By Centris124

He reeled slightly as the portal spat him out, making a face at the queasy feeling of disorientation that sometimes came with portal transportation. He paused for a moment, considering...the queasy feeling usually wasn't this bad...in fact, it felt a lot like disorientation sickness. But that never happened unless...no. He couldn't have portalled incorrectly, not on his first mission. The Guardian swallowed hard and waited until he felt more like himself before approaching the massive door that led into the Principal Office. One more deep breath and a quick check to see that his hair and clothing were in proper order, then the blue sprite punched the button that would make the Command.com aware of his arrival.

He was somewhat nonplussed when several long moments later, the heavy door slid upward and an elderly sprite wheeled out of the depths of the P.O., squinting at him warily. The sprite's brassy head bobbled on his long thin neck as he eyed the arrival with speculation.

“May I help you?”

“I’m Guardian 452 from the system Supercomputer. The Supercomputer recieved your request for another Guardian and assigned me to this system.” The new arrival recited the traditional businesslike introduction, outwardly ever the professional Guardian, and inwardly detesting the formality. Almost defiantly, he added, “But you can call me Bob.”

The older sprite nodded sagely. “I am Phong.” Apparently that was all the introduction he was going to offer. “I am sorry for the confusion, but the Command.com does not recall requesting a Guardian, my son.”

Bob frowned, wondering if perhaps this Phong was truly as senile as he looked. “But the Prime Guardian just assigned me, to act as Guardian of System 520c-”

“There is the trouble, then, young Bob. This is the System Mainframe. It seems you have been redirected somehow...” Phong seemed to go into a meditative trance, obviously not nearly as troubled by the mix-up as Bob was.

“But I’ve got to get to 520c! They’re expecting me...oh cursors, I’m gonna be in trouble with Turbo, my very first independent assignment and I screw it up...” Bob raked a hand through his chrome hair agitatedly, shifting his weight from foot to foot with impatience. “You have to get the Command.com to help me get to 520...or the Supercomputer...or...”

Phong looked up at him slowly. “Patience, my child. There is a way to solve your troubles.”

“Well, what is it!?” Bob tried not to wail, but his voice sounded regrettably childlike, even in his own ears.

“I must...speak with someone. Follow me, Bob.” Phong wheeled slowly back into the building, one very agitated Guardian stomping in his wake.

* * *

Again Bob was forced to wait, slumped in a comfortably upholstered easy chair in the corner of what was apparently Phong’s office. Dismally he turned over the possibilities in his mind. He was in trouble, with a capital ‘troub.’ He had to be...he was late, he was in the wrong system, and it was probably his own overconfident carelessness that portalled him to the wrong place to begin with.

Phong pressed a few buttons on his desk, then tapped a slim brass fingertip on the desktop as he waited for the other line to pick up. Noting Bob’s discomfort, he offered, “I am consulting the File Manager on the matter.”

“The File Manager?” Bob’s impatience was getting in the way of his courtesy. “What can the File Manager do?”

Phong fixed him with a calm silvered gaze, making the Guardian feel immediately like a young sprite who had been caught misbehaving. “The File Manager can think of a plan that will solve your difficulties.”

Bob hunched back in the chair, disbelief writ on his features. He sighed, though, and nodded to Phong. “I’m sorry. I’m just stressed right now, is all.”

The elderly sprite nodded back understandingly and was about to make a reply when the glow from an open video line blossomed on his face.

“Dot Matrix. Can I help you?”

Bob looked up from his depressed contemplation of the floor tiles. For some reson he couldn’t fathom, something about that voice demanded his attention and in some mysterious way made him feel a good bit better about his situation. He wished he could see the picture of who that voice belonged to, but there was no way to accomplish such a feat discreetly. He turned his eyes to the floor again...but he was listening hard.

“Hello, my child. It is I. I am in need of your planning skills.”

“What’s the problem?”

Bob listened as Phong filled the mysterious voice in...Dot Matrix...filled her in on his problems. There was a long silence on the other end of the line, then the voice again.

“Right. I’m forwarding the details to you now. That should do the trick”

Phong read over the data window that had appeared next to the vid window, then nodded. “As always, my child, you have found us a win-win situation.”

“Just doing my function.”

“And you have done it well. Dot, perhaps you should come to the Principle Office. Our visitor will need some help settling in.”

“I’ll be over in a nano...I need to pick up Enzo from school first.”

“Take your time, my child.” Phong closed the window and looked up at Bob. “I hope you will like it here, young Bob,” the sprite told him. Before Bob could overcome his surprise to ask just why Phong thought he was stikcing around, the sprite had opened another vid window. The unmistakable voice of Prime Guardian Turbo answered the call.

* * *

A few more vid-window calls later, Bob’s head was spinning from the rapidity at which his life had taken an entirely different turn. Guardian 452 of Mainframe and a minor hero in the deal, somehow this city had become his new assignment. Phong had told the Prime Guardian that Bob had arrived just in time to repair a tear, and Mainframe’s Command.com had seen immediately that Mainframe was in need of a Guardian...and how convenient it was that a Guardian was already there. Phong had also not mentioned anything about Bob being lost, so it was safe to assume that Supercomputer thought his wrong turn had been intentional and impeccably timed. It had been discreet. It had been ingenius. It had been a perfect plan.

It had totally rearranged his life, and he hadn’t had a single say in it. And truly told, he was a bit Put Out.

Phong perked up a bit as if listening for something. Eventually a decisive clicking of bootheels could be heard approaching the office. Phong smiled serenely. “Ah. She is here.”

Bob turned to the office door, preparing to face down the woman who had just taken his future apart and put it back together again backwards.

* * *

Irritation drove her steps as she headed down the hall towards Phong’s office, her little brother format ranging before or behind her as his short attention span demanded. She felt a childish urge to kick something, very hard. She’d spent all morning working on the shake machine, most of the afternoon on several business accounts, talked Megabyte out of casually deleting a few of the agents he’d caught (and talking to Megabyte was always an energy draining experience) and then to top it all off, just as she was heading out to get Enzo, Phong calls up with some stranger in his office who the inconsiderateness to get lost on the Net and show up in Mainframe.

And she had to fix it.

Not that it wasn’t her function, just as she’d told Phong. Fixing problems was her domain. But it had been a long hard second, and it wasn’t even evening yet and a girl could only take so much. And now she had to go meet Mr. Big-Shot Fresh-Out-Of-The-Academy Guardian, and get him settled into Mainframe, and...well he’d crashing better remember who had just saved his bitmap.

* * *

Suddenly audible in the office, another, faster set of footsteps overcame the more staccato set, and a small green sprite burst through the door at a remarkably high speed.

“Hey Phong!” The arrival was obviously not prepared to find the Guardian blocking the path to Phong’s desk. Not that that stopped him. Not until the object in motion hit the object at rest.

“Oof!”
Bob staggered back under the unexpected assault, finally finding himself sprawled full-length on Phong’s carpet and facing his attacker...a young boy sprite with spruce green skin and a shock of wild black hair haphazardly tucked beneath a red baseball cap. A pair of bright violet eyes peered down at him. “Alphanumeric! Hi, I’m Enzo!”

* * *

Dot suddenly noticed that Enzo had run a good ways down the hall. She had just taken a breath to tell him to wait up when a loud crash issued from Phong’s office. Wincing slightly, she hurried her steps to an almost-run, hoping to the energy C and back again that the damage wasn’t permanent.

* * *

The previously heard boots had finally arrived. Bob could tell...he was right on their level. Black businesslike boots with short heels and turned-down cuffs. Serious boots. Slowly he raised his gaze to see their owner. The Voice.

Lying on one’s back with a strange small sprite pinning one down in an unfamiliar system in front of total strangers when one’s life couldn’t possibly get any more hectic was hardly a way to get a first impression of a person, but Bob was determined to try. Her pure force of presence kept Bob from realizing that she was a rather small and slimly-built woman for a long moment...actually, she was probably a good bit shorter than he was. She...Dot Matrix, Bob reminded himself...had the same green skin as the child sitting on his chest, the same black hair with highlights of green was cut short and sleek, but displayed the same unruliness as the boy’s in a few wayward bangs brushing her forehead. They shared the same violet eyes; hers were currently glaring down, not at him, but at her small matching counterpart. Exasperation was written across facial features that were delicate yet not unpleasantly sharp, red lips were pursed with exasperation as she gazed down at the child. Bob took the opportunity to stare. It took a few nanoseconds before his thoughts clicked into place, and the result surprised him even as it pleased him. She was really...rather...well...pretty, actually. Now that he thought about it.

He was blessed with a few more moments to recover his dignity...what was left of it...as the woman grabbed her familiar by the back of the neck, albeit gently, and pulled him off of the prone Guardian.

“Enzo, look what you’ve done! Did you apologize yet? You need to watch where you’re going.”

The boy gave the woman a long-suffering glance. “I know, I know.” He leaned down to look Bob in the eye. “I’m sorry.” Then he was off again, skidding to an untidy halt in front of Phong’s desk and eying the delicate candy-dish perched on the outside edge of it. “Phong! Can I have a USB pop? CanIcanI?! Dot said I could if I behaved! Did I behave?”

Bob’s rescuer sighed heavily, shrugged slim shoulders, and finally got a good look at Mainframe’s newest citizen.

* * *

Dot had spent so much of her life pulling Enzo out of trouble that untangling the current situation had almost been second nature. The thought that the sprite Enzo had just trounced might be Mainframe’s new Guardian didn’t have time to occur to her until the current crisis had been taken care of. And by the time the thought did hit her, it was too late. She was already caught in a pair of bright brown eyes, and time had apparently decided to stand still.

* * *

He’d been wrong when he thought her eyes were just like her brother’s. That had been absolutely basic of him. No, they were purple eyes, all right, but they were ever so much more than that. He didn’t mind this at all...so he was still sprawled on his back, but at least she’d stopped moving and those purple eyes were looking right into his...

No. In all the systems he knew of, no one had eyes like this.

* * *

Maybe she’d been wrong, misjudging him so badly on her way here. He wasn’t exactly what she had expected. Something about the warmth, the humor, the integrity and honesty written so clearly in those golden-brown eyes...well, he’d have to be a mastermind manipulator to fabricate that. No, he wasn’t at all what she had expected.

No. In all the time she’d processed, no one had eyes like this.

* * *

Phong watched indulgently as the File Manager and the System Guardian shared a long silent moment. He smiled to himself. He was old, and he had learned many things, and he knew fate when he saw it. Enzo had meandered behind the desk and watched as well, cheerfully working on a USB pop. After a moment, he grinned. “Deep.”

* * *

Enzo’s voice seemed to forcibly knock time back into its usual groove, and Dot startled visibly. Pink stained her cheekbones for a moment, then she shook her head as if to clear it and glared at Phong for a moment, as though the last few moments had all been some underhanded trick of his. The elderly sprite merely smiled back cryptically and shrugged elegantly. Dot sighed, then turned and offered a hand to the stranger on the floor.

* * *

Bob blinked as the sprite who had bowled him over earlier said something, causing those gorgeous purple eyes to turn away from him. He frowned slightly to himself, processor kicking in to work out what in the Net had just happened. A polite *ahem* brought his attention back, and he saw that Dot had extended her hand to him. Slowly he reached up and wrapped his fingers around her slender wrist, as she returned the grip on his and started to tug him to his feet. She was stronger than she looked. When he was righted and had regained his balance, she moved her grip from wrist to hand and shook. “I’m Dot Matrix.” She gave him an oblique look, then tacked on, “Call me Dot.”

“Uh...Bob.” Bob replied, then winced to himself. “I mean, Guardian 452, previously of the Supercomputer, now of System Mainframe.”

“I’ll...just call you Bob, if that’s all right with you.” Dot replied after a moment, wry amusement running through her voice.

Bob smiled. “That’s fine.” And to his surprise, he realized it was. He also realized he was still holding her hand, and casually he let it drop. She turned towad Phong with equal nonchalance, but her fingers flexed slightly at her sides, as if she were trying to tally up the way every joint moved.

Phong cleared his throat meaningfully. “This is not the Supercomputer, young Bob, but perhaps you will find that we have some things here that the Supercomputer does not, yes?” His eyes crinkled at the corners behind his wire-rim glasses in a content expression.

Bob tried to come up with a suitable reply, but found himself at a loss. Instead, he decided to risk a verbal dig at Dot. “So you’re the one who saved my bitmap, telling the Supercomputer I saved the system from a tear? Fibbing, that’ doesn’t seem like you, Dot.”

She threw him a narrow glare, but behind the glare he could sense that she was pleased about something. “Firstly, how would you know what I’m like? Secondly, it wasn’t a fib. Get a move on, Guardian. We’ve got work to do.” She grasped Enzo by the back of the collar and began hauling him out of the office, her posture indicating that she wouldn’t look behind to see if the Guardian was following because she was simply positive that he was. As Bob trailed out after the other two sprites, he turned back to Phong quickly. “How does she do that?”

Phong waved a hand in the air dismissively. “She is a sprite of many mysteries, my son.” He then tapped his fingers against the desktop and leaned forward. “Now go, go, go, my son! She will not tolerate a delay!”

And so he went.

The End