NationStates Jolt Archive

It had all been fairly hard to understand what had happened, it had all happened so fast. One nano the system was crashing, the next here they where…the system restored.

…sorta.

The data-sea that surrounded the city was…different. Not it’s electronic self, but more like…“water”, from a game. The sky was different too; no electronic look to it in the background, and the clouds looked like something out of a game…just like the sea. And there was a bright light in the sky where all light emanated from. Once again, just like a game.

Was it possible that all of Mainframe had rebooted as some sort of…game? What would happen if they won or lost? Was it possible that the entire system had been converted to game sprite mode?

And if it WAS a game…where was the User?

Except there was several problems with the theory. First off, the system was made of firmware. Second, why didn’t he detect any game stats? The Glitch part of him should have detected the game’s coding by now.

“This is bad…very bad” Bob muttered to himself, standing out at the front doors to the re-built Principle Office. Sunlight reflected itself off his silver and black Glitch armor as the blue-skinned sprite took in the unfamiliar sky. His long silver and black hair moved gently with the breeze.

“We survived, didn’t we?” asked AndrAIa, a game sprite, “I mean, that has to count for something…the system restarted” she was orange skinned, with long aqua hair. She wore long aqua-green pants and boots, and a similar colored bakini. Random rings and bracelets covered her arms.

A green-skinned sprite with dark-green hair (and beard) and a golden cybernetic right eye walked over to AndrAIa. He wore a black vest and dark blue pants with army boots. A rather large gun sat on his belt. The sprite, Matrix, spoke up. “But…the system shouldn’t have restarted this way”

“Not unless the User started up with a different operating system. Maybe that changed things” Bob replied.

“Except it wouldn’t explain where the hardware went” a female green-skinned sprite with dark green hair, Dot, replied. She wore a sleeveless “commando” suit. “I’ve just checked with Phong…it’s as if the system itself just vanished. And what’s more…there’s no edge to the system…there’s actual land masses out there”

“And that’s not all that’s missing” a smaller sprite rolled over to them. He was an older sprite, consisting of a reddish box body, a oddly shaped golden head, long, skinny arms, and a ball fitted inside his body that allowed him to move. “I am afraid that we have lost our connection to the Net as well”

“By Gar…Could this be the Guardian’s doing?” a rather large binome asked. Binomes where not humanoid like sprites, but rather three boxes on top of one another with arms or legs….or occasionally balls with arms and legs. This one was one of the formers…and he was dressed up as a pirate. Captain Capacitor, of the late Saucy Mare.

Bob shook his head. “I don’t think so…not even the Guardian Collective has this kind of power”

“What about a super-virus?” asked Matrix. “Daemon might have…”

“Possibly” Bob nodded. “But for what reason?”

AndrAIa shrugged, “To isolate us?”

“Maybe”

The group looked back a few steps away from them. Two other sprites where locked in a kiss. One of them had blazing orange hair that looked to be on fire, and purple skin. She wore golden battle armor and two swords; one on her back and the other on her hip.

The other had orange skin and short blond hair with a thick pair of sunglasses. He wore light blue body armor. The chest plate had white energy slowly creeping across it.

“Uh…guys?” Dot asked them. “Mouse?”

The girl let the guy go. “Sorry suga…end of the net scare and all” she replied in a distinctly southern accent.

“Woah…” the man, Ray Tracer, gasped, “What a woman…”

Another woman stepped out from the Principle Office into the sunlight. She was crimson-skinned, with black armor covering parts of her body. Her face was a white moveable mask with green eyes.

“Are we having a party?” she asked.

“Huh?” Bob asked, turning around, “Oh, hey Hex.”

Hexadecimal was a virus, recently registered by Phong at Bob’s insistence, once they knew the system was doomed. Bob knew Hex wasn’t like other viruses…she wasn’t inherently evil. Although no one else buy him seemed to notice that. Everyone else seemed content to stay away from her.

Of course, that might have been only because of her…chaotic personality. She was defiantly someone one had to get used too.

Little did the inhabitants of the city of Mainframe know they had been transported from a backwater computer system into somewhere in the “real world”, where the User existed…as well as many others.

…

The Supercomputer

The blue-skinned, red haired sprite in robes slowly walked across the giant chamber where his lady spent her time. She sat in a seat on the other side, a pendulum swinging behind her.

“My lady” he said, kneeling.

She was purple-skinned, with green hair and a small crown-like structure on her head. She wore a small purple outfit.

“Yes?” she quietly asked, in a heavy European accent.

“We have lost the signal of one of the systems we where planning to open”

“I see” she thought for a moment, looking at a small hourglass on her necklace. “No matter. Keep with ze plan. Ze net must hear ze word”

“Yes, my lady”

Principle Office War Room

“No net connection?” Ray scratched his head. “What do you mean? Is it offlined?”

Mouse shook her head as she worked at the computer console. “No…that’s not it at all. We’re not even detecting a network plug. It’s as if the ‘net never existed”

The group of sprites and binomes stood in the War Room. It was the current nervous system of the city. It was circular, with two levels. There was an upper level in the back where the doors where, and a lower one that was connected to the upper one by two sets of stairs that followed the sides of the room. It housed an interactive map of the system. Vid-windows floated in the air like big screens.

“And that’s not all, folks” Mouse put some new images onto the vidwindows. It showed land masses. Mountains, forests, deserts…stuff not found in the island city of Mainframe…unless one was in a game cube.

“What?!” Matrix asked, “How is that possible?!”

Over in the corner, two sprite-sized robots, one red and the other blue, quietly squabbled.

“You pressed a button, didn’t you?” asked the red one

“No, not me. Why would I press a button?” the blue one countered.

“I don’t know…all I know is that it wasn’t me”

“Wasn’t me either. I did not press a button. Every time I press a button, something bad happens”

The red one pointed at the vid windows. “Well I for one would consider this to be “SOMETHING BAD”!”

“BOYS!” Dot called over to them. They both looked at her and saluted.

“Hack and Slash, reporting for duty!”

“Would you keep it down please?” Dot asked.

“Yes sir mam!” they said, before going back to squabbling about buttons.

“So what do you think we should do, Dot?” asked Mouse.

Matrix looked at Dot. “Yeah sis…any plans?”

She shook her head. “No…I think I’m all out of plans”

Bob spoke up. “Look…Hex should be back from scouting soon. We should wait for her report”

A flash of light appeared, followed by the virus Hex.

“Someone mention my name?” she asked gleefully.

“So what did you find Hex?” Bob asked.

Hex shrugged. “People, places, things…nothing of interest”

“People?” asked AndrAIa, “Where?”

“Out there somewhere” Hex waved off in the general distance.

“Aw…this isn’t getting us anywhere” Matrix replied. “We need to send out a reliable scout…not some virus”

“I take offense to that” Hex scowled, her eyes turning from green to red.

“I’ll take ship and see what I can find out about where we are” Mouse turned to walk out the door. “Coming suga?” she asked, looking at Ray. He nodded and went with her, not saying anything.

…

A large jet took off from the Principle Office’s CPU bay, where all the military craft where kept. This was larger then any of the craft in there, bigger then even a CPU tank. Inside sat Mouse at the helm, with Ray at her side. The jet blasted off, towards unknown territory…

Click.

Eyes watch. Dumb eyes - not a single bit of sapience behind them.

Click.

Another fractal event. Nothing particularly special - it happens all the time. There are some oddities - architecture, social interactions (Insofar as observable with this comparatively primitive eyes) and the likes, not quite fitting the common parameters, but then again, even oddities are 'normal', in a sense.

Click.

The information is distributed, entering assorted networks, to be reviewed, discussed... But it's just curious minorities, not much more.

Click.

A few more eyes now. There's nothing particularly special happening, but who cares? Perhaps it'll happen later. This particular event - and the above-average activity inside it - seems to be worth it.

Irony. That’s the word he was looking for.

He had left his system as a child, after a game he couldn’t win. To avoid being nullified, he had left with the game along with AndrAIa. From there the two had “game-hopped” from system to system, trying to find their way home. The two had grown up together, no support system of any kind. No money, no parents, no home…all they had during those years where each other.

Enzo Matrix had been a Guardian Cadet before The Game. Promoted by Bob himself during the outbreak of the war. When Bob had been tossed into the Web by Megabyte, Enzo had been the system’s only hope. But he had been too young. They both had. They returned home, fully grown. They had found Bob, as well as several allies. Most notably a Web surfer named Ray Tracer, and the SS Saucy Mare…a software pirate ship. They had returned to a decimated Mainframe, almost deleted thanks to a viral war.

They defeated the virus Megabyte…only to watch the city fall victim to a system crash nanoseconds later…and then mysteriously pop up here, fully restored. It had been a very weird day.

Matrix skimmed the war room, taking in everyone who was there. Some of these faces he hadn’t seen since he was a kid. Most notably his sister, Dot Matrix. She was now the system’s command.com of the system. The battle strategist. He didn’t know how she did it. Monopolizer of Mainframe’s business, war planner, and just about everything else imaginable. Even after all that had happened, she was still moving along, keeping everything running smoothly.

Next to her was Bob. The Guardian. Not the ones infected by Daemon, but a true Guardian. The defender of the system. Although since he had merged with glitch, he was more then a guardian now…he had merged with his keytool. And with the merging came new powers…the extent of which was unknown. It was simply known that he could fly, make himself invulnerable, fire energy bursts, and create portals.

Phong, the old robotic sprite, was the system…well, he had been the command.com at one time, until Dot had taken over during the onset of the war. Now he just seemed to be an advisor.

AndrAIa was his world. She had come from a game, and went to live with him in Mainframe when they where kids. Had it not been her knowledge of the games and general optimism, he would not have survived most of his life.

Hex…he didn’t trust Hex. He didn’t trust Megabyte, he didn’t trust Daemon, he sure wasn’t going to trust Hexadecimal. She had been Megabyte’s sister, two viruses from the same viral strain. She was a Chaotic type…and seemed to have a crush on Bob.

He hadn’t seen Mouse in ages either. She was Mainframe’s hacker, able to encrypt and decode better then anyone by far. It had only taken her a few nanos to hack through the Principle Office’s defense shield. He smiled as he recalled Phong’s expression.

A vidwindow popped up. It was Mouse.

“Did you find anything?” asked Dot.

Mouse shook her head. “This island seems to be uninhabited. I think Hex went out further then we did. We’re coming back”

“Understood” Dot replied, as the window vanished. She turned to Specky, another binome. “Open the doors”

“Yes sir, mam”

To any country semi-near by, a strange electromagnetic pulse had begun to eminate, disrupting television signals, phone lines, and internet signals.

Now this is interesting.

So much for non-sapient eyes. Now curious intelligence is using them, and watching real time.

You got something there?

Nah. A few backwaters may be bothered, but that's it. Optics ftw. Why it is there I don't know, mind.

Perhaps they're in trouble. Post-fractal shock. I've read a few essays detailing the-

Oh, shut up. Lemme take a closer look.

Statistics are created, and compared to others. Resolutions are increased, and a few very tentative active sweeps burst out of assorted orbital drones, tentative simply to keep the form - be polite, and don't start fucking with someone.

Oh, and something else, following brief exchanges of information with major administrative entities.

Language-Code Embedded EM-CCOM@EM1e-1; SL 0; Widebeam
From: Heather Pearl (Administration; DA Equator)
To: Whom it may concern, Entity@[Coordinates][Reference Frame]
Subject: Wecome, and...

Well, since you just popped up (Or so our logs seem to suggest, though this is under dispute), erm - well, lets start with a 'Hello', unknowledgeable as we may be with regards to each other (Though this might change in the forseeable future). I'm Heather Pearl, essentially an administrative entity in DA , though, judging by our preliminary analysis, this [i]might not tell you particularly much... Seeing as you are/ might be considerably different, if I am to trust my sources and the indications they believe to have found.

A question, though - are you having any kind of particular problem? We've noticed some rather odd events [Infoburst: EMPLog], and we're a little worried about you.

As Mouse and Ray’s vidwindow vanished, another one popped up. Even more odd, it seemed to be a text document.

“Uh…” Phong mumbled.

Dot rubbed her forhead. “Specky, I thought text documents where supposed to be re-directed down here”

“Well usually yes…” the small geeky binome replied. “But we’ve just gone through an incomplete re-start. Some things are bound to be messed up”

“Well, could ya fix it?”

“Erm…uh…yes sir, mam” Specky went to work as Mouse and the Surfr walked in.

“Problems with your text documents, suga?”

Dot looked at her, noticeably a little tired, “Uh, yeah”

Mouse put her hands on her hips. “You look like you’ve been drained by a null honey. Go get some rest. You’ve been through a lot in the last second”

“But what about anything that goes on here? We don’t know what is even going on, or--”

“We got it covered” Matrix replied, putting his hand on his sister’s shoulder. “Go get some rest. If anything happens, Bob and I are here. We can handle anything”

Dot rolled her eyes, “Oh great. I feel so much better”

“Don’t worry Dot” said Mouse with a sly grin, “I’ll keep the boys in line. Trust me”

Dot nodded, “Alright…alright…you win. Just…don’t blow up anything. I’ll be in my office”

Dot turned and left. After the door had closed behind her, Mouse turned back to Specky. “Now what’s this about a text document?”

The binome replied. “We received a message via word pad…we’re just having trouble getting it off the main screen”

“Move over” she said, slightly annoyed. “haven’t taught you people anything?” she pressed a few buttons, and the message left the main vidwindow screen and instead appeared as a smaller vidwindow on top of the computer display.

“Well I’ll be” she said, “It’s the welcome wagon”

Bob, Matrix, Ray, Phong, and AndrAIa all moved over to her to read the letter.

“So…it looks like we’re not alone in the system anymore after all” Bob said. “Can we send a return transmission?”

“We can indeed, suga” Mouse pressed a few more buttons, and an empty word pad appeared. She then stepped away, “Have at it. You’re a better diplomat then I, guardian”

Bob moved over and began typing, when he asked. “Uh…anyone know what a “nation” is?”

…

From: Mainframe Principle Office
To: Heather Pearl (Administration; DA Equator)
Subject Re: Welcome, and…

Well, hello. This is Guardian 452 of the system of Mainframe. If you could tell us where in the net we are, what system we’ve landed ourselves in and how, I’d be very thankful. Other then that, we’re just experiencing some minor system incomplete re-start flaws that should be fixed soon.

Calling it 'Unusual' would've been an understatement, regardless of what specific detail of the new appearance - insane architecture, utterly illogical energy transfers, whatever - one would've referred to. And as such, interest grew - first due to the rather odd properties of what'd popped up, then due to the unusual reply.

EM-CCOM@EM1e-1; SL 0; Widebeam
From: Heather Pearl (Administration; DA Equator)
To: Whom it may concern, Mainframe Principle Office
Subject: Re: Re: Wecome, and...

I see. Well, I suppose I may have a few - not all - answers, though I'm not sure if you'll like them.

[Infoburst: World]

Hope it works out. And once you've figured out how you ended up here - I've no idea myself - well, I'm curious.

Sincerely,

~ Heather Pearl

[Infoburst: World]. The information included in it covered, well, just about everything - the planet's relation to the rest of the system, as far as orbital mechanics were concerned, its atmosphere, geographic and political structure (In part, anyway. Fractal annoyances...), geologic structure, assorted histories, economic structures, a few other structures, infrastructures... Well, a basic overview of the world as it is - mostly, anyway.

There was an uncomfortable silence after Bob had read out the letter.

World? Nation? Geology? What was all this? This didn’t make any sense. Where were they? The letter answered no questions and instead opened up a few hundred more. How did they get here? Where were they? What was all this? What happened to everything?

OOC: Bump. There’s not much I can do at this point. I need others to jump in.

There were minds within SYSNET throughout the Four Worlds (and Earth, for that matter) that were, of course, a great deal closer to these recent arrivals than what was surrounding the circular land mass.

Of them, a few currently resided within Isasrach, the headquarters of VERITAS and a city that was itself likely to be recognized - not necessarily as anything known, but as something.

SYSNET platforms in orbit had, of course, witnessed the distortion and subsequent appearance of this floating city in the middle of the ocean as the mechanical eyes of Der Angst had, and the data was relayed back to the nearest relay point, which was, in this case, Isasrach itself.

It was, then, with some degree of curiosity, that N-Shaia 2992 did two things.

Firstly, she transmitted a missive to these new beings, introducing herself, and providing cursory information and imagery about where she was, and where she was from.

Secondly, she activated one of many available avatars - the particular model looking not dissimilar to the average Kajali, if one ignored the obvious platinum skin, and subdued blue fibra that stood in as hair. N-Shaia didn't often use a body, and while the avatar was not particularly realistic in coloration, it was detailed enough to warrant some clothing.

This avatar set off towards this new city in one of the many Kajali shuttles at Isasrach, while N-Shaia 2992 awaited a response back at Isasrach.

She had, of course, mentioned that she was sending a copy of herself to 'be taken to your leader'.

She had also mentioned that the estimated travel time would, of course, be at least twenty minutes in suborbital flight.

She had no idea how confused (Or how long these people would actually wait) the inhabitants of this new city would be when she arrived.

No further response, and while assorted 'eyes' continued to watch, they weren't impolite enough to actively interfere.

Nothing new from this front, at least.

Of course, there are other things that can happen. Crashing planes, for example, or orbital parachutists missing their intended landing point by a few hundred kilometres...

In this particular case, it was a boat - small, largely wooden, and propelled by sails. Classic designs were 'in' among some of the less technophile (Or simply nostalgic) subsocieties within DA - filled with three people, none of which were particularly skilled navigators, and all of which were too arrogant (Or lazy) to use either of the many possibilities available to them to clear up their present problem.

Wouldn't really be an 'Adventure' if they did, after all.

The boat's crew, Jake, Marcel and Jeanette, was considerably surprised when they found an (Odd) city where there wasn't supposed to be one (If there was supposed to be land or not to begin with was object to discuss - again, they weren't all that skilled as navigators), and eventually entered a brief period of considerably aggressive discussions about who had screwed up what - but, with the currents as they were, and the wind being vaguely insufficient to propel them away, and them being rather curious to begin with, eventually they landed - not right at the edge of the city (The currents didn't want to carry them there), but somewhat further off (Again, if the land had just 'appeared' or if it had been there for longer, to be used as a 'base' for the city, was object to discuss - the three had voluntarily given up on their access to orbital reconnaissance, and were thus considerably clueless).

The city looked odd, alright. Which just made it fascinating (Though not necessarily attractive - they weren't all that interested in contacts with hightech, given that they were on a sailing boat tour, assorted inactive implants nonwithstanding).

"Are we going?"

"We are."

"You didn't ask me..."

"Shut up."

"Bastards."

Perhaps the two weeks all alone on the large boat/ small ship had increased their aggressions. Regardless, right now, they were heading for it.

The city, that is. ETA? Oh, a couple minutes, probably.