Guardian Blues
By Dan Green

Part 3

It was like someone turned my turbo switch off as soon as me and Lisa weren’t together anymore - I started hurting again, all over. All in all it had been a pretty rough couple of cycles for me, physically. I had:

- Bruised knuckles on my right hand from punching Zips’s ugly face (Yes!!)
- A big welt on my bitmap from Zip’s stupid wet towel
- Bruises on my hip and elbow from falling on the floor in the shower
- A bump on the back of the head from where Calisto hit me
- Scraped palms from catching myself after he hit me
- A fat lip and a cut inside my mouth from Zip’s first punch
- A bruise on my stomach from Zip’s sucker punch

Mostly I didn’t feel too bad about all that, ‘cause it was like a finally had battle scars or something. But it was that last one that really hurt - Zip had punched me hard and I felt that ache in my gut with every step I took once Lisa had gone home and my feet were touching the ground again. So I zipped home.

When I was walking through the main hall towards the elevator this time, I didn’t look down at my feet - I stared right back at anybody who wanted to look at me. A couple of guys did, and I think I saw a little surprise in their faces - they thought they had me figured as the weakling kid everyone was gonna pick on, but now they weren’t totally sure. It was a step in the right direction.

So I was feeling pretty good when I limped back to my room, sorta like a wounded warrior coming home from winning a battle. Even though I could’ve done without a couple of the wounds. But like always things happen different than I expect them to, so I shouldn’t have been surprised when I saw Mouse lounging back on my bed.

“Hey, Sugar. Thought you was never gonna get back here.”

“Mouse!”

“That’s my name.”

“Where’s-”

“Sent him down to the rec room for a while - I told him you and I needed a few nanos to sort some files. Shoulda seen him scurry away - I think the little fella’s scared o’ me for some reason!”

“Why- What’s going on?”

“C’mon over here and set, Sugar.” Mouse sighed, patting the bed next to her. “We need to talk.”

“OK.” I gulped. I went and sat next to her and she stared down at me accusingly. “What’s the matter?”

“Why didn’t you tell me ‘bout what happened to you, Pumpkin?”

I decided to try and play dumb. “What do you mean?”

“C’mon, now - you should know you can’t slip anythin’ past the Mouse. Why didn’t ya tell me?”

“Crash.” I sighed. “How’d you find out?”

“Never you mind, Sweetie. In case you hadn’t noticed, I got more than a passing interest in your welfare. Why didn’t you come to me after it happened?”

Crash! I really didn’t want to talk about the shower thing with anybody - I just wanted to forget it. It wasn’t exactly my finest nano. And now Mouse knew, which meant Ray knew and maybe even Laser, too. “Can’t we just forget it, Mouse?”

“Not hardly! Hazing is pretty serious business any time - but when it’s you-”

“You didn’t tell Dot, did you?” I gulped.

“No.” Mouse frowned. “I ain’t talked to Dot. But-”

“Don’t tell her! Please! Or Bob - he said I had to try and be my own man. Don’t tell anyone in Mainframe, all right? Promise!”

“Enzo, it ain’t nothin’ for you to be ashamed of-”

“Please don’t, Mouse! I’d delete if they found out!”

She stared at me and pursed her lips. “All right - I’ll take that under advisement, let’s say. But why didn’t y’all come to me?”

“I dunno… I didn’t want to go to anybody. I just wanted to forget about it.”

“It don’t work that way, Hon.”

“I… I know that. Now.”

“Enzo, lemme tell you somethin’, all right? You remember when Laser first came to Mainframe - all that way back when? And he asked you to come to the Academy?”

“Sure.”

“I bet you do. Well, I made a promise to your sister back then, Kiddo - I promised that if y’all came here, I ‘d look after you and make sure you were OK. And I intend to keep that promise, so ya better get yourself used to it.”

“Really?”

“Shore.” Mouse smiled. “Like you was my own boy, Sugar. I ain’t never had a kid o’ my own and I don’t expect I ever will, now - that’s maybe one of the reasons I decided to come here, help look after you young sprites a little bit. But you’re special, Sugar - and not just because you’re Dot and Bob’s boy neither. You understand what I’m sayin’?”

“I… I think so. Thanks, Mouse. But I’m really OK.”

“Honey, that was a terrible thing those boys did. Now why don’t y’all tell me who did it and I’ll just take my katana and-”

“No.” I whispered. “I don’t want to, Mouse. That’ll just make it worse.”

“Dang it, Boy - don’t you wanna see those nulls get what’s comin’? They oughtta be punished for what they did! It’s wrong!”

“I know… But I’d rather handle it myself - OK? Please? I don’t wanna be a crybaby.”

“Crybaby - sheesh, Kid.” Mouse scowled at me. She looked away and stared thoughtfully for a couple of nanos. “It was Zip, wasn’t it?”

“Uh-”

“I knew it! Bet he had a couple slimy little helpers, but it was him, wasn’t it?”

“Mouse…” I thought about trying to deny it, but there was no way I was gonna put anything over on Mouse. “Please don’t say anything!”

“I knew it! That kid’s no good, never trusted him. Always got a look on his face like he’s puttin’ something over… Maybe I’ll just pay him a little visit and make sure he don’t try nothin’ like this again-”

“No, Mouse! Please - that’ll make things worse! I can take care of myself, honest!”

“But what he did was wrong Enzo! That kid’s a rotten apple if I ever saw one!”

“I know - but if you get him in trouble he’ll think I told on him and then he’ll never leave me alone.”

“What makes ya think he’ll leave ya alone anyway, Sugar?”

I looked down at my feet. “Um… I sorta had a fight with him, and-”

“A fight? Crash it all, Kid - what the heck were ya thinkin’, fightin’ with a kid twice yer size?”

“I didn’t want to! He started it, he… He hit me on the head and he pushed me and he told me I couldn’t use the rec room anymore and he really pissed me off!”

“Fightin’ ain’t allowed here, Hon - in case you didn’t know. You wanna get yer little ascii expelled?”

“No!” I looked up at her pleadingly. “But I had to stand up for myself, Mouse - that’s what Matrix told me about bullies and he was right. Please don’t tell on me!”

“Kid…” Mouse looked at me and sighed. “I won’t tell on you - ‘course not. But you shouldn’t be fightin’ other cadets, especially big ones like Zip. Getting’ beat up ain’t gonna solve yer problems.”

“I didn’t get beat up.” I said proudly. “Well - not when it was just me and him, anyways. I gave him better than he gave me.”

“What? Now, Enzo-”

“It’s true! He hit me a couple times, but then I figured out his weakness and I wasn’t afraid of him anymore. And when he saw he couldn’t beat me real easy he got madder and madder, and then I popped him a good one right under his eye. Take a look at him if you don’t believe me! That’s when he got that other null Calisto to hold me down. But he couldn’t take me till then!”

“Calisto was helpin’ him, huh?”

“Crash!” Me and my big mouth! “Well, it’s true - I was beatin’ him fair and square before that moron grabbed me and Zip punched me in the stomach.”

“Dang, Kid.” Mouse sighed. “You are somethin’ else!”

“So please don’t tell those guys you know, K? It’s better if I take care of it myself. And don’t tell Bob an’ Dot!”

“Punched ya, huh? I thought you was limpin’ when you came in here. You OK, Sugar?”

“Yeah… Just a little banged up. But so’s he.”

“User, I’d like to take my katana to those skunks and make sure they don’t breed…” She looked down at me and shook her head. “So ya popped him good, huh? Right in the eye?”

“Yeah.” I grinned. “He had it coming. I was scared at first, but once I got over that it really wasn’t too bad. Until they ganged up on me, anyways.”

“Wait.” Mouse frowned. “So they ganged up on ya - Calisto held ya down while Zip was hittin’ ya?”

“Yeah.”

“So what happened, Kid? You seem to have all your teeth, near as I can see!”

“Oh! Uh…” I shrugged. “Quantum stopped ‘em, actually.”

“Quantum?” Mouse laughed. “That ornery possum? Don’t surprise me, Sugar - that kid’s full o’ vinegar but he wouldn’t hold with two big boys beatin’ on one little one. Not his style.”

“Yeah, well…” I let out a big breath. “I was a little scared of Quantum at first - I guess I still am. But I was lucky he got there when he did, ‘cause those guys might’ve beat me up pretty bad. Zip was really mad after I smashed his face.”

“Oh, Sugar.” Mouse sighed. “You came this close to getting’ hurt bad - ya know that, dontcha?”

“Uh - yeah. I guess.” I hadn’t thought about it exactly like that, but she was probably right.

“I don’t believe in a lotta hand-holdin’ - I think kids gotta learn stuff for themselves sometimes, even if they get their hair messed up a little. But them boys is a lot bigger than you are - and I couldn’t forgive myself if somethin’ was to happen to you. Not to mention Dot would have my ascii in a sling. So I’ll be watchin’, you get me?”

“I know. Thanks.” I said softly. “But you went tell anyone else? You promise?”

Mouse frowned disapprovingly, then chuckled. “Yeah, promise. But I’ll be watchin’ and don’t you forget it.”

“Alphanumeric!”

“Kid.” She sighed, and patted my cheek. “C’mere an’ let me take a look at ya - we can’t have you goin’ to the infirmary, can we?”

“I told you I’m fine-”

“An’ I told you to c’mere! Now shut yer input and let me look at you, OK? I picked up a thing or two about medical programs these last few hours.”

“Sorry.” I pulled my legs up on the bed and swiveled to face her. “All right. Let’s start off with your gut - you said Zip pole-axed ya while Calisto was holdin’ ya down?”

“Yeah.”

“Bastards.” Mouse got a truly frightening look on her face, then. “You can do a lot o’ damage to someone that way - bust up their insides real bad. Does it hurt?” She gently prodded my belly with her fingers.

“Yeah. A little.” I winced.

“More than a little, I’m guessin’.” She pulled up my shirt and continued to probe with her fingers all around my stomach, pressing softtly. “Nasty little bruise. Crash…”

“Oooooh!” She hit the spot right then - a wave of queasiness shot up to my head when she did and I almost tipped over. Then I almost heaved my breakfast.

“Hush now, Pumpkin.” She gently tested the area around the bruise for a nano, while I whined and squirmed. “Poor kid. There - all done. C’mere.” She smiled and wrapped her arm around me. “Sorry, Enzo - didn’t mean to hurt ya like that. But it hadda be done.”

“I know - it’s OK.” I panted through clenched teeth. “Is- is it bad?”

“I don’t think so - I was worried he might’ve ruptured your stomach, but it doesn’t look like it. You’d have a lot bigger bruise if he did. I really should take ya to the infirmary just to be safe-”

“No - please! It’s OK.”

“All right.” She sighed. “If that bruise gets any bigger you tell me immediately, got that? Or if the pain gets worse?”

“Yeah, I will.”

“Promise me, Sugar.”

“Promise, Mouse.”

“All righty. What else?”

“Um…” I decided not to tell her about the welt on my butt. It wasn’t a hard decision. I held up my arm. “They pushed me down. In the shower - I got a little bruise on my elbow.”

“Hmmm.” She examined it for a few nanos, bending and straightening my arm. “Nothing broken here. What else?”

I held out my hands. “Scraped these when Calisto pushed me down, after the game. And…” I flexed my right into a fist. “Zip hit this one with his face.”

“You little… Yer proud of it, ain’t ya?”

“Maybe a little.” I grinned.

“Well... Between you and me, you should be - but I never said that. Scrapes’ll heal up just fine in a cycle or two - those knuckles are pretty bruised up, though. Lucky you didn’t break your hand.”

“I guess.”

“Dang - you did whap that boy good, didn’t ya? Go ahead and flex those fingers a couple times for me.” I did, slowly. “Again.” I did. “Lucked out again - no broken hand. If ya can, put some ice on ‘em, though - they’ll swell up a mess if you don’t. I’ll drop off a couple o’ cold compresses later. Anythin’ else?”

“Calisto hit me on the head.” I pointed behind me.

“Ain’t that nice. Well - you got a little bump here, but it don’t seem too bad. You havin’ any bad headaches?”

“No.”

“Dizziness?”

“Not until you pressed on my belly.”

“Nobody likes a smart-ascii, Son. You tellin’ me the truth? You could have a concussion easy enough.”

“Cross my heart.”

Mouse smiled and tousled the hair around the bump. “Anything else?”

“Well… Zip did get in one punch before I nailed him.” I pointed to my lower lip. “Right in the mouth.”

She frowned. “Hmm. Little swollen, ain’t she. Open up, Sugar.” She leaned in close. “Any loose teeth?”

“Nnnh hhhh.”

“I’ll take that for a ‘no’. Got a little cut inside here - don’t look too bad.” She gently felt around my lower lip with her fingers. After a nano she stopped and pulled away, then frowned at me and narrowed her eyes.

“What?” I said, a little nervously.

“Sugar!”

“What? What is it?”

“That’s a new shade o’ lipstick for ya, ain’t it Honey?”

My heart started to race and then decided to jump up into my throat. “I- Uh… That is-”

“Lipstick. Care to explain this?”

“What? There’s n-no l-lipstick.” Whatever color my lips were, I’m sure my face was even redder.

Mouse held up her fingers, stained red. “Well?”

“Blood?” I offered weakly.

“Now, Sugar. It ain’t nice to fool the Mouse.”

“Geez…”

She scowled and scratched her head. “Ain’t that a kick. Can’t figger this out - you sure don’t seem like the lipstick wearin’ type. Unless… Honey - don’t tell me you got yerself a little filly?”

“Uh-”

“Already?” Mouse cackled and slapped her knee. “Don’t that beat all! Why Enzo - I never would’ve figgered it! You ain’t but been here a few cycles!”

“It’s no big deal.” I whined. “I didn’t mean to kiss her, it just sorta… Happened.”

“Always does, Honey. Always does.” She laughed again. “Who is it?”

“I don’t wanna say.” I mumbled.

“All right, fair ‘nough.” She giggled. “You know fraternizin’ is against the rules too - sorta like fightin’?”

“Yeah - I know. I couldn’t help it, I’m sorry. Please don’t tell!”

“Take it easy, Sugar. I ain’t gonna stand in the way o’ young love, now.”

“Thanks.”

“Crash - shoulda figured after being stuck in Mainframe all that time you’d be rarin’ to go. But you do work fast!”

“Aw Mouse - it’s no big deal, honest.”

“Hot damn. Ain’t that somethin’. Enzo, I know it all must seem pretty pixelacious to you right now - but they got rules about this sorta thing for a reason. You’re here to concentrate on the program and learn, and getting’ squeezy with some girl ain’t always the best way to go about it. You might not be old enough to keep your priorities in order-”

“I am too, Mouse! I won’t forget why I’m here. I won’t let everybody down, I promise I won’t.”

“Yeah.” She sighed. “You broke an awful lot o’ rules for yer first minute - not sure I like the trend. I know the fightin’ wasn’t really yer fault, and I’m sure yer little girlfriend is as sweet and pretty as can be, so I won’t take any o’ this to Laser for now - though I can’t promise he won’t find out anyways, way you kids gossip - or even Bob and Dot. But if I see you slackin’ off even a little, I’ll be all over you like Microsoft on Netscape - you got that?”

“Got it.” I gulped. I was starting to feel guilty about going off the program so fast. Sometimes things just spiraled out of control and it seemed like there was nothing I could do about it.

“I mean it - I’ll keep you in line even if I have to bust yer ascii.”

“I know. I’m really sorry - I’ll try to do better.”

“Yeah - I know ya will, Hon. You always do.” She folded her arms and stared at me for a nano while I fidgeted. “Yer a long way from home now, ain’t ya?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Come on over here.” She smiled and opened her arms, and I slid over and she hugged me. I was a little surprised at first, but then it felt really nice. I closed my eyes and I could almost pretend it was Dot, only with a lot more muscles. “I’m beginnin’ to see why your sister and the Guardian are so crazy about you, Honey.”

“You too, Mouse.”

“I made a promise to that gal, and I plan to keep it. So you just do your best and I’ll be here, all right?”

“I’ll try. I dunno how everything got so messed up…”

“I know, Sugar - I was a kid too, once.” I’d never really heard Mouse talk like this before. It was nice - like she was letting me see another person she had inside her. “Tossed outside in your altogether… Ganged up on, punched, fightin’… Kissin’ a pretty girl… Guess it’s been a pretty wild minute for ya, huh?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Ya miss home?”

I didn’t answer her for a few nanos. “A lot.”

“I know.” She squeezed me once, hard, and smiled down at me. “I see the man now, when I look at you - but the boy’s still there too. Yer at a tough age to be, Pumpkin - don’t let it get to you too much. No matter how bad it seems I promise you’ll get through it, OK?”

“OK.” I smiled back. It was right then that I realized something important about my life - something I’d sorta been aware of for a long time without really being aware of it. In a way, it was like everyone from Mainframe - even Mouse and Ray, who came later - were my parents.

Mostly I’d thought about my not having real parents and how it affected my life, but I’d almost missed something just as important - Mainframe had no kids. And because of that it was like I was the whole town’s kid - they didn’t have anyone else, so they all looked out for me and took care of me. I could sense that this was really important - it explained a lot of things about how I was now. I was used to being the youngest - way youngest - and I was used to other sprites protecting me and shielding me from the really bad stuff. That was really comforting in a way.

But in another way, it bothered me - because it seemed like it would make it that much harder for me to change my life now. I was at the Academy, but I was still the youngest and the littlest, and I had Laser running the place, and he was like a grandpa in a lot of ways. And Mouse and Ray. And even Quantum had stepped in and protected me when I was about to get beat on bad. Had things really changed all that much?

The scraggy thing was it felt good to have Mouse hug me and take care of my bruises and scrapes. Everybody who took care of me did it because they were good sprites - Dot filled in for Mom, Bob became my Dad, Matrix tried to protect me so I wouldn’t have to deal with the stuff he had. I loved all of them and some part of me liked having all those sprites watching out for me. But sooner or later I had to be my own man, like Bob said. Maybe I’d taken a little step towards that by standing up to Zip, even when I was pretty sure I’d get beat up. And maybe I was taking another one by not letting Mouse tell anyone back home how bad things had gotten for me.

Mouse tousled my hair a couple times, and more than anything else I just felt grateful to her at that nano. “Good boy. I’ll clear out and let that little roommate o’ yours come on back, now. I’ll bring over some ice packs for those bruises later, all right?”

“K. Thanks Mouse - you’re the best.”

“Don’t I know it, Sugar. I’ll be around when ya need me.”

“I know.” She stared at me for a few nanos, smiled and patted my cheek. Then she winked at me and took off, leaving me along with my thoughts for the first time all cycle.

* * *

“Dude - no way!”

“Yeah.” I smiled.

Linux scowled at me. “You’re bein’ a jerk - lying to me about stuff. I thought we were friends!”

“We are friends! I’m not lying - I swear!”

“I… I still don’t believe you. You’re makin’ it up-”

“Linux, no! I wouldn’t lie to you, I promise. You’re the first friend my own age I’ve ever had and I swear I’m telling you the truth!”

He looked at me doubtfully. “I dunno…”

“Listen - have you ever heard me lie in all the time I’ve known you? It’s been over a minute!”

“But… How? I mean, we just got here! I haven’t even talked to a girl yet!”

“I know - cool, isn’t it?”

Linux stared at me, hard. “Enzo, if you’re lying about this I swear I’ll never, ever be your friend again. You gotta swear - swear on your sister’s life!”

I held up my hand, palm open. “I swear on Dot’s life that I actually kissed a real live girl today.”

“On the lips?”

“On the lips!”

“Dude…” He bounced onto the bed next to me at last. “I can’t believe it - you’re a God! You’re the User!”

“Stop it!” I giggled.

“Who was it?”

“Lisa Jobs.”

“Lisa? That girl with the teal skin and blond hair?”

“Yeah! You know her?”

“Well - I know who she is. She’s in my COBOL class. I heard some girls talking and one of them called her Lisa. Enzo - she’s a babe!”

“Yeah - I guess.” I felt an odd emotion in my processor and I couldn’t identify it for a nano, and then I placed it - jealousy.

“Serious babe.” My jealousy didn’t last too long - Linux looked real down all of a sudden and I just felt sorry for him. “Man - I can’t believe you got to first base and we haven’t even started our second minute yet.”

“Uh...” All of a sudden I felt very dumb. “What?”

“You know - first base. Sucking face.”

“Oh! Yeah.”

My expression must have showed how clueless I was - I guess I’m not a very good actor, ‘cause Linux laughed. “Sometimes I forget you never had any other kids to hang around with! First base means kissing on the lips.”

“Really?”

“Sure. First base is sucking face, second base is-”

“Dude - don’t tell me. I don’t think I’m ready to hear that right now. I still almost faint every time I think about kissing her!”

“Man, Enzo…” Linux just stared at me looking awed and shaking his head. “What was it like? How did it happen? Tell me everything!”

“Um. I dunno, I never really planned to kiss her or anything - I just did it, real quick. Without thinking about it. ‘Cause I was so hyped about punching Zip and everything.”

“Was it high density?”

“Actually - it sucked! I didn’t know what I was doing and it lasted like a millionth of a nano and my lip hurt from where Zip hit me and afterwards I tried to run away.”

“No way!”

“Yeah.” I sighed. “But she didn’t let me - she made me stay and talk, and then we took a walk and then we sat down and we talked some more -girls like to talk, I think - and she told me she knew right away she wanted me to be the first boy she kissed.”

“No way!”

“Yeah - alphanumeric, huh?”

“Then what happened?”

“Well, we talked about Mainframe and about the fight and stuff, and then she said she wanted to kiss me again.”

“Were you nervous?”

“Naw - I was way cool. I knew what I wanted, and I knew what she wanted - me! So we finally kissed and we did it real slow this time, and… Crash! I can’t even explain it.”

“Try! Dude, I gotta know - what’s it like?”

“I can’t, Linux - I just can’t. It was better than anything - better than games, even. It was amazing and pixelacious and I can’t wait to try it again. You’ll have to do it to know what I mean.”

“Man - you suck!” Linux growled. “Like I’m ever gonna do it…”

“You will! And it’ll be high density.”

“I doubt it. I still can’t believe it - you are definitely the man, Enzo.”

“Thanks.” I giggled. It was the first time I’d ever been called that, and it felt nice.

So that was my conversation with Linux at the end of maybe the craziest cycle of my life. It seemed pretty innocent at the time - no big deal, just interfacing with a friend. And maybe even learning a couple things I never knew. But the biggest thing I was gonna learn from that conversation wasn’t gonna happen till the next cycle, and I was totally unprepared for it. Like usual.

* * *

Linux tagged along with me when I went into Gallifrey town to meet Lisa for lunch. I felt kinda bad that he couldn’t hang around with us - I know he wanted to and it seemed like I was deserting him in a way. He was my friend, but Lisa - well, I dunno if she was something else but I definitely knew I wanted that afternoon to be just the two of us.

I’d had Bob to help me the first couple cycles, and now I’d met an amazing girl just because I was butt-lucky. Linux had pretty much been on his own the whole time here except for me. So I asked him to come with when I went to meet Lisa because I knew he wanted to talk to her and because at least that way, he wouldn’t feel totally left out. I promised myself I’d spend more time with him during the minute and thought for a nano how odd it was for me to be having those kinds of worries about someone else.

So my reasons for bringing him were good reasons, honest - I was really trying to be a friend but that doesn’t seem to make a difference when something is gonna bite you in the ascii, as I was learning. I was learning all sorts of things at the Academy, but most of them weren’t in class. I guess it’s all part of growing up.

I’d arranged to meet Lisa outside the little pizza place where I’d eaten with Bob, and me and Linux got there first. I found myself getting nervous all over again waiting for her, like she was gonna just not show up and yesterday had all been a dream - or she’d woken up and thought about it and said, “Why in the net did I kiss him?” and come to her senses. So naturally the first thing I felt when I saw her was relief.

I felt all sorts of other things right after that. She looked incredible - she was wearing a short ruffled blue skirt and a little fuzzy sweater that were definitely not regulation Academy issue. I had that weird feeling I’d had when I first saw her, that there was no one else in the net, just her and me. She looked like everything desirable and wonderful and perfect a 1.4 girl could possibly be.

“Hey.” She grinned when she saw me, and held out both her hands, palms-down, which I’d never seen anyone do before. I took the hint and grabbed them in mine, and just held them for a nano and smiled at her and they felt wonderful and cool and soft. “What’s processing?”

“Not much.” I sighed.

“You feeling OK? How’s your tummy?”

I blushed. “Uh - fine. I have a little bruise, but it’s not ruptured or anything.”

“And everything else? Poor Enzo…”

“Fine, honest! I’m cool.” Lisa turned her smile to Linux and I realized with a shock that he was there, standing next to me. “Oh! Sorry, this is Linux. He’s my roommate.”

“Hi Linux.” Lisa disengaged one hand from mine and held it out to him.

“Uh… Yeah. Um - Hi. Oh, jeez…”

“How are you liking the Academy so far?”

“What?”

“The Academy. Are you having fun?” Linux wasn’t doing too well - he didn’t seem to be able to make his mouth work, and he hadn’t held out his hand to shake hers. She finally gave up and let her arm drop to her side.

“Oh! Yeah, it’s very c-cool. Um. Oh, wow!”

Lisa squinted at him. “How nice.”

“So… I guess we’ll see ya later, huh Linux?” I couldn’t think of a nice way to do it, under the circumstances, but I desperately wanted to be rid of him.

He turned to me like he’d forgotten I was there, just like I had him. “Sorry! Yeah, see ya. I guess…” He smiled awkwardly, tripped over his feet and turned away. Lisa gave him a little wave as he walked off, looking back over his shoulder.

“So, um - should we eat now?” I smiled.

Lisa was not smiling. She looked at me so fiercely that I think I actually flinched. “What makes you think I’d want to have lunch with you?”

“What?”

“How dare you?”

“What? I’m… What??”

“Just… Just log off!” She spun and started off at a brisk walk.

I stared after her for a nano, too stunned to move. Finally I rumbled forward and trotted after her. “Lisa - wait!”

“I could delete you, Enzo Matrix. I really could.”

“What? What is it?” All of a sudden she was like a web creature, someone totally strange and frightening and terrible that I could never understand in a million hours.

“Leave me alone!” She didn’t stop walking.

Finally I caught up with her and put my hand on her elbow, which she promptly swatted away. “Ow!”

“Get crashed, Enzo.”

“Why?” I whined. “I’m sorry, whatever I did!”

She stopped and turned that stare at me again, and I felt about as high as her ankle. “You told him, didn’t you?”

“What?”

“Answer me!”

“I don’t- I know what…” Then it hit me, what she was referring to. “Uh-”

“You did! Ooh, I could just- just-”

“I’m sorry!” I wondered for a nano if Mouse had been wrong about my stomach rupturing - it sure felt like it had at that nano.

“How could you, Enzo? How could you?” She started away again.

“Please don’t go! Wait, please!”

“Log off.”

“Wait!” I got in front of her and walked backwards, on my heels. “Please don’t go - let me explain, crash it!”

I could see the faintest hint of hesitation in her eyes for the first time. “Enzo, I swear I could delete you…”

I was still walking backwards, trying to stay in front of her, and I tripped and sprawled on the ground. “Ow! Lisa, don’t! Look - let’s sit down over there and talk for a nano, let me explain!”

“Enzo-”

“Please?” I rolled to my feet and dragged her over to a bench. “Please, please don’t go! Just let me explain, for User’s sake!”

She sighed deeply, shook her head at me and sat down. “How could you?”

“Thank you!” I sighed. “Lisa, I didn’t-”

“I thought you were different, Enzo! But it turns out you’re just another guy, doesn’t it? Did you have fun bragging about me?”

“It wasn’t like that! Honest it wasn’t!”

“I thought you were the sweetest boy, Enzo, I really did…”

“I am! I swear - I’m nice! I- I didn’t…“

“Why did you tell him, Enzo? Did you tell him you copped a feel, too?”

“No!” I gasped. “Lisa, I’d never do that! He… He asked me what happened when I went to see you yesterday, that’s all. I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong - it’s just that I was so happy about meeting you and everything that I told him we kissed, it just came out.”

“You’re such a boy! I thought you were so different.”

“I’m sorry.” I said softly. “I didn’t know it was wrong, Lisa - honest. I’ve never been around other kids my whole life and I really didn’t know - I thought it would be OK if I told him! He’s really nice, he won’t tell anybody else I swear and I’m sorry. Gimme a break, please!”

“Well, it wasn’t OK.” Lisa said in a low voice. “You don’t go around bragging, Enzo - haven’t you ever heard of ‘kiss-and-tell’?”

“No, I… I guess I haven’t.”

“You haven’t?”

“No.” I sighed, feeling really dumb. “I told you I’m a dork - I don’t know anything about anything, I’ve never had any friends and I’m a freak.”

“Oh, you are not!” She shook her head again, but I could tell she was less mad now than she had been.

“I swear I’ll never tell anyone anything, ever again. I promise, Lisa! And I’ll make Linux promise not to tell anyone else we kissed, OK? It’s just that I was so happy and it was so amazing that I wanted to tell him and I didn’t know it was wrong, honest I didn’t!”

“Oh Enzo.” She frowned at me. “You swear? You’ll never do it again?”

“No. I mean yes! I swear. Please don’t hate me, OK? I’m really sorry and I didn’t know and I’ll never do it again. I like you so much, Lisa, you’re so amazing and I like you so much and I’m really sorry-”

“Enzo!”

“Sorry…”

“OK, OK.” She sighed. She smiled a little and squeezed my hand. “I know you’re sorry, it’s all right.”

“I am!”

“I know!”

“So - you won’t leave and we can still be- You know…” I wasn’t sure what we were, but I didn’t want us to stop being it, whatever it was.

“Yeah. I really do like you, Cutie. You really didn’t know, did you?”

“No. I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too. I forgot how things were for you back home, I guess. That wasn’t very nice of me.” She grinned. “You really are different than the other boys.”

“I dunno. Maybe. I just know I really like you and you’re pixelacious and I don’t ever want you to be mad at me.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not mad.”

“Good.”

“I can’t stay mad at you.” She giggled. “It’s like being mad at a little kitten!”

“Lisa! Stop it…”

She grabbed my hand again and pulled me to her and we hugged, and it was the most alphanumeric feeling in the net to be hugging her after I thought I was gonna lose whatever it was we were. She rubbed my back with her hands and squeezed me tight. “Poor Enzo…”

“Sorry.” I whispered.

“I know, me too. It’s all right.”

“Cool.” I squeezed her for a little while and smelled her hair and I hoped we’d never stop hugging, but finally we did and we sat there staring at each other and I wanted to kiss her but there were lots of people around and I didn’t dare.

“You OK?” she said softly.

“I’m hungry.”

She laughed loudly. “OK, Cutie - let’s go have pizza then.” So we did.

After pizza we walked around the town a while and I bought Lisa a sundae with a little of the pocket money Dot and Bob had given me, and then we walked all the way back to campus holding hands. I don’t guess it would’ve been that hard for anyone to tell we were “fraternizing”, whatever that means exactly, but it was hard to see how it was hurting anybody. But we were still careful about it, I guess - we didn’t kiss or hug in front of cadets or anything.

All I knew was that it was getting easier and easier to be with Lisa, and harder and harder to be away from her. When we got back to the girls’ dorm we stood out in front for a few nanos and I held both her hands and just thought about how amazing it was that this pixelacious creature actually liked me. I looked around and saw that there were no other sprites nearby, and I slowly leaned forward until out foreheads were touching. I just looked at Lisa’s eyes and she looked at mine, and after a nano my lips were moving towards her mouth and we were kissing. I held my lips to hers and just breathed, slowly, and felt my entire body catch fire.

Like I said, I was learning stuff all the time but most of it was outside of school. What I learned that cycle was that I was pitifully unprepared to have a girlfriend - and that’s what I wanted Lisa to be, even if I didn’t dare use the word yet - in every way. I’d pissed her off and she’d almost deleted me and I didn’t even know what I’d done was wrong. What I didn’t know about girls could fill up a terabyte drive and still spill over the edges. Still could. Maybe when you grow up it’s different - I’ll have to ask Bob and Matrix about that. In the meantime I just had to hope she’d be patient with how stupid I was about all that stuff.

One thing I can promise - when I got home I told Linux that he could never tell anybody else about me and Lisa, no matter what. He just said “Duh - I know that!” like I was stupid to even ask, but I made him promise anyway.

* * *

It was almost a relief to get back to classes after the minute-end being so exhausting. Classes were something I could concentrate on, something basically simple and predictable and they were also the reason I came to the Academy, after all.

Mouse’s class was starting to be a lot of fun - Linux and I sat next to each other at the back and we were the only ones who didn’t completely take her seriously. Everybody else was sort of in awe of her and terrified of her, and I can’t really say I would’ve been different if I hadn’t known her.

Her class was also fun because what we were learning was fun - Mouse seemed to know every trick in the book when it came to physical combat and it was her job to teach us. I’d been bugging Matrix to teach me since the reboot and he didn’t wanna teach me anything about combat for the longest time, so what I learned was mostly from Bob and being in games. It felt good to finally be learning in a pretty intense way.

What Mouse taught us this cycle was about pressure points - places on a sprite where a while bunch of circuits were and if you hit them or pressed on them just right - wow! You could really do a number on somebody, and it didn’t even matter how big they were and how small you were, they went down like a sack of wet nulls. She called Linux and me up in front of the class to demonstrate, which was a little scary at first but I thought about it for a nano and realized I’d fought for real in the rec room with a whole bunch of sprites watching, so this was really no big deal.

Having my last class with Linux was great, because we could walk back to the dorm together and talk about whatever had happened that cycle, or stop at the rec room and play games or just hang out and watch a vidscreen. I was starting to get used to the idea that I didn’t have to answer to anybody - I had places I was supposed to be and responsibilities, but as long as I showed up for class and did what I was supposed to, I was on my own the rest of the time, more or less. That was very weird - scary and exciting at the same time.

We didn’t stop in the rec room this time - we went straight back to the room and played floor soccer with a bar of soap and afterwards I was showing him another chord on my guitar when my organizer beeped at me.

“Homework.” Linux groaned.

“It never beeped before when homework was downloaded, did it?”

“Huh! No I guess not…”

I picked up my organizer and it was flashing at me, and I was about to access the assignments module when I saw a message on the main menu: “Please report to the Headmaster’s office immediately.” I stared it like a moron for a couple of nanos.

“What? What is it?”

“Uh oh.”

“What?”

I gulped. “I’m supposed to go to Las- I mean the Headmaster’s office. Immediately.”

“Uh oh.”

“Yeah. Oh, man! I hope I’m not in trouble - I just got here!”

“You think he found out about the fight?”

“I dunno.” I groaned.

“Or Lisa, maybe?”

“That’s not even funny! Man…”

“Maybe it’s nothing - maybe he just wants to tell you how great you’re doing or something…”

“Yeah, right. This is bad - very bad.”

“Well - you better go, he’ll be even madder if you keep him waiting.”

“So you do think he’s mad?”

“Enzo! Just go already.”

“Yeep.” I took a deep breath and headed for the door.

“Enzo, wait!”

“What?” Linux stared at me and didn’t say anything. “What? What is it?”

“Nothing.” He sighed. “I… I hope you’re not in trouble.”

“Thanks.” I took out my zip board and I was so flustered for a nano I couldn’t even remember where Laser’s office was. I finally got my bearings and headed for the great hall. Crash, I was feeling it big-time - I was sweating and my heart was pounding in my chest. Laser can be a very scary guy, and I’d almost always had Bob around whenever I’d talked with him. Now it was just me, and I might be in trouble.

All I could think was, how could I ever go back to Mainframe if I was expelled? How could I face Dot and Matrix, AndrAIa… And Bob! How could I ever face Bob? Everything I worried that they were thinking about me would be true - I was just a screw-up kid who couldn’t get anything right, a basic washout who needed grown-ups to look after him.

“Hey, Enzo!”

I don’t even know if I responded right away, I was so far into my own zone - but it hit me that someone was talking to me. I stopped zipping and looked around. “Huh?”

“Hey!” I saw a flash of red hair.

“Patch?” The girl from the game, the first-hour cadet.

“Yeah, you remembered! What’s processing?”

“Er - not much. How about you?”

“Y’know - just trying to get adjusted and everything. Um… I was just gonna go have supper in the mess - you wanna come?”

I didn’t want to be rude, but I was having a hard time making my processor focus on what she was saying. “I, uh- I can’t. Maybe another time, though.”

“Oh! Sure, no problem…”

“I’ve got a meeting with Laser.” I sighed, zipping off towards the great hall again.

“Really? What about?” She was zipping right behind me.

“I don’t know. Nothing, maybe…”

“Maybe it’s about your fight. You think?”

“What fight?” Patch hadn’t been there, I was sure - it was in the boys’ dorm, she couldn’t have been!

She blushed, which was funny because it made her face match her hair. “Umm… The one with Zip.”

“How do you know about that?”

“I heard.” She smiled a little bit. “All the kids are talking about it.”

“They are?”

“Sure! You were so brave, Enzo - Zip and Calisto are total outputs! I can’t believe you stood up to them like that.”

“Oh, man!” It was nice to know people were talking about something besides me running around naked, but if all the cadets knew…

“I hope you aren’t in trouble, Enzo. It wasn’t your fault!”

“Thanks. I’m sure it’ll be OK.” I tried to smile at her. We were inside the great hall now, and I could feel Laser’s presence like a giant hammer poised over my head. “I gotta go. I’ll see ya.”

“Good luck!”

“Thanks.” I waved to her and headed off down one of the hallways, trying to remember just where to go. Bob said it was in the middle of the building, and all the hallways went out like spokes on a wheel… Easy enough. I followed one of the hallways all the way to the end and sure enough, there was Laser’s office, at the center of everything.

Those last few steps felt like I had ABCs attached to my legs. I could barely get my feet off the ground, one after the other, as that door got bigger and bigger and I felt smaller and smaller. I sent my mind out silently looking for Bob, trying to calm myself down so I wouldn’t be a complete idiot when I got inside.

I stood outside the door for a few nanos, just taking slow, deep breaths like Bob told me and trying to get my fear and nervousness under control. One of the things Bob said was that you couldn’t make those things go away - they were natural, like breathing . What you had to do was channel them - control them and use them for your benefit. It sounds easy, but it’s not - it’s really hard, especially when you’re standing outside the Headmaster’s office. At that nano, I’d rather have been just about anywhere else.

* * *

I knocked on the door - too softly, probably. Sounding afraid. Laser’s voice called out after a nano. “Yes?”

“C-cadet Matrix, Sir. As ordered.”

“Wait please, Cadet. I’ll be with you shortly.”

“Yes Headmaster. Thank you.” I hated the quaver in my voice - to my ears I sounded about 1.0 - but it was what it was, there was nothing I could do about it. I leaned back against the wall to wait, and heard muffled voices from inside the room.

I don’t think he kept me waiting very long, maybe a micro or two, but it felt like about an hour. Half of me longed to hear him call me in and get it over with, the other half hoped he never would. Inevitably the moment came. “Enter please, Cadet.”

“Yes, Headmaster.” I opened the door and, to my shock, Zip and Calisto were sitting on chairs facing the desk. I stared at them for a nano, but they didn’t look at me. They didn’t look happy, either, and Zip’s left eye was swollen half-shut.

“Sit down, Cadet.” I whipped my eyes over to Laser - I’d forgotten he was there for a nano. He was studying me intently with those piercing brown eyes of his, like Bob’s but Bob’s eyes always look like he just told a joke and he’s waiting for you to laugh. Laser’s did not look like that. He studied my face and looked away to the other two guys as I sat down.

“Thank you, Headmaster.”

There was silence for a few nanos, while I looked straight at the top of Laser’s desk. “Cadet Matrix, is there anything you’d like to say to these two gentlemen while we’re all together?”

I glanced over quickly. What were my options - and the consequences? I panicked and took the safe route. “Uh… No, Sir. Not really.”

“Do either of you gentlemen have anything you’d like to say to Cadet Matrix?”

“No Sir.” Zip said softly.

“No Headmaster.” Calisto echoed.

“I see.” Laser said calmly. “You’ve had your say, Cadets - now I’d like to allow Cadet Matrix to have his. You are both dismissed - for the nano.”

“Yes Sir. Thank you Sir.” They both got up and shuffled out, Zip casting one quick, hate-filled look at me as they did. Then I was alone in the office with Laser.

I expected him to say something right away, but he didn’t - he sat there and turned those eyes on me and I looked up at him and couldn’t look away, and he still didn’t say anything and it went on forever and ever. “Please don’t expel me, Sir!” I finally blurted out.

He raised his eyebrows a little, and I thought I saw the corner of his mouth twitch upwards. “No one’s getting expelled today, Cadet.”

“Sir, I… I-”

“Perhaps you’d like to tell me just what, exactly, prompted you to flaunt the rules of this Academy so soon after your arrival?”

“S-sir?”

“I’m waiting, Cadet. Well?”

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. Maybe it’d be better if I couldn’t see him… “I’m very sorry, Sir. I didn’t intend for it to happen, but I got into a fight. With Zip. And Calisto, sort of…”

“A fight.” Laser sighed. “Do you enjoy fighting, Cadet? Do you think it’s appropriate to be fighting other Guardians when the net is still under a dire threat from Daemon?”

“No, Sir! I… I didn’t start the fight, I was defending myself.” It sounded lame, even as I said it.

“Was it in reprisal for what Zip and Calisto did to you in the showers, Cadet?”

“Sir!” My eyes popped open. “How-”

“I’m not a fool, Boy! I’m well aware that you were the victim of a hazing incident last minute, and that you refused to identify the perpetrators. I’m also aware that you were involved in a fight this minute-end with Zip. It doesn’t take a genius to reach a conclusion, does it?”

“No, Sir.” I whispered. “But it wasn’t like that, I wasn’t getting even. I just wanted them to leave me alone, and I was playing a game in the rec room and Zip hit me and told me to leave and never come back…”

“Enzo-” I could see Laser pulling back from the nano, thinking about what he was going to say, when there was a tapping on the door and he looked annoyed. “Yes?”

A very weak voice called from the other side. “Headmaster? This is, uh, Cadet Patch Sir. May I speak with you for a nano?”

“I’m in a meeting, Cadet. Come back tomorrow, after class, and I-”

“Sir, I- I know you are, Sir. That’s what I want to speak with you about.”

Laser frowned, and I just sat by, stunned. “Cadet, I’m handling this. You can come back tomorrow.”

“Please, headmaster - I really think it’s important. Please?”

Laser sighed and shook his head. Patch had guts, I had to give her that - although maybe more guts than brains. Still, to interrupt and not give up like that - wow. “Very well. Come in and say your piece.”

The door slowly opened. “Thank you, Sir. I’m very sorry to interrupt-”

“All the way in please, Cadet! And close it behind you.”

“Yessir.” She walked in and looked over at me, smiled a little. “I’m awfully sorry, Sir, it’s just that I was worried that Enzo was in trouble and I thought there’s something you should know.”

“Whether anyone else is ‘in trouble’ is hardly your business, is it Cadet?”

“No Sir - it’s just, I saw Calisto come out of here and I thought I should tell you something I saw, in case he lied about it.”

Laser squinted and pursed his lips at her. “Very well. Go ahead.”

Patch looked up nervously, shifting from foot to foot. “Only, Sir… Enzo - Cadet Matrix - and I were in a game last minute, with Calisto. It was a role-playing game, with orcs and warriors and we had to destroy a golden ring-”

“The shareware version, Cadet Patch?” Laser sighed, the corner of his mouth twitching again. “I haven’t got all cycle.”

“Sorry! It’s just, like, Enzo was totally awesome in the game, Headmaster - he knew exactly how to go about beating it while the older cadets were just going around hacking orcs and not getting us anywhere.”

“Your point? No one is accusing Cadet Matrix of being unprepared for games.”

“I… I know Sir. But see, Enzo was really great in that game and he won it, and even though he didn’t brag and act like a jerk Calisto got really mad because he won the game and I think because Enzo’s kinda little. And then when the game was over Calisto waited until Mr. Tracer left and he hit Enzo in the head and pushed him down and threatened him. For no reason, Sir!”

“I see.”

“I thought you should know, Headmaster. Calisto totally had it in for Enzo - and Enzo never did anything to him! He was brave and like, he really helped me ‘cause it was my first game but Enzo showed me what to do and he was really smart and nice and I don’t think it’s fair that he’s in trouble just because Calisto is an output!” She stopped then, panting like she was out of breath.

“Well. I’ll take all that into consideration, Young Lady, when-” There was another knocking at the door now, just as soft as the last one. “By the User - now what? Yes?”

“Sir?” A faint voice. “I’m very sorry to disturb you-”

“Then why are you?”

“S-s-sorry! I… I wanted to talk to you. About Enzo Matrix, Sir. I thought-”

“Why not? Come in then, everyone else is!” Laser scowled. The door opened and Linux’ head peeked around it. “Yes, come in. Join the party. Close the door.”

Linux slipped into the room, stumbling slightly, frowning when he saw Patch and going pale when he saw Laser. He stared at him, trembling a little. “Yes, Cadet? Speak up - what is it?”

“Sorry Sir! I’m, uh… I’m Cadet Linux.”

“I know who you are. Please continue.”

“Er - yeah, sorry. I’m Enzo’s roommate-”

“Again, I am aware of that. Was there a reason you interrupted this meeting?”

Linux went, impossibly, paler. “Sorry, Sir! I, uh… I wanted to tell you what happened in the rec room, Sir - I was there. In case there was any dispute.”

“I see. Interesting. Go on, then.”

“Uh… The thing is, Sir, Enzo was minding his own business - he wasn’t bothering anybody at all. And Zip came in and hit him in the back of the head and started insulting him, Sir. And he picked Enzo up out of his chair and pushed him and told him to leave and never come back and he even told him he wasn’t a real cadet, Sir.”

“Did he, now.”

“Yes, Sir.” Linux looked like he would have liked to crawl into a hole and disappear, but I met his eyes and smiled a little to encourage him.

“Anything else?”

“Yes, Sir. He challenged Enzo to a fight, and I know Enzo didn’t want to fight him, Headmaster, because he was- He was, you know, afraid. Because Zip is such a big guy and Enzo… isn’t. But Enzo stayed and defended himself, Sir, and it took him a while but he was even winning the fight and he punched Zip hard. That’s when Calisto held Enzo down so Zip could punch him.”

Linux looked at Laser, and Laser nodded a little, silently. Linux got an angry look on his face. “It’s not right, Sir - Zip started the whole thing and he’s bigger than Enzo is, and when he couldn’t beat him fair and square he got another big coward to hold Enzo down! I… I wish I’d helped Enzo then, Sir, but I didn’t. And there was another- I… Anyway, I just wanted to say something because it’s not right that Enzo gets blamed for any of this. He didn’t start it.”

Laser sighed and rubbed his hand over his face. “Thank you for coming forward. Both of you. Of course you know it’s not appropriate to interrupt me in the course of a disciplinary meeting-”

“Sorry, Sir!” Linux and Patch said simultaneously.

“I’ll let it slide, this time, since both of you felt you had important information to contribute. Rest assured, I’m a fair man - I’ll take what you’ve said into consideration. I’d like to continue my interview with Matrix now - run along to dinner, both of you.”

“Yes, Sir.” Linux said. He looked over me and nodded, then shuffled out of the room.

Patch followed immediately behind him. “Thank you, Headmaster. Sorry to interrupt, Sir. Bye, Enzo.” She grinned at me and left, closing the door behind her.

“Looks like you’ve made yourself some loyal friends already, Cadet.”

“I guess so.” I was still a little amazed that the both of them had done that for me - I know I would’ve been scared to barge in on Laser.

“I’m not surprised. Some men can inspire loyalty, some cannot. It is not a quality that can be taught.” He leaned forward on the desk and stared at me. “Back to the matter at hand, Enzo. Do you disagree with anything either of those cadets said, or do you corroborate their recollection of events?”

“Uh… Not really, Headmaster. That’s basically how it happened.”

“Is there anything else you’d like to say?”

I wrung my hands and stared at the desk. “I really wanna be a Guardian, Sir. I’m doing the best I can and I’ve never, ever started a fight in my life. I just wanted those guys to leave me alone - honest. I didn’t wanna fight and I still don’t.”

Laser folded his arms. It occurred to me that he really wasn’t a guy who said a whole lot - mostly he just looked at you and thought about stuff, and then said just a little bit. “Enzo, I won’t pretend I’m not especially fond of you - I am. You’re an extraordinary boy - I’ve seen that about you from the beginning.”

“Sir?”

“I’m the headmaster here, Enzo - of every cadet. I have a responsibility to them - all of them. I can’t protect you at the expense of that, no matter how fond I am of you - I want you to understand that.”

“I…I know, Sir. I’m sorry I let you down-”

“You didn’t let me down, Enzo. I just wonder if I’ve put you in harm’s way by bringing you here.”

“No, Sir! I want to be here - I know I can do it.”

“Enzo-”

“Please, Sir! I can take care of myself. I know I’m small and all that but I’m not weak - Bob’s taught me all kinds of stuff. Matrix too, and Mouse-”

“I know, Cadet. But it’s not easy being in your position - I guess you’re finding that out.”

“Yes, Sir. I guess so.” I kicked my feet under the desk, like I used to do when I was a little kid. “Sir?”

“Cadet?”

“You said you were the youngest cadet when you came to the Academy, didn’t you?”

“I was.” He smiled slightly.

I met his eyes, and now I was looking at my grandfather, not the headmaster. “What should I do, Laser? I don’t want to fight - I know it’s against the rules. I don’t like getting hit, either, and I don’t really want to hurt anybody. But I can’t just let big guys push me around, can I? Don’t I have to stand up for myself sooner or later? If I run away all the time I’ll run out of places to run eventually and I’ll get beat up anyways!”

“Enzo-”

“Was what I did wrong, Sir? Did I really have a choice? I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be disrespectful-”

“You could never be disrespectful, Enzo - I know that. I just wish I had an easy answer to your question.”

“Sorry, Sir.”

Laser looked really pained then, like he had sometimes when he was talking to Bob three hours earlier and they just weren’t connecting with each other. “Enzo, is it true that Calisto held you down while Zip punched you? Is that how it happened?”

“Yes, Sir.” I nodded. “Until Quantum came in and made them stop.”

“Dear User.” He whispered. “I’m sorry, Son - I’m sorry something like that could happen on my watch.” He stood and walked around the desk with his hands behind his back. “You’d think that as the headmaster of this place I’m in a position of power - but I’m not. In the end you kids will do what you want to do, and there’s not much I can do about it. No more than I could with my son. At best I can give a push, sometimes…”

I could hear him standing behind me, hear his slow, even breaths. I turned in my chair and looked up at him. “Was it wrong, Sir? What I did?”

“No. It wasn’t wrong, Son. Sometimes a fight will find you, no matter how much you’d rather avoid it.”

“What should I do, Sir?” I know I sounded pretty pathetic, but that’s how I felt. Deleted if I fight, deleted if I don’t.

“Your best, Enzo.” Laser said softly. “If I didn’t believe in you I wouldn’t have brought you here. I hope I’m not asking too much of you - it might have been better to wait-”

“No, Sir. Please - this is where I want to be.”

He smiled sadly. “Don’t expect everything to be fair, Son. Being smart and decent and courageous should be enough, but sometimes it isn’t. Some people will never accept you - all they’ll see is that you’re small and you’re the son of a Guardian and they’ll assume you couldn’t succeed on your own. Under better circumstances I’d have never asked this of you - you’d have been training with children your own age. But this is war…” He gently put his calloused hand on top of my head and left it there.

“I’ll be all right. Maybe they’ll leave me alone, now. Quantum scared them pretty good.”

“Perhaps. I’ll be watching, I promise you - but I can’t be watching all the time. Be careful.”

I nodded. “Uh, Sir… May I ask a question?”

“Of course.”

“Just so I know - what did Zip and Calisto say happened? Did they lie about it?”

Laser grunted. “Zip denied hazing you - he said they had nothing to do with it. He said you wanted to play a machine he was using and you punched him in the face while he wasn’t looking.”

I gasped. “No! That’s not true!”

“Enzo-”

“Look!” I pulled up my uniform and showed him the bruise on my stomach. “I didn’t do that to myself, Sir. I know, we- we’re… I know we know each other but I promise I’m telling the truth!”

Laser didn’t say anything right away, he just stood there with his hand on my head and staring at the bruise on my stomach and he looked older all of a sudden. Feeling silly, I let my shirt drop and looked down. “It’s funny - in all the time I spent with Bob, growing up - not nearly as much as I should - I don’t ever remember him lying to me. Not even a silly little boy lie about stealing a cookie or something…”

He stroked my forehead with his thumb a few times, and slowly took his hand off my head and sat behind his desk again. “You’re Bob’s son. I know you’re telling me the truth - and the loyalty of your friends does you credit. And I’ll tell you man-to-man, in your position I doubt I’d have reacted differently.”

I smiled and he smiled back, a little. It was nice to hear him say ‘man-to-man’, not to mention ‘Bob’s son’. “That’s Laser telling you that, Enzo. As Headmaster, I’m telling you that fighting is against the rules - period. As the evidence supports your claims of self-defense we’ll consider this a verbal warning and I won’t note it on your permanent record.”

“Thank you, Sir.” I breathed a deep sigh of relief.

“And now I’ll tell you something, both as Headmaster and as Laser - if Quantum hadn’t walked in on you, you could have been beaten badly - seriously injured. Do you understand that, Son?”

“Someone else might have stopped them, if they saw what was happening. There were other cadets there-”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Not much to hang your hopes on, is it?”

“No.” I said softly. “I know it could have been really bad.”

“Just be careful, all right? Please - be careful.”

“I will, Sir. What will happen to Zip and Calisto?”

“Their punishment is none of your concern, Cadet.”

“Sorry, Sir!”

Laser sighed wearily. “They’ll be punished, I promise you. Hazing is a very serious matter, and as for the fighting… There are limits to what I will tolerate. I can’t punish cowardice, but cowardice is its own punishment, in the end.”

“Yes, Sir.” I knew then that we - both of us - were in a similar bind. He had to punish them, but punishing them would bring a set of problems all its own. I knew it would make Zip and Calisto hate me even more. And Laser knew he couldn’t protect me, any more than Mouse or Ray or anyone else.

“That’s all for today, Enzo. Go on and get yourself some dinner, now - you’re a growing lad.”

“Thank you.” I stood up and saluted and he saluted back, and even though I know it wasn’t appropriate I smiled at him. I couldn’t help it, I still saw a little of Bob whenever I looked at him and besides, he looked miserable.

Laser chuckled and slapped me on the shoulder. “Go on, then. And be careful - keep your cool, whatever happens, and you’ll be all right.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome, Son. Dismissed.” I saluted again and left him on his office, and it was weird but right then I kinda felt sorry for him. He seemed like he had a lots of things he regretted. And a lot of doubts in his processor. Maybe I just understood him a little better than I had.

When I got back to the main entrance hall Linux and Patch were waiting for me. I smiled when I saw them and waved. Patch immediately ran over to me, looking worried. “Enzo! What happened, is everything OK?”

“Yeah - I guess. Crash, you guys - thanks! What happened?”

“After we talked I thought maybe I’d wait for you - see if you were OK.” Patch said softly. For some reason she was blushing. “And then I saw Calisto come out of Laser’s office and I got worried.”

“Thanks.” I grinned. Linux was sort of leaning against the wall, silently. “You too, Buddy - that was awesome!”

“Oh, uh - thanks.”

“Why’d you do it, Dude?”

He shrugged. “I dunno. I felt really bad about what happened… You know. And I wanted to make sure someone else backed up your story. You’re a really good guy and I owed you big time after-” he looked over at Patch. “I owed you.”

I held out my hand. “We’re even now. That was totally high density, walking into Laser’s office like that. Both of you.”

“Maybe.” Linux smiled awkwardly and shook my hand.

“You were so great to me in that game - I guess I owed you, too.” Patch said. “You were so nice to me, and Calisto was such a jerk…”

“So - you’re not expelled, are you?” Linux asked.

“No. I got a warning.”

“What about those two nulls?”

I shrugged. “Dunno. Guess it’s not up to me - whatever happens, they’ll be even madder than before.”

Linux paled again. “I hope they just leave you alone.”

“Me too! I don’t wanna fight ‘em again, I know that much.”

“You shouldn’t even have got a warning! None of this was your fault!”

“I know, Patch. But it might’ve been even worse except for you guys. And Laser’s just doing his job - I broke the rules.”

“Dude - you call him Laser?”

“Um - no, ‘course not! I call him Headmaster, but Laser’s his name so I guess I say it sometimes when I talk about him.” The last thing in the net I needed was sprites finding out I was Laser’s ‘grandson’ - being Bob’s kid had gotten me in enough trouble already. I was eager to change the subject. “So, uh… You guys know each other?”

“We just met in the office.” Patch shrugged. “We decided to wait for you.”

“Right.” Linux said softly.

“You wanna go get some food? I’m starving!”

“Good idea!” he nodded eagerly.

“Let’s do it.” There was only one mess where we could all eat together, and we were already in the building so it was an easy choice. I was still a little stunned that Linux and especially Patch had done what they did - it was amazing what you’d do for a sprite you hardly knew, sometimes. We were bonded, now - when you put yourself on the line for somebody that says more than any words can.

Once we’d all gotten our food and sat down at one of the round tables I finally found myself starting to relax after the meeting with Laser. “Thanks again you guys. You might’ve saved my butt in there.”

“Laser wouldn’t have come down too hard on you.” Linux said. “I bet he’s smart enough to know it wasn’t your fault.”

“He’s smart - but it would still have been my word against theirs. You guys are both totally alphanumeric.”

“Thanks.” Patch said, blushing again. Maybe it was just a redhead thing.

“I owed you. After before.”

I punched Linux in the shoulder. “No way, Dude. We’re buds now - gotta stick together, right?”

“Sure.” He smiled tentatively. He turned to Patch and now he started blushing, too. “So, uh… Where are you from?”

“We lived in the Supercomputer, before Daemon.”

“Really? That’s so cool - us too! We- Oops!” Linux knocked over his energy shake , and it spilled all over the table. “Crash!”

“No biggie.” I dashed over the counter and grabbed a handful of napkins. “No problem, I got it.”

“Thanks.” He sighed.

“Wanna get another one?”

“Naw - I’d prob’ly spill that one too.”

I giggled. “You crack me up sometimes.” I turned and was a little surprised to find Patch was staring at me. Kinda gave me the jaggies. “Uh - what’s up?”

“Nothing.” She smiled. “I’m just really grateful for how you helped me in that game. I know I was basic-”

“Naw - you weren’t basic. You shoulda seen me in my first game - I was pathetic!”

“You’re just being nice.”

“No, I’m not!”

“You’re always so nice…”

“Uh - thanks. But it’s no biggie - Bob was really nice to me when I first started going into games, and I know I wasn’t very good either. Not that you aren’t good, I mean-”

“You’re awesome.”

“Uh… Thank you. But, uh, you really helped me out today, so...”

“I’d help you anytime, Enzo.”

“Thanks.” She was still staring at me for some reason. I turned to Linux, just for a break, but he was staring at the table, stirring his food. “Not hungry?”

“Hmmm?”

“You didn’t seem to be eating.”

“Oh! Sorry.” He took a couple bites of food.

“You don’t have to eat just ‘cause I told you!” I laughed. “I’m not your mother.”

“That’s so sweet - you’re worried about him.” Patch sighed.

“I’m not worried! I just noticed he wasn’t eating, that’s all.”

Linux sighed deeply. “I think I am gonna take off, actually - I’m not very hungry. I’ll see you back at the room, OK?”

“You OK, Dude?”

“Yeah - I’m cool. See ya back there.”

“Uh - all right. Maybe we can go down and watch a quicktime if you don’t have too much homework.”

“Yeah - we’ll see, I’m kinda tired. C ya back there.”

“C ya.”

“Bye, Patch. Nice meeting you.”

She didn’t look up. “Uh huh.”

“That’s weird - he seems low-res all of a sudden. I wonder why.”

“You’re a really good friend, being so concerned about him.” Patch sighed, patting my hand.

I shrugged. “Just weird, that’s all.” I want back to my dinner, which was starting to get cold. “So - how long did you live in the Supercomputer?”

“Till I was 1.0 - then we had to go away. My Dad was a Guardian, but now he’s infected.”

“Mmmmf. Man - I’m sorry. We’ll get him back some cycle…”

“I hope so. I miss him.”

“Yeah, I know how it is. My folks are deleted.”

“Oh! Poor thing! Was it Daemon?”

“Actually, no - they were gone a long time before Daemon.” There was a tap on my shoulder, and I spun and tensed, my processor spinning into turbo mode. I guess by this point I was expecting the worst whenever anything unexpected happened.

“Hey.” It was a cadet I didn’t know, a smallish black-haired guy maybe 1.8. “You’re Matrix?”

“Enzo Matrix, yeah.” I said, still on full alert.

He nodded. “Just wanted to let you know - I heard about what happened in the rec room. And I saw Zip. Good job.”

“Oh! Thanks - I guess.”

Yeah.” The kid smiled. “I know about what happened in the showers, too - and it took guts to stand up to that ouput Zip. I’ve been wanting to hit him for the last hour.”

“Dude - really?”

“He’s a null - a real CGA display. Like I said, good job.”

“Thanks. I didn’t start it - he did.”

“He always does.” The kid shook my hand and walked off.

“You’re a hero, Enzo!” Patch grinned.

“If Quantum hadn’t saved my bitmap I’d be a deleted hero.”

“Crash that - you could take those nulls anytime.”

“One at a time, I might have a chance. Not two against one.” For some reason her talking about me like that was making me distinctly uncomfortable. Still, it was nice to know I’d earned a little respect among the masses.

“You’re so modest.” Patch smiled and squeezed my arm. “I bet you would’ve kicked their asciis if you’d got really mad-”

“No!” I said it louder than I expected and she looked a little stunned for a nano. “Patch, I got real lucky - even Laser said so. They were beating me up and if someone hadn’t stopped it, I could’ve been hurt really bad. As it is I got a bruise on my stomach and the next thing they were gonna pound on was my face.”

I felt bad - she still looked hurt. I stared down at my tray. “Sorry - I didn’t mean to yell like that. But I’m a little guy, and even if I wasn’t it’s still not smart going around looking for fights. Bob taught me that.”

“I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to-”

“It’s OK. Sometimes a fight will find you, no matter how much you’d rather avoid it. I guess that’s what happened to me. But I don’t want to fight anymore - not outside of games, anyway! I hope I don’t have to.”

“Yeah - I guess I hope so, too. Maybe they’ll leave you alone now.”

“Maybe.” I smiled and quickly wolfed down the rest of my food. “I’m gonna take off - see if Linux is OK, he was acting weird. See you tomorrow.”

“Oh! OK… Do you, uh… You wanna have lunch, maybe?”

“Can’t - I sorta have plans for lunch.” She looked so depressed when I said it I felt sorry for her - maybe she hadn’t made any friends yet. “But I’ll see ya in Game Sprite class, OK? We’ll talk and stuff.”

“OK. We’ll talk.”

“Cool. Uh, Patch? Thanks again for tonight - you really saved my bitmap, you were awesome.”

She brightened a little. “No problem - happy to do it. I hope those nulls get what they deserve.”

“Me too.” I waved at her and took off for the dorms.

Linux was in bed when I got back, staring at the ceiling with his hands behind his head. “Hey.” He said listlessly when I walked in.

“Hey.” I grabbed his desk chair and sat down next to his bed. “What’s up there that’s so interesting?”

“Nothin’.”

“Goofball.” I frazzed his hair up and laughed, but he didn’t seem to be in a joking mood. “Wanna go downstairs and hang out?”

“Naw - you go ahead. I got a lot of homework to do.”

He wasn’t doing homework, but I decided to let that go. “Nah - I’ll hang out.” I leaned back and put my feet up on the bed, boots and all. No sisters around to tell me not to. “What’s wrong, Dude?”

“Nothing. Just tired, I guess.” He rolled towards the wall.

I knew exactly what his mood was, all of a sudden - I’d seen it often enough when I was in it. Linux was feeling sorry for himself. I racked my processor trying to figure out why. “Thanks for busting into the Headmaster’s office, Linux.”

“Sure, no problem.”

“Saved my ascii. That took a lot of guts, Man - weren’t you scared?”

He shrugged without turning back to me. “Maybe a little. But like I said - I owed you. I screwed you royally before.”

“No way.” Maybe he was bummed about not sticking up for me in the rec room, not letting me back in the room after the shower catastrophe. I patted his shoulder. “Don’t feel bad. Those guys are really scary - it wasn’t your fault, they could have hurt you pretty bad. Besides - you really came through in the clutch.”

“Yeah. Whatever.”

“C’mon. You OK?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks.” He finally rolled over and looked at me. “So what’d you and Patch talk about?”

“Patch? Nothing much - just about Zip and Calisto and stuff. No biggie.”

“Oh.”

I frowned. “Sure you’re OK?”

“Yeah.”

“Cool. Sure you don’t wanna go down and watch a vidscreen or something?”

“No, I’m just gonna do homework. I don’t wanna fall behind.”

“K.” I sighed. I grabbed my organizer and flopped down on my bed. “You output - I don’t wanna hang out by myself, so now I hafta do homework too!”

Linux giggled, finally, and opened his organizer. “Sorry, nullface.” I wadded up a pair of dirty socks and beaned him with them. “Hey!”

“Sorry - thought you were my hamper.”

“You’re really disgusting, you know what?”

“I’m devastated.”

“Maybe if you washed your feet once in a while…” The socks flew back across the room and I ducked them.

“Anyone ever tell you ya throw like a girl?”

“Byte me hard.”

“Output.”

“Tandy.”

“Whatever.” We stared at each other for a nano, then both busted out laughing. “Dude - you crack me up sometimes!” Linux shook his head and fell back in bed, and we both did our homework. Most of it, anyways.

* * *

Classes were going pretty OK for me by this point - to my great relief I was discovering that a lot of what Bob had taught me was really useful now. I had a head start over the other first-hours in a lot of ways, and I was glad of it. And really grateful to Bob for giving me the chance to learn when I was probably too young and scatterbrained to deserve it. But hey - I had learned stuff, ‘cause I was remembering it now - and in classes like Intro to Game Sprites and Virus Identification it really helped. I was acing them.

The other classes - the regular school-type ones - were a lot harder. I’d never been all that great at those at home and they were where I was having a hard time concentrating now. I’d be sitting in Fortran or Algebra and thoughts of home and Lisa and Zip would tend to creep in and before I knew it, I had no idea what the teachers were saying.

Fortunately for me Linux is pretty smart about that stuff, and he helped me a lot when I started to get behind. Since I knew a lot more about games than he did I helped him out with those classes, so it kind of evened out between us. Laser said we were a good match, and it turned out he was right in a lot of ways. More on that later.

Games were good, too - another cube dropped and I got to go in with three cadets I didn’t know and Mr. Bernoulli, the conditioning coach. It was a pretty easy game - Center Ice IX, the hockey game with the quicksand patches hidden under the ice and the exploding pucks. I rebooted as goalie but I didn’t mind - I always liked playing goalie, ‘cause you can watch everything happening on the ice in front of you and everyone is depending on you to keep the team in the game.

Playing games is nothing new for me but it’s still fun, and being on a team with four other sprites was different than what I’d grown up with in Mainframe. We played other team games, too - not the game cube kind. We’d go out on the fields and play soccer or football or softball, just to keep us in shape and get us used to being a team and working together. And to have fun, too - at the Academy it was OK to have fun, as long as you didn’t let your teammates down.

One thing I thought about a lot was what Mouse had told me - about how I might not be old enough to keep my priorities in order when it came to Lisa and my classes. Well, I really wanted to prove she was wrong about that - show her and everyone else that I was old enough to worry about stuff like girls and still take care of my responsibilities. It’s not like Bob and Dot and Matrix and Andri aren’t mooning over each other all the time, and they still manage to keep Mainframe from being deleted.

I have to be honest, though - I’m glad Mouse said that to me when she did, because there were times when I felt myself really starting to lose my focus when she’d pop up in a thoughtwindow, real as life - “You might not be old enough to keep your priorities in order.” Crash, it was tough! I thought about Lisa all the time, either a little bit at the edge of my processor or a lot, eating up my whole brain. We saw each other at lunch every cycle, but the scraggy thing was we didn’t get that much time after classes during the minute - we had lights out at thirty-hundred, our dorms were off-limits to each other, and Lisa was a pretty serious student, too.

The worst thing of all was that we couldn’t really do anything on campus without worrying about someone seeing us - sometimes we’d hold hands for a little bit, but that was about it. User, I thought about kissing her and hugging her and it wasn’t easy to stop myself from doing it, sometimes. I dreamed about her every night, seems like, and the dreams were so real sometimes that when I woke up I was sure they’d actually happened. It was pretty intense, I can tell you - like an actual pain in my body from wanting to be with her so much.

When the minute ended I don’t think my feet touched the ground all the way back to my dorm after my last class, and I wasn’t even using my zip board. Lisa and I were gonna have dinner in the town again, and that meant we were off campus, and maybe we’d walk around after we ate and find a nice quiet spot somewhere. That would be better than dinner.

When I was in my room, getting ready to go, I made a decision - I was gonna break out my surfboard. I hadn’t used it since I arrived, for a lot of reasons - mostly because I didn’t want to do anything to stand out and make it that much more likely I’d get picked on. But I’d had a couple of good cycles without any problems in that area and besides I thought maybe it would impress Lisa a little bit, so I decided to go for it.

I wore a shirt I’d never worn before, one Dot uploaded for my birthday. It was a black button-up shirt with a collar, and Dot said it looked really good on me - not like I could tell. It was a kinda grown-up style, though - not like what I usually wore when I wasn’t in uniform. Which was still most of the time, by the way - I love that thing. But I thought, this once, I’d try and look older and if I kept telling myself I was 1.7, maybe I’d act like it.

So I ‘booted into my snazzy shirt and my nicest jeans and I grabbed my board and tucked it under my arm, and headed out the door with a wave to Linux. Linux always looked like a drowned null whenever I was going out to meet Lisa, and it made me feel really bad. Not bad enough to ask him to come with us, though.

I was on the ground floor headed for the main doors right as Quantum was walking in. It was the first time I’d seen him since he’d saved my ascii, and I still wasn’t completely sure what to make of that file. I was really grateful to him but still kinda scared of him, too. He was so strong and not only that, he knew he was tough - you could just tell. If I was gonna use a big word like Dot does I’d call him formidable - that’s what he was. Not someone you wanted to mess with.

He eyed me and when I got a few steps away from him I smiled nervously and stopped. “Hey.”

He nodded back. “Hey, Sprout. What the heck is that thing?”

My board! “Uh… It’s a surfboard. You know - transport.”

“Oh yeah - I’ve seen Ray Tracer cruisin’ around on one of those a couple times. Looks like fun.”

“Er - yeah, kinda. It’s cool. His is a lot more sophisticated than mine, though.”

“He give that to you?”

I blushed. “Yeah. He and, uh, Mouse did. For my birthday a couple hours ago.”

Quantum chuckled and shook his head. “You and your friends in high places, Kid!”

“No big deal, he-”

“Chill! I don’t care, I was just asking. Big night on the town? Hot date?”

I giggled. “N-no - just having dinner. Y’know - no classes tomorrow and everything…”

“Yeah, well - don’t stay out all night, Sprout.”

“No! I won’t.”

“Good.” He chuckled again. “If you get back in time, stop by my room - 115. Couple guys are comin’ over, we’re gonna hang out. About twenty-nine-hundred, something like that.”

I gaped at him for a nano. Was he inviting me to a party? Puny little rugrat me? “Uh…”

“Maybe I’ll see ya.” He popped me on the shoulder and I gritted my teeth, trying not to wince. “Later, Kid.”

“Later. I, uh… I’ll be there!”

“You do that.” I stared after him for a nano, rubbing my shoulder. Basic - Quantum inviting me to a party! That was the last thing in the net I expected to happen. I thought about calling after him to see if I could invite Linux, but he was on the elevators and the doors were closing and besides, I didn’t want to press my luck.

I tossed my board out in front of me and hopped on. It felt strange, at first - it’d only been a couple of minutes since I surfed but I was rusty, and the surfboard was totally different than a zip board. So much faster, quieter, and so much more sensitive to every move you make. At first I tried to control it like a zip, just out of habit, and ended up making some wild, out-of-control turns. I decided to practice for a few millis before I headed over to the girls’ dorm, just so I wouldn’t look like a total geek in front of Lisa.

Once I’d more or less gotten my feel back I took a big looping turn and headed towards the girls’ dorm. A few cadets stared at me as I surfed through the campus and that made me a little self-conscious, but it felt really good to be back on my board. It felt like home - Mainframe I mean - ‘cause that was the only place I’d ever ridden it. Maybe this place was even starting to feel like home, a little, if my mood was just right.

Lisa was waiting for me outside the dorm, dressed in burgundy slacks and a shirt or blouse or something with puffy sleeves. I dunno how she did it, but every color she picked seemed to work perfectly for her. Maybe I’m biased. I waved to her and turned a little more sharply than I probably had to and glided to a perfect stop right in front of her. “Hey!”

“Hey!” she grinned. “Where in the net did you get this?”

“What - my board? Ray and Mouse gave it to me when I turned 1.0. Cool, huh? Like it?”

“Yeah - it’s graphical.” She ran her hand over the board, right by my feet. “You’re full of surprises, aren’t you?”

“I guess. User - you look really beautiful.”

“Thank you!”

I held out my hand. “I thought maybe we could ride to town on this - that is, if you don’t mind. It’s really fun!” So much for acting 1.7 - being close to Lisa I was about 1.1 again.

“Cool!”

She took my hand. “You better stand behind me ‘cause otherwise I, uh, won’t be able to see around you.” I gave a tug and she hopped onto the board behind me. “Grab my waist and hang on tight, OK? This thing doesn’t come with a parachute!”

“OK!” Lisa laughed.

I was very aware of her hands on my hips. I hadn’t thought of that. “Uh… All set?”

“All set.”

“I’ll go kinda slow, OK? And I won’t go too high up or anything.”

“Go as high as you like!”

“Here we go…” I grinned over my shoulder and took off, slower than slow. I realized now that this was the first time I’d ever steered with someone else on the board, which probably made it kinda stupid for me to be doing what I was doing since it totally changed the way the board felt under me and reacted on the turns and stuff. But I was committed…

“Kick it out!” Lisa giggled. “Don’t worry about me, I’m not scared!”

“K!” I sped up a little, avoiding any sharp corners or anything.

“Graphical! This is a total blast!”

“Yeah - it’s pixelacious!” I shouted back, and it was. It felt awesome up there, sharing something I really loved with Lisa. I almost fell off the board, though, when I felt a quick kiss on my cheek. “Uh… Thanks!”

“Hey!”

I looked around, trying to find the source of the voice. Off to my left I saw two figures on a surfboard headed towards us. I slowed to a hover. “Hey.”

“What’s all this, then?” Mouse grinned, gripping Ray tightly by the waist.

I felt myself blushing, wondering if they’d seen the kiss. “Hi Mouse. Hey, Ray. This is uh, my friend. Lisa.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Lovely Lady.” Ray took Lisa’s hand and kissed it regally. That made Lisa giggle like crazy.

“Hey there, Darlin’. You two goin’ off for a night on the town?”

“We’re having dinner and stuff. You know.” I smiled, trying to hide my nervousness.

“Stuff, huh?”

“Looking pretty good on that board, Lad. You sure you’re ready for passenger service?”

“I’m being careful, Ray. Taking it nice and slow.”

“You be sure and do that, Handsome.” Mouse chuckled.

“You two are Enzo’s friends?” Lisa asked, sounding a little awed.

“We gave him that board, back in Mainframe when he was a nipper.” Ray smiled. “Haven’t seen much of you since then, have we Kiddo?”

“Not enough. Like twice in three hours before I came here.”

“Is the little devil sweepin’ you off your feet, Honey?” Mouse asked slyly.

“Mouse! We’re just friends, stop it...” This was more than a little awkward for me - I mean, technically speaking me and Lisa weren’t doing anything wrong but even so, Mouse and Ray were teachers as well as friends. I wasn’t sure just exactly where we stood with all this.

“He’s trying. He’s a charmer.” Lisa giggled. I doubt very much my face could have gotten any redder.

“Well - you friends enjoy your supper.” Mouse smiled. “Remember our chat, Pumpkin - you hear me?”

“I will Mouse - promise.”

“All right, then. Have fun, you two.”

“You two too.” Ouch! Geek city…

“Nice to meet you, Lovely Lady. Maybe we’ll see you in town.” Ray flashed a dazzling grin and bowed, and he and Mouse took off towards the city.

“Wow - he can really ride that board.” Lisa whistled.

“Yeah, well - he is the surf baud. He gave me some lessons back home but I’m nowhere near as good as he is.”

“What a stud! I wish I had a class with him.”

“Oh, Uh… Next hour I guess.” I’d always known Ray was an unbelievably cool guy, but this was the first time I realized just how uncool I looked compared to him.

“I still like you better though.” Lisa giggled. “Are we surfing or not? I’m getting hungry!”

“Sorry!” I gave the board a kick and we took off again, and I resisted the urge to try and surf like Ray. I guess my desire to show off for Lisa was less than my terror of wiping out and smearing us all over the sidewalk. Once I got off campus and we made a straight line towards town, though, I was able to get up some pretty good speed. I felt the wind in my hair and Lisa’s hands on my hips and heard her laughing and giggling in my ear and felt like the luckiest kid that ever compiled.

* * *

Dinner was nice - we had baud burgers and ram chips and energy shakes and sometimes while we were eating I’d reach over and touch Lisa’s hand and she’d smile and not say anything. After dinner we held hands and walked around the streets, looking in a few shops even though I was really only paying attention to Lisa anyway. I was already thinking about where we were gonna go afterwards.

There was a little park near the edge of town, just a few directory trees and some grass and benches and a little data pond. It was small but it was nice - quiet and not crowded and when it was dark, I suggested that we walk through there and Lisa giggled and said OK. So we walked through the park and I spotted a nice bench under a tree near the pond. I steered Lisa over there and we sat down.

“Why Enzo.” She grinned. “I think you’re starting to have a one-track processor.”

“What?”

“Nothing. It’s all right.”

“I just like being with you.” I sighed. “Just us. You’re incredible.”

“Enzo…” She brushed my hair out of my eyes. “I just can’t believe how sweet you are sometimes.”

“It’s true. You are.”

She kept brushing her fingers through my hair, driving me offline. “You look very handsome tonight, Enzo.”

“Really?”

“Sure! I’ve never seen you dressed up before. It’s nice.”

“I… I don’t do it very often.” I resolved right then and there to do it more often from then on.

“If you want. It’s not important.”

“If you like it, I will.”

“Stop that!” she giggled. “I like you just fine any way you dress. You look cute in your uniform, too.”

“Thanks.” I started to brush my hand through her gold hair too, just to see if it felt as good as hers did in mine. It did. “Uh - Lisa?”

“Hmmm?”

“Could I kiss you? Is it OK?”

“Hmmm. Let’s see... Yes - I think so!”

“Alphanumeric!” I grinned and she grinned back, and I pursed my lips and went in to kiss her but I guess I got anxious and we were going too fast, and our noses bumped. “Oof!”

“Sorry!” Lisa giggled.

“Omigosh - you OK?”

“Fine!”

“Sorry. Can I… Can I try again?”

“Please do.” I took a deep breath and inched forwards, a lot slower this time. Kisses always seem better when they’re slow, anyways. I didn’t really plan it but my hands went out and I held her cheeks real softly, and I was still holding her when I tilted my head and our lips touched and my processor exploded. It was amazing.

“Wow.” I gasped.

“That was nice.” Lisa purred, and she put her hands on my neck and drew me in again and my hands were still on her cheeks, so we were touching with all our hands when we kissed again, and it was even more incredible than the last time, maybe. And I discovered that if I pulled away just a little we could take tiny little breaths and rest our lips for a nano and then go right back to kissing again, and that way we could kiss forever with only a little break so it was almost like one long kiss. I’m surprised it wasn’t daylight again by the time we were finished.

“Cursors and crashes…”

“You sure you’ve never kissed anyone before?” Lisa whispered, smiling. Her lipstick was smeared a little.

“No!”

“Could’ve fooled me.” She kissed me on the cheek and put her head on my shoulder and I wrapped my arms around her. “Tell me about Mainframe. What’s it like?”

“It’s amazing.” I sighed, still feeling very light-headed. Too light-headed to talk long, actually. “Hey - you promised you’d tell me about where you came from next time.”

“Oh, Enzo…”

“C’mon - tell me! I really wanna know about you. Please?”

“It’s not very interesting.”

“Everything about you is interesting. Besides - I told you all kinds of stuff about me, so it’s only fair.”

“Hmmm.” She shifted around a little, sort of settling herself down in my arms. “I guess you’re right, Cutie. What do you want to know?”

What didn’t I? “Everything. Anything you want. I don’t even know where you came from.”

“My home system is called Wozniak. Ever heard of it?”

“Uh… I think so. Sure, yeah!”

Lisa giggled. “You don’t have to lie to me, Enzo - there’s no reason you should have. It’s nothing special.”

I bet I blushed, but she couldn’t see me. “Sorry! I guess I haven’t. Is it nice?”

“It’s home.” She sighed. “I grew up there. It’s a small system with ports to the net, like a thousand others. But I could show you a lot of special places you’d never know about unless you’d lived there your whole life.”

“Yeah.” I whispered, thinking of Mainframe. “Maybe I’ll get to see it some cycle.”

“Maybe. I’d love that.”

“Uh… If you guys had ports to the net, how come you weren’t, you know - infected?”

Lisa stiffened for a nano, but then she looked up and smiled. “My Mom. She’s a hacker - one of the best. She set up security protocols and safeguarded the URLs. So we’ve been lucky so far. We joined the alliance of free systems and that’s how I found out the Academy was online.”

“Super cooled! I bet her and Mouse could have some interesting chats - she’s the best hacker I’ve ever seen.”

“So I hear! Maybe my Mom will come for a visit sometime and they can compare notes.” Lisa sat up and kissed my cheek. “I want her to meet you, too.”

“Really?”

“Sure, Cutie.”

“Wow.” I kissed her on top of the head, which was starting to become one of my new favorite things to do. “Bob and Dot are coming next semester, he’s gonna teach a class - so you can meet them then!”

“Graphical. What class?”

“Web survival skills. I guess we’ll both be taking it.” Lisa stiffened again, just a little. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.” She said softly. “How… How does Bob know about web survival?”

“Uh…” Another unpleasant part of my past - it seemed like there was no end to those, sometimes. Except it wasn’t even really my past. “He was trapped out there, I guess. Megabyte - he’s a virus - shot him out there and closed the portal, and he was lost for a long time. My br-… Uh, he found his way home finally. But he had to survive out there for a long time. I don’t ask him about it very much…”

“Wow.” Lisa hugged me, and I hugged her, and neither of us talked for a few nanos.

“Where’s your Dad?” I asked, finally.

After a few nanos of silence, she answered “Gone.” in a soft voice. “It’s just me and Mom now.”

“I’m really sorry.”

“I feel bad about leaving her all alone. I hope she doesn’t get too lonely.”

“You don’t have any brothers or sisters or anything?”

“No.” she sighed. “Just me. But Mom’s got plenty to keep her busy, I guess - trying to keep the system safe and all. She’s an amazing sprite.”

“Sounds like it.” I kissed Lisa’s head again. “Sorry about your Dad. I know what that’s like.”

Lisa didn’t answer me - she didn’t say anything for a long time. I didn’t either - I just petted her hair a few times and let her think about whatever she was thinking about. I knew what missing parents was like. Finally she sat up and turned to face me. “I really like you, Enzo. You know that?”

Naturally that felt really good to hear - although after a nano I started to worry about why she was saying it. “Lisa, that’s… That’s alphanumeric! I really like you too.”

She smiled and kissed me on the nose, then sighed again. “You can’t ever tell anyone what I’m gonna tell you now, OK? I mean it - not anyone!”

“What? I… I won’t tell-”

“Promise me. It’s important”

I gaped at her. “Sure - I promise. I’ll never tell anybody.”

“Enzo… If you don’t like me anymore after I tell you, that’s OK. I won’t blame you. But even if you hate me you still can’t tell.”

“Lisa! I’ll like you, I promise! I’ll always like you, you’re incredible-”

“Don’t be so sure.” She looked away from me, down at the ground. “It’s wrong for me to even tell you - it’s not fair to ask you not to tell. But I like you and I really want to tell someone…”

“What? What is it? It can’t be that bad.”

“Oh, Enzo…” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “You remember how I said my father was gone?”

“Sure.”

“Well, he is - but he’s not deleted. He might be, I guess - I haven’t seen him in four hours.”

“You… You mean he just left? That’s terrible! But it’s not your fault-”

“Enzo! Just hush, let me talk, OK?”

“Sorry.”

“He did leave. I’ve only seen him a couple times, since I was born. Four hours ago was the last one. Enzo, my father- He’s…”

“What? What is it?”

“Enzo, he’s a Codemaster.”

“What?” I gasped.

“Yes. Have you ever seen one?”

“No, but I… Yes, sort of.” My mind was racing - I’d heard about Lens and the run-in he had with Bob, and he sounded pretty scary. But then there was Mister Pearson, too - although he wasn’t really a Codemaster anymore, I guess. “You mean he went back to the net and you haven’t seen him since?”

“No.” Lisa whispered. “Not to the net, Enzo.”

I frowned, totally confused. Then it hit me. “No!”

“Oh, Enzo. I shouldn’t have told you-”

“No! It’s… It’s all right. I just-”

“I’m sorry I told you, Enzo. I wanted to tell someone and I guess I thought you should know. I’m sorry.”

“Lisa, I… He’s from the web? And he’s your father? What happened?”

She smiled sadly. “He visited Wozniak. They can travel freely, you know - anywhere in the web or the net.”

“Yeah - I know.”

“Well - he met my mother. I don’t know what happened - Mom never told me exactly. But I think they sort of fell in love, basic as that sounds. And here I am.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah - wow. Enzo - if the staff knew about this I’d be kicked out of the Academy, you know that! I know you don’t like me now but please don’t tell anyone-”

“Of course I like you! Why wouldn’t I?”

“But-”

“I won’t tell. I promised I wouldn’t and I won’t.” I hugged her, tightly. I know I didn’t really understand what any of this meant yet, but she was Lisa and she was right there in front of me and that was all that mattered.

“Enzo, I’m different. My father - he’s part of me. Codemasters aren’t allowed to be Guardians, believe me.”

“You’re not one. He was, not you.”

“But he is part of me, Cutie. I wasn’t even sure myself… But the last time he came to Wozniak he… He took me with him. To the web.”

“Dude! You’ve been to the web?”

“Yes, Enzo.” Lisa whispered. She was clinging really tightly to me now, like she was cold. “I told you - my father is part of me. I have his code in my systems. I can do things, Enzo. Like survive out there, in the web. I was terrified when he took me, but I can survive it. I can do other things, too - that’s why they’d kick me out of here if they knew.”

“Wow…” I gasped. “How long were you out there?”

“Only a few cycles. I didn’t really want to go at first but it was really beautiful, in a way. He asked me to stay with him.”

“He did?”

“I was tempted. The web is an amazing place, Cutie, if you can survive it. But I couldn’t - I didn’t really even know my father. I’ve only seen him twice in my life, Enzo. I couldn’t leave Mom, she was my real family. I wasn’t sure he would, but he let me go back. That was four hours ago and I haven’t seen him since.”

I still wasn’t really sure what to make of all this, to be honest. But Lisa was still clinging to me, and she felt warm and soft and I loved being with her. That I was sure of. “That’s amazing. I can’t believe it…”

“My father…” she laughed softly. “I don’t want to be a Codemaster - they come and go as they please, and play their little games of ‘High Spar’ like they’re so important. I want to help protect places like Wozniak from Daemon. Guardians are the opposite of Codemasters, Enzo - they go out of their way to get involved. It’s their life.”

“I know.” And boy, did I ever.

“Codemasters never want to get involved in anything but their own little societies. They never use their power to help anyone. I want to be a Guardian - but I can’t be, not if they ever find out. They won’t let me.”

“I won’t tell. I’ll never tell. I swear, Lisa.”

“Enzo…” I won’t deny that it felt a little different hugging her, now that I knew what I did. Part of me was a little scared of her, but I tried not to show it. “You really are the sweetest thing, sometimes.”

“I want to tell you something, too.” I said suddenly.

Lisa looked up. “What?”

My ears burned. “I… I want to tell you a secret. About me. Since you told me something really big about you.”

“Enzo, you don’t have to do that-”

“I want to.” It felt right - she trusted me, I needed to show her I trusted her, too. “I know you won’t tell anyone. It wouldn’t get me expelled or anything but I’m embarrassed about it…”

“Whatever it is, it won’t matter. So you don’t have to-”

“I’m a backup.”

“What?” she frowned.

“I’m a backup.” I sighed. “A copy. I’m not the original Enzo.”

“Not… The original? I don’t understand.”

“I’m a backup.” I whispered. “Mainframe crashed, hours ago. It was Megabyte - that virus I told you about. He wasted the system, destroyed it and left it to die. Bob engineered a system crash so the User would restart and restore the system from the backup - it was their only chance. Matrix was there - I mean, Enzo. But he’d been in the games for a long time and his icon was in game sprite mode-”

“Game sprite mode? Why?”

“I’ll explain later. Anyway, the system didn’t recognize his icon, so it restored me along with the rest of the system. From the last backup. So I’m a copy.”

“Enzo - that’s amazing!”

“So if you don’t like me anymore, that’s cool. I know it’s freaky-”

“What?” Lisa laughed. “What difference does it make?”

“It makes a lot of difference! I’m not even the real Enzo Matrix!”

“But you have the same code, don’t you?”

“Well - yeah. But-”

“Don’t be silly. Kids are really just a backup of their parents anyway - a backup of their code. So it’s kinda like that. I think it’s cool.”

“What?” Part of me wanted to believe her and be really relieved - and part was sure she was just trying to spare my feelings.

“Yeah - it’s graphical. I think it’s great that you’re here because of something amazing like that, a whole system getting saved. That’s awesome!”

“You really don’t care? You promise?” I whispered.

“Not a byte. You’re sweet and cute as a pixel and I love being with you and that’s all I care about Enzo, promise.”

“Lisa!” I grabbed her and hugged her as tight as I could. “You’re amazing!”

“Ow! Not so hard!”

“Sorry!”

She giggled. “So now we both know something about each other. Is there another you running around Mainframe?”

“Well - not exactly. Matrix - he’s the other me - he was lost in the games for a long time, and game time is faster than real time. So he’s around 2.5 now.”

“Oh - that’s cool. I’m kinda glad, actually - I like you being one of a kind.”

“Yeah! Thanks…”

“So he’s the brother you talked about, right after your fight? I was wondering why I never heard more about him.”

“Uh - yeah.”

“So you have another you at home - but he’s twice as old. That must be kinda weird.”

“Yeah!” I nodded. “It’s very weird - but it’s not bad, now. I just think of Matrix like a big brother and it’s OK. We fought a lot at first but now things are actually pretty good. He’s a really great guy.”

“How could he not be? He’s you!”

“Stop it!” I giggled. “He really is, though - even though he’s different than me in a lot of ways. He and AndrAIa were trapped in the games for a long time, and it was really rough for him.”

“Who’s AndrAIa?”

“Uh…” That was an area I really hadn’t planned to visit with Lisa.

“Enzo! Come on - who is she?”

It was basic but I was really nervous, all of a sudden. It felt funny talking to Lisa about Andri. “AndrAIa is… She’s Matrix’ friend. They went into the game together and they were lost together. Now they’re sort of… Well, not married exactly-”

“She’s his girlfriend, huh? Is she nice?”

“Oh, yeah! She’s a babe - she’s really nice, and beautiful…”

“Beautiful?”

“Um… Well - yeah, she is. Not like you, though.”

“She’s beautiful, and I’m not like her. What a nice thing to say…”

“No!” I gasped. “Crash it, that’s not what I mean! She-”

“Oh, it’s all right. I know what you meant.” Lisa sighed.

“Sorry. I mean - I think you’re totally beautiful, Lisa. But AndrAIa is, too. You’re just different is all.”

“How so?”

I could feel myself starting to sweat. “Well, she’s big for one thing.”

“And that would make me-”

“Awww! No, I… Crash! I just mean she’s tall and stuff, and you know, she’s a grown-up and everything so she’s… I guess-”

“Hmmm.” She smiled a little. “You have a crush on her, huh?”

“What?”

“It’s OK - I understand. She sounds pretty graphical.”

“No, she…” I sighed, wiped my forehead with my sleeve. “AndrAIa’s the only girl I ever really knew, Lisa. Other than my sister, I mean. You know how there’s no other kids in Mainframe, like I said. She is pretty incredible - she’s beautiful and she’s an amazing person. But I’ve never met anyone like you.”

“Hmmm. Really?”

“Honest! AndrAIa is awesome - but she’s with Matrix. She’s just a really good friend, that’s all.” I knew that wasn’t completely true, even as I said it - but it was mostly true. And the next part was all true. “You’re totally pixelacious, Lisa - you’re the most amazing girl I ever met. You’re beautiful and nice and smart and I want to be with you every nano.”

“Oh, Enzo.” Lisa giggled and kissed my nose. “Stop it. I don’t mind that you think she’s beautiful - honest I don’t. You are a boy, after all.”

“OK.” I said softly. “You’re not mad?”

“No. And I’m glad you told me about your brother - I know it wasn’t easy. I don’t know why you thought I’d care.”

“I dunno. Every time I think about it I just feel like a freak.”

“Stop that.” She giggled and tweaked my nose. “My little freak - that’s what you are!”

“Oh, I like that a lot. Very nice.” She laughed and put her head on my shoulder again. “We’re just a couple of freaks, I guess…”

“Guess so.” I should have been jaggied out by what she’d told me, I know it - but if anything I actually felt closer to her, basic as it sounds. I guess it’s because she trusted me enough to tell me - and ‘cause I told her my secret and she didn’t seem to care. I guess being a backup or a codemaster - half-codemaster - is no freakier than being a game sprite or a 1.1 Guardian on your own. Maybe it’s not so bad being a freak after all, as long as you find another one who understands what it’s like…

Read Part 4 | Back to Guardian Blues