Some kinda open post nonsense

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1010... 1001... 1000... The entire system shook as the city continued to crash. 111... 110.. 101... 100... He scanned to Phong, Mouse. Eyes scanned over to Enz--Matrix, AndrAIa... Dot. Even, briefly, Hex. Frisket. This was it. Bob stepped in a little closer to Dot. He came back to a ruined system. The system he vowed to protect. It wasn't Enzo's fault, he was just a small sprite. Bob was so determined to change things that weren't programmed to change, but that was his programming. His code. He couldn't delete Megabyte. Just like he couldn't delete Kilobyte. So here he was, here they were, nanos away from complete system failure. He'd come back just to be knocked offline. 11... 10... 1... But he held her hand, and the panic turned into silence around them. 0.

There was no way of telling how long it'd been but the first thing Bob remembered was the whirring sound of a system restarting, starting, booting, rebooting? Powering up. A bright light and strange sensation covered his skin. Then, suddenly, he was hurdling through space and straight into someone--knocking over several CPU towers in the process.

"Whoa!" bob exclaims, quickly finding his feet and offering a hand to whoever it was that he'd landed on without a second thought. "Are you alright?"

It was only once he began scanning the area after a nanosecond or two that several questions filed in. Arms fell from what position they'd been in to help the stranger. He turned left, and right, slowly processing the data around him until it clicked. It had clicked, honestly, even earlier. But there was just no way, there was no way. And, somewhat flabbergasted, he turned back toward the other person, "you're... you're a User." And another nanosecond later. "How am I processing? How did I get here?"

Comments

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Plan. Bob was never a plan sort of guy and it showed on his face when the word came up even though he tried to brush it off shortly after, "I'm more of a fly by the seat of my pants kind of sprite, but don't worry. It hasn't failed me yet." It has failed you plenty of times, Bob. Just because you avoid deletion doesn't mean things couldn't have gone astronomically better if Dot was around. "Besides, how hard can it be?"

But no, Bob was anything but stilted or formulaic. He certainly had some programming that was hard coded into him but when it came to interactions he was as natural as could be, and besides... he'd gone against his code once before. The adherence that Bob so strongly grasps on to was by choice. These things aside, it seemed a little... well, getting a read on this guy was a bit difficult. The Guardian was compliant, though. He saw no reason not to explain.

"Not really," came with a rub at the back of his neck, "I was lost in the web, once. Learned some things, but actually seeing this world is a whole other thing." He pauses, gets up and paces a bit to the side of the building. The sun was setting. Really looked beautiful. Listening to Tensai speak about his project. It sounded impressive, although he wasn't sure how to explain to the other man that Cyberspace was... well, it was its own universe. They weren't AIs. Maybe he'll try later, because those last few words make his eyes narrow.

"Sounds like Cyberspace isn't the only place that hosts a virus."

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Just looking at Bob's face made Tensai instinctively rub his own. The gesture helped him not immediately start spouting off his disapproval. With some calm consideration the excitable fugitive managed to reply less judgmentally. "That was inside a computer where there tend to be more logical patterns. Humans are much more unpredictable." At least from his perspective. "Well, it's not a S-class facility overrun with military operatives so I can't really argue with you there.." Maybe Tensai was overly apprehensive, having blown tonight's affair completely out of proportion and everything would be hunky dory. Hey, maybe Bob could just waltz on in there and no one would even look up from their perusal of various storage devices, programs, and CPUs- it could happen in a poorly written sci fi. What did the man- er program not understand about there aren't a lot of blue people running around? "So are you just... going to try to heft the machine out of there? If not, where are you going to get a hardrive? I'm guessing you have no money so you're either going to have to steal one... or find someone with already owns one."

The web, huh? There was a ton of information that could be gleaned there but much of it would just seem like a pile of data without actually seeing it in person. "So you don't know anything about the Factions or even which one is in control of the quadrant we're in?" Tensai seemed oblivious to the natural beauty and wonder of the sunrise over there, but then again it was a usual occurrence in his routine. Also, he wasn't overly sentimental about most things. A universe crammed inside a computer would definitely be a trip if one could only see what really went on in there. It took some mental gymnastics for Tensai to just come out with as much as he willingly offered up and Bob seemed to be a good listener.

"Tell me about it. There's no greater virus than those bipeds down there.." He peered over the side of the building watching as the crowds were thinning and various clusters of people were breaking off to return to their homes and apartments.