’s about it."

"Why WOULD they focus on the bad guys?" asked Tanya.

"To make it more realistic!" said Cail a bit louder than she had intended. Quieting down a bit she said "To make it more interesting. Think about it-they must have been people like you and me-all of them. But since the same old "pure noble person" and "evil personality-less villain" formula sells, not many people want to challenge it."

"Aww come on." Said Lis airily. "There’s TON’S of books that give them different personalities. And that switch around what happened. You can’t complain there."

"Sure there’s been lots of literary interpretations." Replied Cail. "But that’s all they are. If someone tried to make it as historically accurate as possible they’d stick to that same old "bad guy good guy" formula. The whole mass *media* idea stays the same. You see?"

"Eh-good point, but you’re forgetting something." Said Tanya.

"What?"

"That’s all we *know* about them!" she said jokingly. This got a small ripple of laughter.

Cail blinked.

"No." she said softly. "It isn’t. Not anymore."

"Huh?"

"Ah-uh, nothing. I’m going to go do my homework now." She said. With that, Cail left the room.

"That is one weird human." Said Sinthia.

"You said it." Lis said. "Are you going to finish that Jell-O cup?"

* * *

Curiosity suddenly provoked Cail almost burst into her room. The virus looked up.

"I’m back." She said unnecessarily. "What did you find?"

"Your people’s history. Humans that is." He replied. Megabyte stood up. "It was most-enlightening."

"That’s the most polite way of putting it I’ve ever heard." She replied vaguely. Sitting on her chair, she looked up at him. Then she asked: "What was Bob like?"

He frowned. "I’m sorry?"

"Bob. You know. Guardian 452. Blue. The Lost Guardian. Merged with his keytool. All we know about him."

"Yes-I noticed a lack of details there." He seemed puzzled. "You want to know what he was like?"

"There’s been about 500 years worth of books, historians, and movies dedicated to the topic. We don’t really know what they were like. You’re all famous you know."

The virus shrugged. "Very well. Bob was..." he looked thoughtful. "Well, kind of annoying in a "here to save the day" way at times. And he would mess up occasionally. And he had the most vexing one liner’s."

"So...you’re saying that...Bob was a bit of a dork?" asked Cail incredulously.

"Apt way to put it. Mind you he still had an extremely good clockspeed rate-and I suppose he was intelligent in his own sort of way."

"And Dot?"

"Ms. Matrix? Hmm. A workaholic. Quite charming actually. Although you could say we, heh, never got along that well. Pity."

"Uh-wow. How about Mouse?"

The virus’ change in manner was abrupt. "Mouse?! SHE’S considered a hero? That-that-" he hissed softly.

"Uh-nevermind."

"No, I don’t mind telling the *truth* about her. She was a tenacious, foolish, treacherous, arrogant sprite that never should have been processed!"

"That’s it. No way am I asking about Matrix." Cail thought. Then she reconsidered. He had no substance-what could he do to her? "Um...well, that’s-uh-too bad." The virus sat down and placed his chin in his hand. "Alright." He asked. "Who’s next?"

"Um...Ray Tracer?"

He frowned. "Who?"

"Oh. I guess you never met him. He was, um, Mouse’s beau."

"Poor fellow."

"AndrAIa?"

"Oh her. I was always fairly indifferent to her...one big flaw though was that she followed that boy around like a dog..."

"And..." Cail went for the big one. "Matrix?"

At this the virus almost exploded. "THAT *boy*?!!!" if she had thought the hiss at Mouse’s name had been bad, this was worse.

"Right, right..." she quickly soothed. "hey," she blinked and leaned forwards suddenly in interest. "Did you know you have 3 rows of teeth? Whoa."

"I noticed."

"Cool."

"Uh-indeed."

"Hmm."

"You’re very good at switching topics, aren’t you?"

"Thank you."

"It wasn’t precisely a complement."

"So what was your sister like?" she ventured.

"Oh Hex. Hah. Completely insane. What happened to her by the way? I didn’t look that up yet."

"Well, the story goes Bob defragmented her face and asked Phong to give her an icon and she was reinitialized along with the system."

"What?! And she promptly fried them all I hope."

"Um, no...apparently defragmenting her head made her...relatively sane."

The virus said incredulously "You MUST be joking. She’s completely random!"

"Was. They’re all dead."

At this Megabyte paused.

"My-you’re right. They ARE. No more insane sister, annoying sprites, incompetent lackeys...this could be novel."

"Actually, it could be painful. We’re in trouble."

He frowned at her and said in a slightly lower voice, "I beg your pardon? Did you say "we"?"

"Look, I wasn’t supposed to be there. *I’m* in trouble then."

"What do you mean?"

Cail stood up and started pacing. "Technically what I did was-illegal. Very illegal. And if they find out what I did I’ll be thrown in jail and my laptop (and incidentally YOU since you’re stuck on there) would be confiscated."

"*I* would be confiscated?"
"Um-I’m not quite sure, but I think that since you downloaded yourself onto my laptop, you go where it goes. For now." She flicked it on and typed something in.

"See? There you are-MBv3.exe. Hey! You formatted yourself into the BIOS. Going for a permanent home, were you?"

"No need to be so alarmed."

"I’m not, I was just commenting. Anyhow, I think that you’re stuck in whichever system my computer is. So if I get in trouble, so do you."

"Do try to relax-It’s not as if they’ll FIND you." The virus airily waved a hand. "Anyhow my dear, may I ask what exactly you’re planning to do?"

"Uh-well...I was going to ask YOU."

They both looked at each other.

"No offense or anything, but I should probably turn you over to the authorities." Said Cail after breaking the stare. "People will recognize that symbol on your stomach. That’s the only visual information we have left of you. And once they have you in their possession, they’ll have access to your codes. Which could be very bad."

Megabyte sat back. "One thing I DO want-" here he looked disgusted and let his hand go through the bed. "Is a body. I can’t affect ANYTHING like this."

Cail sighed. "Well, for now I figure our best bet would be to wait until the weekend and then-um. Well. I don’t know-I can figure out something by then. I hope."

She turned her chair around. "And now I’m sorry but I really have to get my homework done. She opened a txt file.

"Do you mind if I still use this?" asked the virus, pointing to the computer.

"No-go ahead."

The virus put his hand on his chin again and muttered "human law."

**

It was late at night. Cail had gone to sleep losing consciousness the moment her head had hit the pillow. Megabyte didn’t need to sleep and she had left him the laptop. Turning from it, he regarded the human with something unusual for him-curiosity.

She was a strange spri-human he corrected himself. She had taken this well, he supposed, but he still had expected a bit more-surprise. There was something odd about her.

As he scrolled through the history of the net, the virus became a bit-unsettled.

He was an adaptable virus but this world was still a bit too much. He decided to go outside. Poking his head through the wall, the virus simply walked through. He looked around the system. Quite small-about half of what Mainframe had used to be, and Cail had said something about Mainframe expanding a lot. Palm tree’s swayed in the hot night breeze. So-tropical. No one was around on the grounds. He’d just look around a bit and then-

"Hey! You!"

Megabyte swiveled around then disappeared. A few sprites and Anthro’s walked past the spot where he had been.

"See? No one there. Stop WORRYING Synth."

"What the HECK did you think you saw, anyways?"

"Well I saw something too-just a flash."

"But-I swear, there was someone! Really tall-and-I think-he walked out of the building..."

"Yeah? So?"

"No-I mean, OUT of it...I mean, through the wall..."

The sprite’s voice sounded unsure, even to her.

"What?"

"You mean out the window."

"I think you’ve been drinking too much caffeine. Or had just ONE too many chocolate bars. I TOLD you not to get Jolt."

"Uh-guess you’re right. But I saw SOMEONE."

"Me too."

"Probably just someone’s friend not supposed to be here sneaking out. Whose window is this?"

From where he was hiding behind a tree, invisible, the virus relaxed. Just a few girls coming home after a movie or something. And they hadn’t seen what he looked like.

"I dunno. Hey, maybe it’s someone’s BOYfriend. Hee. That’d explain it."

A few nudges and winks went between the group.

"Well, this is the West wing and...hey, those curtains are black and grey...wait, I know-this is *Cail’s* room."

At this they were silent. After a while Synthia ventured, "Cail? With a boyfriend?"

"Wow."

"I mean, CAIL?"

"Wow."

"No way. Not Cail. She’s okay and all, but she’s still pretty, you know-not social with the opposite sex?"

"*I* thought so."

"I mean, I don’t think she’s ever even thought of anyone as cute or available or anything. She just doesn’t LIKE to date. She’s more interested in school and traveling and stuff."

"The guy was pretty tall-he seemed...muscular too."

"Ooh-Cail’s going out with an athlete, huh?"

A few more nudges. Megabyte started to blush a bit.

"Nah-probably just a friend.

"Yeah."

"But..." uncertainty still tinged Synthia’s voice. "There was something-wrong about him."

"Wrong?"

"He didn’t look-normal. Kinda of weird...oh well."

They walked off. The virus breathed out a sigh of relief and slipped back into the room. Should he tell Cail about this? No. He didn’t know if she could do anything to affect him but he wasn’t going to anger her just yet. After all, it WAS her laptop he was contained in. And perhaps her friends would just forget about this...

**

Cail sleepily made her way to her regular table. She yawned and splashed some water from the water fountain on her face to wake her up. Ahh. MUCH better. She had forgotten to do that in her room. Sitting down, she said "Hi Lis, Tanya." She blinked. "And Synthia. Mai, Erin..." she leaned back a bit.

Contrary to popular opinion, Synthia wasn’t always a BIG gossip, so she had sat down and just told Cail’s best friends about what she had seen. Everyone who had been with her last night was there as well. They were all looking at her and grinning.

"Um..." Cail began, acutely aware of the attention to her. She looked down. "What? Did you do something to my food?"

"Cail...your room has those black and grey curtain’s on them, right?" began Tanya.

"Uh huh."

"And you’re in the West wing?"

"Uh-yes..."

She gave them a blank, innocent expression. Synthia plunged ahead.

"Only me, Mai, and Erin were walking back from the movies last night, and we saw someone, um, climb out of your window."

Cail choked on her food. "Wh-WHAT?!"

Lis looked hurt. "You never TOLD us you had a boyfriend."

"I DON’T. Who on EARTH did you see?!"

The genuine shock in Cail’s voice puzzled them all. They had been expecting a few stammered sentences, maybe some blushing, that sort of thing. Not anger.

Cail was shocked for a moment, then realization dawned. The virus...oh no. He didn’t...

Synthia saw Cail’s face suddenly go blank then secretive for a second.

"If you guys will excuse me, I’m going to go check to see if my window is locked." Cail hurried away.

"I hope she wasn’t robbed."

"I guess she really doesn’t have a boyfriend."
"Oh God-I bet she feels so awful-someone creeping around her room while she was asleep...who knows WHAT the hell they could’ve done."

Synthia shook her head and narrowed her eyes.. "No way, she looked guilty for a second-I bet she just forgot about him."

"Hey!" Lis glared. "How can you SAY that!"

"She DID! I SWEAR!"

"Give it up Synth."

Cail came back. She had just gone out to compose herself.

"Nah-it was still locked. You guys must have the wrong room."

"I guess."

"Sorry Cail."

"It’s okay. Nothing’s your fault."

After that, the conversation turned to more mundane subjects.

**

"How could you let the SEE you?!"

"I didn’t think anyone would be out THAT late."

Cail paused. "True-they WERE violating the curfew. Majorly. But still." Her mouth twisted. "All I need now is someone finding out that you exist."

"I do apologize, but you must realize that I was trapped for 500 years-there really weren’t that many changes of scenery. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to take me Mainframe again? I’d rather like to see how it’s-changed."

"Well..." Cail looked at him. From what she gathered over the last 2 days Megabyte was devious, egotistical, and, well, on the opposite side of her world. She should really have turned this whole thing over to the Guardians. She KNEW that. But...

But there’s a kind of person who’s fascinated by a certain type of evil grace. Cail was one of them. Despite all his flaws Megabyte could be incredibly charming. If there’s one thing humans appreciated it was style and the virus had that in abundance. He managed to pull off being arrogant in a gentlemanly way. And for Cail it was hard to refuse someone who voiced things politely.

"I guess. As long as no one spies us."

The virus smiled.

"Trust me."

**

The park was bushy and secluded. Cail had gone there right after stepping out of the portal.

"Alright-you can come out now."

The virus appeared.

"Hmm...charming but I was never one for wildlife."

"You can get a pretty good view of the city from here."

Megabyte stepped over to where Cail was and his breath hissed in for a second.

"Yes, I know-big, isn’t it?"

"Try massive. Compared to what it was of course." Muttered the virus.

Mainframe WAS huge. You could barely see the horizon, whereas before you could have gotten there in about a minute. The spires looked particularly gorgeous, light bouncing off them in arcs of gold and white.

"It’s certainly grown." Cail heard a...hungry tone to his voice and looked at his face.

"Did you really use to own it?"

"Oh yes." He gave a small bitter laugh. "Once. Before the Web..."

"What happened in the Web exactly?"

A disturbed look came across his face.

"I-don’t care to discuss it. Besides, I forget quite a bit."

Cail let it drop. The virus went back to looking at the city with that peculiar expression on his face.

"I USED to be all mine..." he muttered.

His programming had woken up again. The need to conquer, for control welled up. Infection was such a sweet sensation and he missed its sharp, warm sense of power...

He tried to lean on a tree. Megabyte’s body went completely through it and he fell to the ground. With a slightly embarrassed expression he got up.

"There wouldn’t happen to be a way to get me a body anytime soon, would there?" he asked Cail.

"No offense meant, but if I DID do that, you’d probably start to gain control of the Net again."

"Oh come now be reasonable."

"I AM."

"Do you know what this is like?" Megabyte snarled for a moment, temper flaring. To demonstrate, he stuck his hand through the tree again. "It’s incredibly frustrating!"

"I’m sorry but even if I DID want to do that again...don’t you think that’d be too much like necromancy? I mean...you ARE dead. Technically."

"Only my body died-it’s not as if I ever really went over so to speak."

"Erg. I don’t think anyone would even know how to." She sat down on a rock. "Virus programming is banned. REALLY banned. As in "you could get the death penalty" banned."

The virus raised an eyebrow.

"Why?"

"A big rule about our species..." Cail said, almost lecturing. "If we find any other species we’ll try to destroy them if they’re superior in any way to us. Sprites were technologically advanced and look what happened to THEM-we almost killed them. The anthros were different and we thought they were inferior-so we tried to wipe THEM out as well-if it’s stronger get rid of it, weaker take advantage of it...we’ve been conditioned that way. Whee. Isn’t it a lovely world?" she said the last sentence sarcastically.