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The Plight of a Sprite
By: Albert Einome
The Professor jumped out of the Portal onto a narrow alleyway, surrounded by large gray buildings. The Professor took a look around and sighed thankfully. He was in the Supercomputer, and it looked like he was safe.
The Professor had gone to the Supercomputer to rescue Bob, Dot, and the others from Daemon, and most recently, another virus. The Professor got out Glitch, and did a scan for any other Guardians. Glitch beeped. A few bits away, some Guardians were just hanging out. The Professor put Glitch on his belt, and walked slowly down the alley into the main street.
Binomes, sprites, and other creatures the Professor didn't even recognize were running around. The Professor found he was in a small marketplace. Binomes were shouting orders out, and the whole place was a big bustle. Above all of the bustle, the Professor noticed a large digital clock.
"Hmm.... it zeems to almost be 1200. I'd better go get a lunch before rescuing Bob and ze others," the Professor said, walking towards a food stand. Before the Professor could take an order, the large clock chimed 1200. A large Vidwindow popped up, showing a strikingly beautiful sprite, with green hair and purple skin.
"BOW, MY MINIONS," she boomed. The whole marketplace did as ordered. The Professor did the same, not wanting to stick out.
"GET UP." The marketplace got up. She lowered her voice. "All right, that's better. Now, there are a few sprites I'd like to see..." The marketplace shuddered at this. She smiled. "Hmm... Danny Javard, George Grepson, and Norton McAffe. Please report to the Principle Office IMMEDIATELY."
One the binomes started walking away from the marketplace, and began to move at a quicker pace. The other sprite's eyes followed him. He ran out of sight.
"Well, that's taken care of. Before I go, pledge your allegiance to me."
The whole marketplace began to chant,
"All hail Daemon, the ruler of them all
If you want some trouble just give her a call
She'll infect everyone you know and even some you don't
And then she will infect you, or maybe she won't
DAEMON! DAEMON! THE RULER OF THEM ALL! HOORAY!"
"Thank you, thank you. All right then... see you at 1800!" The Vidwindow closed.
The Professor grimaced. So zat is vat Daemon is like. Well, she is sort of pretty- no, vait. She just vants me to zink zat. He then went over to the food shop and ordered a light lunch. After paying, he sat down and ate.
He soon finished, and threw the rest of it away. Then he went back to finding a way to Bob and the others.
* * *
The cell was dark. Damp. A musty odor hung in the air. Two sprites were talking.
"I hate this place."
"Who wouldn't? I'm sure she'll let us out at some point."
"Are you kidding? She'll never let us out! She'll leave us in here for cycles until we go offline!"
"But remember, she wants to infect all the Guardians."
"If we resist, she'll delete us."
"I doubt we'll resist. We should find a way out of this cell first before doing anything else."
"Until we find a way out we can't do anything else."
Another voice chimed in.
"Oh, don't think like that. I'm sure there's something we can do."
"Well, you're always the one with the plans... what should we do?"
"Well... um.... I... I... I don't know."
"Now who's thinking bad?"
"Oh User, we'd better get out of here. And soon."
"Okay, let's just go to sleep. We'll think about this in the morning."
"Morning? We don't even know what time it is!"
"Yes, we do. Daemon does her little 'speech to the masses' every 6 milliseconds. Right now it's around 1200, because she just did one, and she said she's doing another at 1800."
"Okay, all this talk is actually tiring me out. Let's really go to sleep, and we can wake up whenever."
"I'm for that. Now where's my pillow?"
* * *
The Professor slowly noticed the walls were being covered with more and more graffiti. He figured this must be the 'bad' part of the system. Although, the whole system was sort of 'bad'. The Professor had used Glitch and found that a small security bunker was near, and he was moving towards it.
A shadow passed near. The Professor flew against a wall, gripping it. He didn't know if anyone would notice that he wasn't infected- the food seller at the marketplace didn't- so he always hid whenever a shadow passed by. Most of the time it was a Guardian, and that scared the Professor even more. He continued walking, and turned a corner. He found a small metallic building, and he reasoned that was the security bunker.
He looked around for a sign of any sprite, and then dashed towards the door. He heard voices inside, and leaned in towards the door to hear them.
"So, how is Section 4?"
"Checked out. Nothing unusual. And how about Section 8?"
"Nothing. You know, we really haven't had anyone break in lately, have we?"
"Nope. I wonder why."
"Maybe they think Daemon is too powerful."
"Well, that means her plan's working. Good ol' Daemon. Always stopping everyone."
"Yep."
The Professor drew his anti-viral gun from his belt. He hoped it would work on these sprites, or at least one of them. He fingered the door latch.
"So, you wanna get some Java?"
"I have to stay here until 1600. Hey, can you get me some?"
"Sure. See you."
"See you."
The Professor then swung open the door, and knocked the Guardian out of the way. The other Guardian stood up.
"Hey! Who are you?"
"Dr. Albert Einome of Mainframe. I have a Doctorate of Physical Science. I vent to Printson College, and I-"
"Shut up, or I'll mangle you to bits."
"Okay, let's cut to ze chase. I have a gun. It can hurt you. So sit down or be shot."
"Look, with one push of this button, I can call in some troops-"
"And with ze push of zis trigger, I can erase ze viral code from your body."
The Guardian froze. The other Guardian shook his head, and got up.
"Did I miss anything? Hey, that's a gun!"
The other Guardian shot him a look, and then said to the Professor, "What is it you want?"
"Your viral code to be erased."
"Look, I'm starting to not believe you. I'm giving you 3 nanos to get out of here!"
"I varned you."
"3!"
The Professor lowered his brow.
"2!"
He clenched the gun.
"1!"
The other Guardian just stared.
"0! Now get owwwwwwwaahhhhh!" The anti-viral rays shot towards the Guardian, encasing him. The green veins of infection slowly disappeared, and then he crumpled to the ground.
"Um, are you going to do that to me?" the other Guardian asked, shaking.
"Vy not?" The Professor took aim, and fired.
* * *
The ceiling was dripping with moisture. The drops made a distinct PLINK-PLONK, echoing throughout the jail.
"I CANNOT sleep with that dripping! Shut it off!"
"Oh, and you think I can? Look, I guess we aren't going to be getting much sleep here."
"I guess you're right. Shouldn't someone have rescued us by now?"
"Are you kidding? This is Daemon we're talking about. You really think anyone could get through her and come save us?"
"Well... maybe."
"Such logic. Tsk tsk."
"Logic? We don't NEED logic. We bust a hole in the wall, and we run away!"
"Yes, but do we need to resort to violence, when peace brings prosperity?"
"Now I REALLY want to go to sleep."
"Patience. The time will come."
"You always say that."
* * *
The Professor had already gathered the Guardians he needed. Two was enough for him to do anything, well, anything except destroy Daemon. The Professor tried to figure out the security control panel, but to no avail.
"How in ze Net do you vork zis thing?" he asked, twiddling dials.
"Well, what do you want to do?" asked one of the Guardians, who was named Mavica. The other one was still affected by the anti-viral rays, and was slowly getting consciousness.
"Vell, I'm trying to find vere a certain sprite is being held... but I have no idea how to do zat."
"Okay, do you have any idea where they might be held?"
"Probably in a high-security area, but other zan zat, I don't know."
"Hmm.... well, the highest security I know of is right beneath the Principle Office, and you can only monitor it from inside the Principle Office."
"So ve're going in."
"I suppose you could say that. But first this guy's gotta wake up."
The other Guardian then rubbed his head and rose. "Ow... so... you still want that coffee?"
"Vight on cue," the Professor said.
The 3 started towards the Principle Office. Along the way, the Professor noticed how the Guardians who were infected did not act mechanical-like, like many infected sprites do. Instead, they still seemed to have a personality, but an evil one. She made every one of her infectees different, each with their own interests (all evil) and personality. She must be pretty strong to do zat, he thought.
They soon saw in the distance the Principle Office. It was large, and spherical. It was green and white striped, and even seemed to be emitting an evil aura. The Professor and the 2 Guardians talked out what they would do.
"Okay, the only way to get into the Principle Office without having to go through a lot of guards is to go in using the Tubes," Mavica explained.
"Ze Tubes?"
"The Tubes are a system of tubes which shoot you along. There should be a Tube Station really close to here... there we go."
Mavica pointed out a small, grey platform. On it stood five tubes, which arced over to the Principle Office. Sitting in the tubes was a small elevator which held whoever wanted to go.
"Anyone can use the Tubes- they lead to the system Archives, where binomes can learn about the system and the sprites in it."
"Vell, vat are ve vaiting for? Let's go!" The Professor walked into a tube, and the other Guardians did the same. The Professor hit a button inside. The door closed, and the device shot up towards the Principle Office.
* * *
"Well, it's no use. These walls are just too hard. I wish we had our weapons."
"You really expect Daemon to leave us in here with out weapons? We'd escape in nanos!"
"Well, maybe... uh... you're right."
"Say, do you hear that?"
The two sprites froze. No sound came. The darkness felt even darker.
"Hear what? There's nothing to hear!"
"Exactly. That 'annoying dripping' has stopped. Now we can go to sleep."
"Finally. And I'm really tired. I hope nothing wakes me up."
"Yes." The sprite yawned. "All right, let's settle down for a nice sleep."
The sprites lay on the floor. They soon fell asleep, but then, just microseconds later, a voice penetrated the hard walls:
"BOW MY MINIONS," it said.
"Oh no," one of the sprites said, waking up, "not again!"
* * *
The tube carried the Professor closer and closer to the Principle Office. Below he could see binomes and sprites walking around, like nothing was wrong. They didn't care that they were infected. The Professor shuddered, but then noticed he was nearing a tunnel. Looking off to the side, he saw the other two Guardians zooming along as well.
The devices entered the Principle Office through a small tunnel. The Professor sensed the device was slowing down. Below he saw the platform, but then he noticed he was overshooting it. He was worried he had been found out, and he was going to be sent to Daemon. Then he noticed he was backing up and then going down. The device landed on the platform and the door opened. The Professor got out, and met with his Guardian friends.
"So vat vas zat last part for?" he asked.
"Oh, the backing up? Well, if it just went in a simple arc, you would land upside down, and that is no way to land. So, by overshooting and then backing up, you land the right way," Mavica explained.
The Professor made a mental image of this, and found Mavica was right. "Vell, zen, vere are ve now?"
"We are in the hallway leading to the Archives." They walked down the hallway. "If you want to get to the main security post, you'll have to pretend you're one of those sprites announced on the announcements. One should be coming up soon..."
"Vait, I hear one now."
The three stopped and listened.
"...also I would like to see Kayla Poised and Marcus O' Myre in the Principle Office immediately."
"Well, I guess your name for the next few micros is Marcus O' Myre."
"I can go vith zat."
The three continued to walk down the hallway. Instead of going thorugh the big double doors, they went through a small door labeled, "STAFF ONLY".
They passed other Guardians, going their own way, until they reached a door labeled, "MSSA".
"That stands for Main Security and Surveillance Area," Mavica explained. He opened the door, and walked in.
Inside was one Guardian, who was just standing there, waiting.
"Hello... who is this?" he asked, looking at the Professor.
"This is Marcus O' Myre from the announcement."
"Ah, yes. Marcus. You know what you did, and you know the punishment. 15 seconds in jail. All right, I've got to run some errands. Marcus' jail cell is in the database. You can find it easily. Goodbye." With that, he promptly left the room.
"Okay, let's figure out where they are." Mavica went to the computer, and punched in different codes. "What are their names?"
"Vell, one of zem is called Bob. He is a Guardian."
"Okay... Bob... Bob... here we go. Cell Block 22-A. That's underground 8 levels."
"Is it difficult to get zer?"
"Not really. But to get to the actual cell... that's a little harder. There's no time to waste. Come on."
The three left the room, moving towards an elevator.
* * *
The sprite stretched and yawned.
"Finally. Well, that was a good sleep, don't you think?"
"Yeah, I'm just glad I got some. At least I feel better now."
"Me too."
"There has got to be a way out of here!"
"I haven't found any way out. The walls are too thick, the bars are too strong."
"Then how do sprites escape from these things?"
"I guess they don't. They just get suck down here."
"Well, I'm going to keep trying to find a way out. I HAVE to get out."
"Sure, sure. I'm just going to rest a little."
"You just slept."
"As Phong might say, 'One can never have too much rest.'."
"Whatever." The sprite started to search the walls.
* * *
The Professor felt the elevator slowly coming to a stop. The doors opened, and he walked out with the two Guardians. He was in a long corridor, which started with bright lights and metal walls, but then got darker and the walls became stone. At the very end, there wasn't even any light. A Guardian at a control center looked up at them.
"Hello. Who is this and what is he doing here?" he asked.
"This is Marcus O' Myre. From the announcement," Mavica stated.
The Guardian at the desk looked quizzically at Mavica. He then looked at the Professor. "All right, then. Good. I'll take him away," he said, reaching for the Professor hand.
"Um.... I think I can put him away," Mavica stammered.
"No, really. I should take him away. I am more highly trained if he... escapes on the way."
"I took him all the way from the front of the Principle Office and he didn't escape, so I think that I can take him to his cell."
The Guardian raised an eyebrow and smiled. "Well, you've put up a good argument. You and your friend can take him down to his cell. It's the second-to-last one."
"Thank you." Mavica walked with the Professor and started down the hall, but then he heard a gun click against the back of his head. "Hey! What gives? I'm just-"
"Drop it. I know who you are."
"Right, I'm taking Marcus to his cell, and-"
"Marcus isn't real. Daemon always throws in a fake name to foil sprites like you who are trying to rescue your friends. Pity."
"No, he told me he was Marcus, and I believed him."
"No, you didn't. You're not infected; you're his friend; and that means you're not mine. Now, please give the binome to me, and I'll put him in a cell. Then I'll send you to Daemon to be infected."
"No! I don't want to-"
"I guess we'll have to do this the hard way." He took out a file locker.
Suddenly, the Professor wrenched free of Mavica and the other Guardian's grip, and spun around. "Not so fast, Guardian! I can stop you with-" The Professor was cut short as the Guardian file-locked the three.
* * *
The four sprites in the cell were now all searching for a way out, a weak point in the structure.
"I can't find anything."
"Nothing over here, either."
"I guess it's hopeless. We'll be stuck here for the rest of our lives."
Suddenly, they heard voices. They quickly started acting like nothing was wrong (beside the fact that they were in a jail).
One voice said, "All right, here's your cell. Now GET IN!"
Another voice said, "I don't vant to! You can't make me!"
One voice said, "Yes, I can." They heard a THUNK and figured it was a kick. Then they heard a THUMP, and a SLAM.
"Looks like someone did something wrong."
"Hey, hey." The sprite went over to a wall. "Hello? Can you hear us?"
They heard a moaning, and then a, "Yes."
"So, what did you do?"
"Tried to save you. I am Dr. Albert Einome."
"Someone was actually trying to save us."
"Too bad you didn't succeed."
"Yes. If only you knew vat vas happening in Mainframe..."
The sprite suddenly stood up. "What's happening in Mainframe?"
"Another virus has entered ze system and has begun infecting binomes. I tried to stop him, and I pretty much succeeded, but zen he got a Portal and vent here to the Supercomputer to finish you off. I now doubt he veally did. I think it vas just a lure."
"I think so too. You know anyway out of these cells?"
"Out of zem? I've barely been in zem! But, vere have you looked alveady?"
"I searched the ceiling."
"I searched this wall."
"I got this wall."
"And searched the bars."
"Everyvere, zen. Well, except the floor..."
"The floor? Good idea!"
The four sprites began to feel around the floor for something. Suddenly, a sprite felt something.
"It feels like... leaves."
"Leaves?" The sprite rustled them around.
"They're leaves all right. Wait... there's something underneath it..."
"Is it a hole to freedom?"
"No.... better." The sprite pulled it out. "It's a gun."
* * *
The Guardian slowly walked Mavica and the other Guardian to Daemon's chambers. He opened the double doors, and presented them to Daemon.
"My queen, I have here two rebels who have escaped your infection!"
Daemon looked at them. "Mavica? I thought I infected you! Wait... I DID infect you. How did you get disinfected?"
"I'll never tell!"
"Oh, I'm sure you will, after infection. All right then, stand still, because this is going to hurt..."
* * *
The sprites slowly climbed out the cell through the large hole made by the gun.
"Finally. Out of those dark cell into a dark hallway."
"Thanks for the optimism. Come on. Let's get out of here."
The Professor yelled, "VAIT!"
"What?"
"Vell, I vas zer ven you sent Glitch to Mainframe, and I still have him. Vould you like him back?"
"Yes, please." The Professor handed Glitch over. "Hello, old friend." Glitch beeped back a reply.
"So, are you going to let me out?" the Professor asked.
"Well, we want to let out our other friends first, but then we will come straight back to you."
"Vell, if you must. Don't vorry. I won't escape before zen."
"All right, let's get out of this darkness. I want to see how messy I look from all that jail time."
"Porbably no more messier than usual!"
"Sis!" The sprite rolled his eyes.
"Vell, I guess I'll see you later."
"Yes. Goodbye, Dr. Einome."
"Goodbye, Bob."
The four sprites walked and rolled down the hallway, into bright light, and disappeared from the Professor point of view. The Professor waved one last goodbye, and then sunk back into the corner of his cell.
To be continued...
So ends the first arc of my Season 4 story. I (hope) to have at least another arc before the movies come out. If not, well, that's life. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the first arc. The next arc will deal more with Bob and the others with very little emphasis on the Professor, because I think you've had enough of him. ^_^ See you all later!
Copyright information: ReBoot, Bob, Daemon, the Supercomputer, Glitch, the others, and related indicia are © Mainframe Entertainment Inc. ReBoot, Bob, Daemon, the Supercomputer, Glitch, the others, and related indicia were used for a non-profit purpose and therefore it is OK. Albert Einome, Mavica, and the main story are © Albert Einome (me). You can copy this story for non-profit purposes only. If otherwise, contact me (agbstarwars@hotmail.com) Thank you! Have a nice day.