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Everyone was gathered in the hanger, waiting to see Mouse and Ray off. Mouse had finished reprogramming the defenses a few cycles ago, and they'd then proceeded to shut down the 'Net ports.
"You two be careful out there," Dot said, giving Mouse a quick hug. "And if you start running into trouble head right back. I don't want you two trying anything heroic."
"Don't you worry, hun. Ray an' Ah can take care of ourselves. We'll contact ya as soon as we get some news."
"Make sure you do. And good luck, Mouse."
Everyone said their brief good-byes and stood in the hangar watching as the ship headed out of the principal office and opened a portal to the web.
----
Dot and Bob were in her office, Dot looking over system reports, Bob lounging in one of the extra chairs. There hadn't been much for him to do around Mainframe since the restart. Matrix and AndrAIa pretty much had the games under control (though he did join in more often than not) and Dot and Phong had the running of the system itself under wraps. He was, however, beginning to get a bit bored. He stood up and walked over to Dot's desk, snatching up the container of paper clips and sitting down in the middle of the floor with them. Dot cast him a curious look, but went back to working on her reports. He was quiet for several micros as he worked steadily on hooking all of the paper clips together to form a long chain. When it was completed, he stood up and held the chain in his hands. He rattled it for a moment, then carried the chain over to Dot and lovingly draped it over her shoulders.
"Note to self: boredom and Guardians do not mix," Dot commented, not glancing up from her work. "I'm sorry Bob. I'll be done soon, I promise."
Ten micros later, when the third paper airplane in a row bounced off her forehead, she closed down her reports and looked up at her lover. "Okay, Bob. What do you want?"
He grinned. "To be around you. Is that so bad?"
"When 'being around me' consists of trying to drive me random, yes," she replied, standing and stretching muscles tired from sitting for so long. "But I love you anyway," she continued, walking over and kissing him soundly. "Now, is there a reason you decided to grace me with your presence?"
He shruged. "No, not really. Enzo's at school, Matrix and AndrAIa are off someplace together...besides, I thought you wanted to spend time with me," he finished, giving her his best puppy-dog eyes.
Dot gazed at him lovingly. "Of course I do, Bob. User, I never want to let you go again."
"You won't have to. I promised, remeber?"
"Oh, Bob," she sighed. "I might have to. Daemon is still out there and..."
He shook his head. "Don't even say it. I spent too long trying to get home to you to let that supervirus tear us apart again. I'm never going to leave you."
'Never say never' she wanted to say, but didn't. His normaly light-hearted gaze was shadowed by some hidden pain that made her heart ache at the sight of it. Instead, she leaned her head against his chest and smiled as he wraped his arms around her waist. "Why did we wast so much time dancing around our feelings?" She asked softly, "It's so much better this way."
He smiled down at her softly. "It is, isn't it? Sometimes I regret all the time we wasted..."
"I don't think it was wasted," she said as she snuggled closer. "Not at all." She stood there, wrapped in his arms, letting the realness of it all sink in. "Not that I want to go back to being just friends, mind you."
"I wouldn't dream of it." He loosed one hand from around her waist and used it to tip her chin up so that she was looking him in the eye. "I love you, Dot."
She smiled radiantly. "I love you too."
----
At the end of the minute, a communication came into the principal office. It was heavily encrypted and bounced through several systems, obviously Mouse's work. The message itself was poor quality, static often interrupting the image of Mouse's face, but her words were clear enough and what she had to say cast a pall upon all those assembled.
"Daemon's more wide-spread than we thought," the accented voice drawled over sounds of fighting in the distance. "She musta stepped up her efforts these last few minutes while we were all distracted with sortin' out the restart. Most of the systems we've run across are either in her direct control or are close t' falling under her control."
"This is bad," Bob murmured. "Can you and Ray make it back to Mainframe?"
"Ah wouldn't want t' risk it, sugah. Daemon doesn't have much of the way of forces out patrollin' the web, but Ah think the longer we keep her from findin' out Mainframe's web address the better. Ah hate t' be the one t' tell ya this Bob, but it looks like we're gonna have t' take this battle straight t' Daemon herself."
Bob nodded reluctantly. "Is there someplace safe you can go?"
"Ah suppose we could try and find ourselves a system not connected t' the 'Net," she said, then frowned. "But if we did that, we'd have no way of getting you a message. Communications don't travel well in the web, after all."
"Mouse, I think I've got an idea," Matrix spoke up for the first time since the conversation had begun. "There's a system AndrAIa and I came across when we were game hopping, called Turing. We ended up staying there for quite awhile. The Command.Com is a friend of ours, he'll trust you if you tell him we sent you. If you go there, we can join you as soon as we can make some sort of preparations to fight Daemon. Besides, if what you said about Daemon stepping up her invasion efforts is true, they might be needing your help."
Mouse nodded, and decided against asking him to clarify his last cryptic remark. "Sounds like a solid plan t' me, hun. Okay, so how long y' think it's gonna take for you folks t' be ready t' take on Daemon?"
This time, Dot spoke up. "We've already got something in the works," she said, ignoring the surprised looks from her companions. "It should be ready to go in another three seconds or so. Do you think you can hold out that long?"
"No problem," the hacker replied. There was a loud noise in the background, and the communication flickered. Mouse glanced away from the screen and then back again. "Look, Ah got t' go. If Ray an' I don't get outa here now, we ain't gonna get out. Ah'll see you folks in a few seconds."
"Take care, Mouse."
The connection flicked again, and then went out.
Bob leaned back against the console and sighed, a pained look on his face. "This is not good, people." He glanced over at Dot. "Care to let us in on what you've been working on?"
"When you, Matrix and AndrAIa told me about the threat Daemon was posing to the 'Net, I realized we were probably going to have to act against her at some point. As soon as I realized this, I went to talk to Gavin. We both decided that rebuilding the Mare, with some improvements, would be a wise precaution."
"You rebuilt the Saucy Mare?" AndrAIa asked.
"Construction is only half way done. But now that we know we need her, we can step up the pace to meet the deadline."
Bob nodded his approval. "That was good thinking Dot. I know I should have been planing for this..." he said forlornly. "I'm a Guardian after all. I should have.."
"Bob, you went through a lot," Dot cut him off, walking over to were he stood against the controls and took his hand in her own. "You deserved a break from all this. And as you can see, I had it covered."
"But-"
She pressed a finger against his lips and spoke softly, so that only he could hear. "We'll talk about this later, I promise. Just let it go for now."
He nodded silently, but she could still see the guilt lurking in his beautiful brown eyes. She squeezed his hand reassuringly and turned back to the group. "Matrix, we're going to need someone to look over the construction of the weapons system. Feel up to the task?"
Matrix smirked. "I think I can handle it, Sis."
"Good," she replied. She then glanced over at her brother's girlfriend -wife- she corrected herself, and spoke again. "Mouse left us the schematics for the web armor she created for Ship, but it will need to be adapted for use on the Mare. Bob told me about some of the work you did on the original Mare when you were trying to get past Mouse's defenses, and I can't think of anyone better suited to the job. Would you be willing to take on this job?"
AndrAIa beamed at her sister-in-law. "I'd love to."
"Wonderful." An impish smile crossed her face. "Of course, I'll add you both to the Principal Office's pay roll, as you'll be working for us now."
Matrix chuckled. "Whatever you say, boss."
"Well, I guess that concludes our briefing. Matrix, AndrAIa, I'll meet you back here at 0900 tomorrow."
The pair nodded and departed hand in hand. Dot sighed, glad that the difficult meeting was over. She understood just how much everyone wished they didn't have to do this, but it appeared they had no choice.
Phong, who had remained silent throughout the entire conference, now approached the place where the Command.Com and the Guardian stood.
"My child," he said, addressing Dot, "you have once again proven to be a most excellent commander for this system."
"Thank you, Phong," Dot said with a weary smile. "I only wish we didn't have to do this."
"I believe we all feel that way. However, Daemon must be stopped."
"I know, Phong. I just wish there were some other way. Well, I'm sure we'll pull through somehow. We always do."
"Indeed. Let us pray it is so." With that, he too departed, leaving
Bob and Dot alone in the control room.
Noticing the troubled look on Dot's
face, Bob reached out for her, wrapping his arms around her waist. She
leaned back against him and sighed.
"Why is it we're always the ones who end up having to save the cycle?" She asked.
"Just our luck, I guess," Bob replied in a subdued tone. He was just as upset over the turn of events as she was, but he could tell she was in need of comforting so he shoved his own uncertainties away to be dealt with at a later time.
"Well, it's someone else's turn," she muttered.
He kissed her forehead, trying to smooth away the crease the pained expression on her face had created. "If only it worked that way," he sighed. "It's best if we try not to think about it more than necessary. If we let it consume us and take away the happiness we've found, we might as well do nothing. Daemon will have already won."
"You're right," she replied, staring up into his face. Her eyes blazed with determination. "I'm not going to let that viral witch control me."
Bob gave her a lop-sided smile. "That's more like the Dot Matrix I know," he said, giving her a quick kiss. "Now, what do you say we go back to the Diner and grab something to eat. After that..." he shrugged. "Well, I'm sure we can find something to do with ourselves."
----
"Well, all in all, this turned out to be a pretty good cycle," Dot commented, brushing a stray lock of hair from Bob's forehead as she lay beside him in her bed.
"Given the way it started, anyway," he replied. After they'd left the Principal Office, they'd gone back to the Diner to eat and had then decided just to cruise around they system in Bob's car which was now running reliably, mostly due to the fact that he'd finally given in and let AndrAIa fix it for him. After a quick stop back at Dot's place to check on Enzo, they caught a late movie. By the time they'd returned, Enzo had put himself to bed. Seeing the distant look on Dot's face, Bob reached out and pulled her closer. "What're you thinking about?" He asked.
"Huh? Enzo, actually. I was just wondering what he thinks about us being together now. I never thought to ask him, but I probably should. I mean, this changes things..."
"Oh, I think he's pretty happy about it," Bob replied.
"How can you tell?" She asked, slightly puzzled.
Bob chuckled. "Easy. When I picked him up from school the other cycle, he asked me if we were going to get married now."
Dot laughed. "What did you tell him?"
"I said it was a little soon for that. But I also told him I didn't plan on going anywhere, either."
"That was awfully sweet of you," she turned and kissed him softly. "Despite what I may have said in the past, you're really a good influence on him. Growing up without parents can't have been easy for him. It's wonderful of you to spend so much time with him."
"Let's just say I know where he's coming from," Bob said softly.
"Bob?" Dot asked, her voice suddenly filled with concern. His last statement had been so sorrowful she couldn't help but wonder what was behind it. "I know you don't like to talk about your past, but if there's something you'd like to share, I'm here for you."
"There isn't really much to say," he frowned. "I grew up in the Supercomputer. When I was a couple of hours younger than Enzo is now, my parents left."
"Wait....left? You mean they abandoned you?" She asked, unsure if she was understanding what he was saying.
"Yes. They just...left. I never knew why. All I can guess is that they
didn't want me around any more. They'd never been particularly loving."
In the dim light of the bedroom, Dot could see the pain on his face, and
it tore her heart in two. He looked so lost.
"I learned how to survive on my own.
The Supercomputer is a big place. There are plenty of kids who've been
abandoned, orphaned, or who've run away. That was when I first met Mouse.
She was a runaway, she'd snuck onto a transport from her home system and
ended up in the Supercomputer. She was a good hacker, even then. We managed
to survive. Eventually, I ran into Turbo, just an instructor at the Academy
in those cycles, and he managed to get me into the academy. The rest you
pretty much know."
"Oh, Bob," Dot sighed, snuggling closer. "I had no idea. I mean, I lost both my parents when I was still a teenager, but at least I know they loved me."
"Sometimes, I find myself wondering what would have happened had they stayed. But in retrospect, I'm almost grateful they didn't. I would never trade the suffering I knew back then if it meant that I'd lose what I have now."
Dot said nothing, just wrapped her arms around him and held him close, wishing fervently she could take even a fraction of the suffering he must have faced away from him. And yet, as heart-breaking as his words had been, they made him all the more precious because he'd faced all that and had somehow managed to survive with his good nature intact.
Bob closed his eyes, his arms around Dot's shoulders, trying to force away tears. Tears of both pain and happiness. He couldn't forget his past, all that had happened. There was a deeply buried part of himself that had never healed from that, a part that screamed out in anguish to this very cycle, but the rest of him was filled with such joy over what he had now that he could be content to lay here with her in his arms.
End Part Five