The V1RuS

Part Nine - D10de

The small figure glides further into the room, and you find yourself becoming unaccountably nervous.

The energy in the space had changed from the moment they'd appeared at the door. Lapse in particular had adopted an almost reverential air.

Diode comes right up to you, shorter than you by at least a head, and the hood tilts upward as they seem to look up at you. You glance at Glitch for any kind of guidance, but he just shrugs.

Abruptly, a sigh escapes the shadows of the hood, followed by a lilting, if irritated, voice.

"You know, you might have told me how cute the User was, you great waste of code."

Wait, what?

Glitch shakes his head, rolling his eye.

"I feel that bit of info was hardly relevant, Diode. No matter how true," he adds, and you got the feeling that the blink he directed your way was meant to be a wink. "Anyway, you can better explain everything that Virus has been up to the last few hundred cycles far better than I could."

Diode sniffs, and turns to look at him.

"Of course I can. You are hardly abreast of current affairs, hero," Diode says. Turning on the spot, they reach up and pull off the cloak with a dramatic flair only rivaled by shows in Las Vegas.

As it flutters to the ground nearby, you're somewhat shocked to see...

A small, pig-tailed young woman in what can only be described as an immense, frilly, black-and-purple Gothic Lolita dress. 

Apparently the cloak she'd been wearing had some sort of visual rewrite thing going on, because not only was there no way that her voluminous skirt would have fit under that cloak, but she also happened to have feet now, clad in black-rose pumps. 

Her hair is nearly as long as she is tall, and the pigtails are each one oversize curl that ran that length. It went from a light, almost platinum blonde to a deep amethyst at the ends via a gradient impossible in the real world. Her eyes, shining with far more intelligence than her immature appearance might suggest, matched perfectly.

She places a hand over her heart (or where a human's heart would be) and gives a small curtsy.

"Greetings to you, User. I am known as Diode. Welcome to the Net, and likewise, to our base here in the Hub."

You blink a moment before giving a small bow, unsure how to proceed, and Diode suddenly gives an extremely girlish giggle.

"Oh, I like this one. Such manners. You could learn from them, Glitch," Diode says, turning toward him in a swirl of skirts and curls.

"Ah, yes," Glitch says, suddenly stiffening and bowing at the waist like an old-fashioned butler. "Let me just update my stuffiness patch real quick, your highness."

Diode sniffs again, and turns back to you.

"I have been given an abbreviated version of what has happened, but I would like to hear the whole story from you, if I might," she says, gesturing toward the couches.

Lapse gives a small bow as he steps aside. "Would you like some tea, Diode?"

Diode gives him a favored look, smiling warmly.

"That would be lovely, Lapse. Thank you."

Lapse steps out of the room as you, Diode, and Glitch sit down. She spends a brief moment arranging her skirts before looking up at you.

"If you could start from the beginning, I would be most grateful."

Taking a deep breath, you launch into explaining everything that's happened to you since installing Virus into your computer by accident. Lapse returns early on and serves everyone their tea, a hot purple liquid in odd transparent cuboid teacups that tastes faintly of lavender. As you continue, Diode's expression grows more and more serious, and she occasionally exchanges glances with Glitch. 

As you reach the part when Glitch saved you from Virus's fury, Diode holds up a delicate lace-gloved hand.

"That is enough, thank you. I know the story from here," she says, setting aside her teacup with a distinct clink. She sighs, looking thoughtful. "I had no idea that you had been hosting Virus for such a length of time, User. It is fascinating to me how long he stayed with you."

"Same here," Glitch adds with a nod. "From everything we've seen, Virus has only inhabited a User's hard drive long enough to extract the data he wanted before moving on, like a vacuum cleaner with purpose."

"Quite," Diode says, adopting a thinking posture. "There is also the initial interaction, and of directly caring for the User via physical coalescing. To be honest, it is... unheard of for him to exhibit such behavior throughout all past reports."

Diode looks over at you speculatively, and you look away, focusing instead on your tea. You didn't know why Virus had done what he did, only that it had probably just to ingratiate himself to you. Though...

"He'd never seemed like anything dangerous to me, outside his appearance," you find yourself saying. "He was a little flat and blunt, sure, but I never actually got any red flags from him."

"And yet he destroyed your home without even a second thought," Diode says lightly.

You didn't have a reply to that.

"ANYWAY," Glitch says, stretching dramatically, "the User can do with a nice history lesson about the big bad; all this speculation isn't worth the processing power it's using without asking Virus directly, and I'm certainly not inviting him over for tea."

Diode nods, and turns back to you.

"Yes, of course. User, I apologize. I had fully planned to tell you anything you might wish to know and got distracted instead by hypothesizing. Forgive me," she inclines her head in the suggestion of a bow, and you quickly shake your head.

"No, it's okay. I feel like it's important you all know what had been happening before Glitch came to me. After all, so much more seems to have been going on in here."

"Still, I will share anything you wish to learn."

You consider a moment, and despite everything else you wanted to ask about, something stuck out.

"What... was Virus like before... whatever happened to him...?"

Diode, Glitch, and Lapse all share a long look, and you feel as though you might have asked something you shouldn't have.

"If you'd rather not talk about it-"

"No, kid, it's not that," Glitch interrupts smoothly. "It's just... hard to think back on."

"Indeed," Diode says as Lapse nods. "Before his dive into the Dark Net, Virus had been... a wonderful friend and an important part of our little family."

She calls up what looks like a small clock from her wrist panel and sighs. Dismissing it, she turns to you, giving a small smile.

"It is quite a long story, User. Would you care to discuss this over dinner?"