Virtual Mainframe
15-10-2006, 22:01
OOC: Yeah…I tried this before, but RL got in the way. Here’s hoping I can actually finish an RP or two this time around. If you get involved, please bare with me, life keeps me busy, so at times you may have to wait a bit before I reply.
IC:
]SYSTEM CRASH:
]RESTART? Y/N?:
Frank arched an eyebrow as his computer screen went dark, replaced by the letters in green. Didn’t he just finally get rid of the virus infecting his system? That last anti-virus program he had installed had worked.
Annoyed, Frank typed in “YES”
]RESTORE Y/N? :
Frank rolled his eyes. “Duh”
YES
The computer sparked and smoke began to billow out of the sides of it.
“AH!” Frank jumped back, causing his seat to fall backwards. He hit his head on the ground.
“Ahh…” he rubbed his head. “What the fuck…” he pressed the “on” button on the computer. Nothing happened. He pressed it again, and again.
“Damnit!”
~~~~~~~~~
Somewhere in the Pacific, near an island, twilight:
A cylinder monolith had appeared in the water. It stretched up as high as a skyscraper, even though part of it was underwater. On top it had been “scooped”, with a large semi-sphere carved out. Inside of that, a smaller hollow semi-sphere sat, and inside of that a spherical building stood. Each structure was combined by a network of bridges.
The inner Sphere was by far the most interesting of the structures. It was divided at the equator, with a ledge running around it and doors leading to the inside.
Overall, the structure looked severely damaged. It was grey, and showcased a multitude of broken pieces, scorch marks, discoloring, and anything else that resembled damage. The inner sphere itself was missing a good chunk of itself. All seemed quiet. Nothing was happening. But anybody with basic sensors would be able to detect a large monolith appearing out of thin air.
On the ledge, a blue-skinned male in his mid-twenties slowly came too. He had moderately-long dark hair, with tinges of silver here and there. He wore a suit of silver and grey armor that covered his body (minus the hands and head) and had gold trim. Silver dots sprinkled across his neck and hands. On his chest rested a black and yellow insignia.
Pain shot through his body as he attempted to move. What had happened? What was going on? Bits and pieces slowly came to him, one at a time. Megabyte…Mainframe…Web…Gamecube…User… System Shutdown. That was right.
“Unngh” he grunted, getting off his belly. His body felt like a million volts of electricity had just shot through him.
He shook his head slowly, trying to wake himself up. All he saw was rippling colors as he looked down at the ground. He got dizzy and fell back down to the ground, lost once again in darkness.
The man awoke again an unknown time later. It was dark out…really dark, as far as he could see. He got to his knees and sat back down, leaning against a wall.
“Bob?” she asked in a southern accent.
A purple-skinned woman with short glowing orange fiery hair sat across from him. She wore sleeveless golden battle armor, two swords, long pants, and thick boots. Her belt housed a triangular insignia, unlike Bob’s round one.
“Yes Mouse?”
“Ya ok?”
“Yeah…I think. What happened?”
“We rightly don’t know. As far as Phong and the others can tell, we had a power surge just as the system crashed. Ya got the worst of it”
“Go figure” He moved a bit, sitting further up. “So…it didn’t work”
She shook her head sadly. “’Fraid not. That cube crashed the system all right…but the User didn’t restart the system”
Bob massaged his forehead, knowing full well that Mainframe—or what was left of it, was now doomed. The surviving piece of the city, the Principle Office, could only hold the surviving population for only a handful of cycles. And with power almost depleted…
“Enzo’s not to happy with you”
Bob faked a chuckle. “Well I had that one coming” he slowly stood up. “How long was I out?”
“A while…I’d gather a cycle. We can’t really tell”
“Why not?”
Mouse stood up. “Well…the clock is messed up. It thinks seconds are nanos. We’re moving ahead in time by minutes, not nanoclicks”
“Oh great”
“Come’on. Lets get inside. We might be able to think of somethin”
Bob nodded, and the two made their way into the remains of the Principle Office.
~~~~~
Bob took a deep breath as he entered the “temporary” war room, which consisted of just the darkened remains of one of the main halls, with curtains and boxes sealing it off from all the Binome refugees. In the center a map of Mainframe sat, resting on a bunch of cinderblocks. Around the room several Vid-windows were popped open, showing different views of what should have been the city, but now only showed the darkened data-sea. Several other people were there as well.
“You”
Bob recognized the voice instantly and sighed. He knew he had had it coming.
“You let us crash the system!” a big burly green-skinned man with dark green hair and a golden mechanical right eye moved towards Bob, pointing accusingly. He wore a triangular insignia like Mouse’s on top of a metallic right shoulder pad, on top of a black vest that seemed slightly small for him. Below that, blue pants with a red strip up the sides, and black boots. His belt consisted of metal and a bunch of chains, and he had various straps and metallic bands on his arms.
“I trusted you, Bob! We all trusted you!”
“That’s enough, Enzo” another green-skinned green-haired sprite, this one female, said. She wore a sleeveless military camouflage jumpsuit, complete with various arm band add-ons, and a white and black round insignia on the front of her chest. She took her glasses off which she had been using to read the map, and glared at Enzo.
“That’s MATRIX” he said back at the woman.
“Enzo” Another female said. She had peach skin with whitish stripes running across. Her hair was long and light blue, with a red starfish on the side of her head. Above the waist she only wore a blue-green bikini and various arm bands. Below, she had on long pants with fins, and long boots. On her belt rested a round insignia, black and white. She glared at Matrix as well.
“It’s ok, Dot. User knows I deserve it” said Bob
Matrix glared at both of the women, then stormed off in a fit, brushing past Bob.
The green female, Dot, shook her head and put her glasses back on.
The blue haired sprite, AndrAIa, put her hands through her hair. “This is a nightmare”
A large blue robot, Hack, with a ball for feet and a center “display” that changed from blue to red as he spoke spoke up. “Oh yeah, definitely a nightmare” He had a red and white round insignia, and seemed to be top-heavy, with most of his body on the top half.
A red one, Slash, that looked exactly like Hack except he had a blue and white insignia spoke up. “Oh yes, it would look so”
“Very bad” the blue one said.
“Indeed”
“Phong, is it possible to restart the system manually? You know, build it from scratch?” asked AndrAIa.
A small red box with thin golden arms and fingers; and a long, thin golden neck with an elongated “artistic asian” head shook his head slowly. “I am afraid not, my child. To do so would require all of the core energy, at its peak. And right now…we are so low that even the Principle Office is living on borrowed time”
“And I can’t send a call to the Supercomputer. Daemon’s there” said Bob.
“Daemon?” asked Dot.
“We’ll explain later” said AndrAIa.
“Right now we need to be focusing on what to do with all the city’s refugees” Mouse said, walking over to the map.
“If ya want me too, I could go scout out some isolated systems to start relocating ‘em” said an orange-skinned male with short blond hair in a Kiwi accent. He had no visible ears, instead having the band for his thick sunglasses that seemed to be part of his body wrap around. Below the neck he was completely covered in some sort of blue and black armor with a bit of yellow. The blue pieces had mobile white “wave” structures moving about on it, as if some sort of power was drifting across. He held at his side a large mechanical surfboard. His name was Ray Tracer.
“No” said Dot. “We’re not abandoning Mainframe. We can’t”
“Dot…Mainframe can no longer support a population” said Phong. “We need to start looking at alternative routes”
“Did someone say alternative?” there was a flash of light, and a red-skinned female appeared. She had a moveable white mask for a face, with green pupil less eyes, and a large crown-like structure on her head instead of hair. She had various black attachments and armor on her body, most notably a black corset that covered her midsection.
“Hey Hex” Bob said in an almost monotone fashion.
“What’s wrong, Bob?” Hex asked with an almost puppy-dog face.
“That’s easy. The system’s shutting down”
“Oh…same as before? A pity” she walked over, glanced at the map absent-mindedly for a few seconds, then walked over to Bob and slipped her finger down the side of his armor. “So Bob…what are you going to do?”
Dot eyed the two, slightly annoyed.
Bob sighed. “We don’t know Hex. We—” he looked straight at Hex. “…You have trans-finite power limits, right?”
“…Yes?”
“Is it possible you could charge up the system’s core?”
“Oh...” she stepped away from Bob. “I’m afraid that is quite beyond my power limits, Bob. What you are asking for is something only a Super-Virus can do”
Bob nodded solemnly. “I figured it wouldn’t hurt to ask”
The room went silent, only a few beeps from computer equipment penetrating the darkened room.
~~~~
Enzo Matrix kicked aside a box in an abandoned part of the Principle Office, and sat down on a crate.
Another failure. Twice now had he failed to defend Mainframe. The first time he had just been a kid, and had lost a game to the User. That had been the turning point in his life, as he and AndrAIa had been forced to stay with the game as it traveled to another system, or face nullification. It had taken him his whole life to find Mainframe again, and had returned just to watch it fall—just like Mainframe’s twin city, which had been destroyed when he was still little in a freak accident created by an invention of his father’s.
Matrix put his head in his hands.
“Something be troubling you, me lad?” Matrix lifted his head, and saw a binome dressed a pirate. Captain Capacitor. Binomes came in two forms. The “Zero” type was a round ball-shaped person with arms and legs. The more common form, a “One”, consisted of three cubes stacked on top of one another, and had one eye, a mouth, and arms and legs.
The late Captain of the Saucy Mare was a type “one” Binome.
“I’m fine” Matrix replied.
“You don’t look fine” Capacitor said. “Then again, you havn’t looked fine since you helped rescue me crew”
Matrix said nothing.
But the Captain wasn’t about to give up so easily. This was the first real moment of peace he had had to speak with the larger version of the kid he had once known. “What happened to ye, lad? You ain’t the young sprite I once knew”
“You’re right” said Matrix, getting up “I’m not” he walked away, to find another quiet place to be with his demons. The Captain just shook his head.
~~~~~~
Anyone with basic radar, sensors, scanners, or anything of the sort would be able to detect the new monolith in the pacific. But no one would be able to determine what kind of broken souls lay inside, and what kind of fantastic world they had come from.
And furthermore, no one could have known just how close to home they had originated from.
IC:
]SYSTEM CRASH:
]RESTART? Y/N?:
Frank arched an eyebrow as his computer screen went dark, replaced by the letters in green. Didn’t he just finally get rid of the virus infecting his system? That last anti-virus program he had installed had worked.
Annoyed, Frank typed in “YES”
]RESTORE Y/N? :
Frank rolled his eyes. “Duh”
YES
The computer sparked and smoke began to billow out of the sides of it.
“AH!” Frank jumped back, causing his seat to fall backwards. He hit his head on the ground.
“Ahh…” he rubbed his head. “What the fuck…” he pressed the “on” button on the computer. Nothing happened. He pressed it again, and again.
“Damnit!”
~~~~~~~~~
Somewhere in the Pacific, near an island, twilight:
A cylinder monolith had appeared in the water. It stretched up as high as a skyscraper, even though part of it was underwater. On top it had been “scooped”, with a large semi-sphere carved out. Inside of that, a smaller hollow semi-sphere sat, and inside of that a spherical building stood. Each structure was combined by a network of bridges.
The inner Sphere was by far the most interesting of the structures. It was divided at the equator, with a ledge running around it and doors leading to the inside.
Overall, the structure looked severely damaged. It was grey, and showcased a multitude of broken pieces, scorch marks, discoloring, and anything else that resembled damage. The inner sphere itself was missing a good chunk of itself. All seemed quiet. Nothing was happening. But anybody with basic sensors would be able to detect a large monolith appearing out of thin air.
On the ledge, a blue-skinned male in his mid-twenties slowly came too. He had moderately-long dark hair, with tinges of silver here and there. He wore a suit of silver and grey armor that covered his body (minus the hands and head) and had gold trim. Silver dots sprinkled across his neck and hands. On his chest rested a black and yellow insignia.
Pain shot through his body as he attempted to move. What had happened? What was going on? Bits and pieces slowly came to him, one at a time. Megabyte…Mainframe…Web…Gamecube…User… System Shutdown. That was right.
“Unngh” he grunted, getting off his belly. His body felt like a million volts of electricity had just shot through him.
He shook his head slowly, trying to wake himself up. All he saw was rippling colors as he looked down at the ground. He got dizzy and fell back down to the ground, lost once again in darkness.
The man awoke again an unknown time later. It was dark out…really dark, as far as he could see. He got to his knees and sat back down, leaning against a wall.
“Bob?” she asked in a southern accent.
A purple-skinned woman with short glowing orange fiery hair sat across from him. She wore sleeveless golden battle armor, two swords, long pants, and thick boots. Her belt housed a triangular insignia, unlike Bob’s round one.
“Yes Mouse?”
“Ya ok?”
“Yeah…I think. What happened?”
“We rightly don’t know. As far as Phong and the others can tell, we had a power surge just as the system crashed. Ya got the worst of it”
“Go figure” He moved a bit, sitting further up. “So…it didn’t work”
She shook her head sadly. “’Fraid not. That cube crashed the system all right…but the User didn’t restart the system”
Bob massaged his forehead, knowing full well that Mainframe—or what was left of it, was now doomed. The surviving piece of the city, the Principle Office, could only hold the surviving population for only a handful of cycles. And with power almost depleted…
“Enzo’s not to happy with you”
Bob faked a chuckle. “Well I had that one coming” he slowly stood up. “How long was I out?”
“A while…I’d gather a cycle. We can’t really tell”
“Why not?”
Mouse stood up. “Well…the clock is messed up. It thinks seconds are nanos. We’re moving ahead in time by minutes, not nanoclicks”
“Oh great”
“Come’on. Lets get inside. We might be able to think of somethin”
Bob nodded, and the two made their way into the remains of the Principle Office.
~~~~~
Bob took a deep breath as he entered the “temporary” war room, which consisted of just the darkened remains of one of the main halls, with curtains and boxes sealing it off from all the Binome refugees. In the center a map of Mainframe sat, resting on a bunch of cinderblocks. Around the room several Vid-windows were popped open, showing different views of what should have been the city, but now only showed the darkened data-sea. Several other people were there as well.
“You”
Bob recognized the voice instantly and sighed. He knew he had had it coming.
“You let us crash the system!” a big burly green-skinned man with dark green hair and a golden mechanical right eye moved towards Bob, pointing accusingly. He wore a triangular insignia like Mouse’s on top of a metallic right shoulder pad, on top of a black vest that seemed slightly small for him. Below that, blue pants with a red strip up the sides, and black boots. His belt consisted of metal and a bunch of chains, and he had various straps and metallic bands on his arms.
“I trusted you, Bob! We all trusted you!”
“That’s enough, Enzo” another green-skinned green-haired sprite, this one female, said. She wore a sleeveless military camouflage jumpsuit, complete with various arm band add-ons, and a white and black round insignia on the front of her chest. She took her glasses off which she had been using to read the map, and glared at Enzo.
“That’s MATRIX” he said back at the woman.
“Enzo” Another female said. She had peach skin with whitish stripes running across. Her hair was long and light blue, with a red starfish on the side of her head. Above the waist she only wore a blue-green bikini and various arm bands. Below, she had on long pants with fins, and long boots. On her belt rested a round insignia, black and white. She glared at Matrix as well.
“It’s ok, Dot. User knows I deserve it” said Bob
Matrix glared at both of the women, then stormed off in a fit, brushing past Bob.
The green female, Dot, shook her head and put her glasses back on.
The blue haired sprite, AndrAIa, put her hands through her hair. “This is a nightmare”
A large blue robot, Hack, with a ball for feet and a center “display” that changed from blue to red as he spoke spoke up. “Oh yeah, definitely a nightmare” He had a red and white round insignia, and seemed to be top-heavy, with most of his body on the top half.
A red one, Slash, that looked exactly like Hack except he had a blue and white insignia spoke up. “Oh yes, it would look so”
“Very bad” the blue one said.
“Indeed”
“Phong, is it possible to restart the system manually? You know, build it from scratch?” asked AndrAIa.
A small red box with thin golden arms and fingers; and a long, thin golden neck with an elongated “artistic asian” head shook his head slowly. “I am afraid not, my child. To do so would require all of the core energy, at its peak. And right now…we are so low that even the Principle Office is living on borrowed time”
“And I can’t send a call to the Supercomputer. Daemon’s there” said Bob.
“Daemon?” asked Dot.
“We’ll explain later” said AndrAIa.
“Right now we need to be focusing on what to do with all the city’s refugees” Mouse said, walking over to the map.
“If ya want me too, I could go scout out some isolated systems to start relocating ‘em” said an orange-skinned male with short blond hair in a Kiwi accent. He had no visible ears, instead having the band for his thick sunglasses that seemed to be part of his body wrap around. Below the neck he was completely covered in some sort of blue and black armor with a bit of yellow. The blue pieces had mobile white “wave” structures moving about on it, as if some sort of power was drifting across. He held at his side a large mechanical surfboard. His name was Ray Tracer.
“No” said Dot. “We’re not abandoning Mainframe. We can’t”
“Dot…Mainframe can no longer support a population” said Phong. “We need to start looking at alternative routes”
“Did someone say alternative?” there was a flash of light, and a red-skinned female appeared. She had a moveable white mask for a face, with green pupil less eyes, and a large crown-like structure on her head instead of hair. She had various black attachments and armor on her body, most notably a black corset that covered her midsection.
“Hey Hex” Bob said in an almost monotone fashion.
“What’s wrong, Bob?” Hex asked with an almost puppy-dog face.
“That’s easy. The system’s shutting down”
“Oh…same as before? A pity” she walked over, glanced at the map absent-mindedly for a few seconds, then walked over to Bob and slipped her finger down the side of his armor. “So Bob…what are you going to do?”
Dot eyed the two, slightly annoyed.
Bob sighed. “We don’t know Hex. We—” he looked straight at Hex. “…You have trans-finite power limits, right?”
“…Yes?”
“Is it possible you could charge up the system’s core?”
“Oh...” she stepped away from Bob. “I’m afraid that is quite beyond my power limits, Bob. What you are asking for is something only a Super-Virus can do”
Bob nodded solemnly. “I figured it wouldn’t hurt to ask”
The room went silent, only a few beeps from computer equipment penetrating the darkened room.
~~~~
Enzo Matrix kicked aside a box in an abandoned part of the Principle Office, and sat down on a crate.
Another failure. Twice now had he failed to defend Mainframe. The first time he had just been a kid, and had lost a game to the User. That had been the turning point in his life, as he and AndrAIa had been forced to stay with the game as it traveled to another system, or face nullification. It had taken him his whole life to find Mainframe again, and had returned just to watch it fall—just like Mainframe’s twin city, which had been destroyed when he was still little in a freak accident created by an invention of his father’s.
Matrix put his head in his hands.
“Something be troubling you, me lad?” Matrix lifted his head, and saw a binome dressed a pirate. Captain Capacitor. Binomes came in two forms. The “Zero” type was a round ball-shaped person with arms and legs. The more common form, a “One”, consisted of three cubes stacked on top of one another, and had one eye, a mouth, and arms and legs.
The late Captain of the Saucy Mare was a type “one” Binome.
“I’m fine” Matrix replied.
“You don’t look fine” Capacitor said. “Then again, you havn’t looked fine since you helped rescue me crew”
Matrix said nothing.
But the Captain wasn’t about to give up so easily. This was the first real moment of peace he had had to speak with the larger version of the kid he had once known. “What happened to ye, lad? You ain’t the young sprite I once knew”
“You’re right” said Matrix, getting up “I’m not” he walked away, to find another quiet place to be with his demons. The Captain just shook his head.
~~~~~~
Anyone with basic radar, sensors, scanners, or anything of the sort would be able to detect the new monolith in the pacific. But no one would be able to determine what kind of broken souls lay inside, and what kind of fantastic world they had come from.
And furthermore, no one could have known just how close to home they had originated from.