by Charles RocketBoy

Byte Six - Format

There was a great horror approaching for Bob. It was called The Day Reports Are Handed Out. And the last thing he ever wanted his parents seeing was his report for Mechanics because then they’d realize how he was really doing in that subject.

This would be bad at any time. Now, it would be devastating. His parents had not forgotten how he’d spent the whole night at Hexadecimal’s without telling them. There had been Words the day after it.

That was where Mouse and her great forging abilities came in handy. But when it came to Mouse, there was always the possibility that she wouldn’t come in to school that day. So here Bob stood, waging a silent vigil until her arrival.

“She is coming in today,” said Dot.

“You’ve only got her word for that! Trust no-one! They want to cover up who Number One is!”
“Mike? Shut up.”

“Hate to say it but I’m with Mike on this,” said Bob. “And that’s not a normal state of affairs, y’know.”
Dot sighed and shook her head. “If you ask me, you should’ve just dropped Mechanics cycles ago.”
“Ha! My parents would never go for that, they’re obsessed with me going into the family business.”

“Mine too,” said Mike.

“Really? What do they do?”
“Work in TV.”
“But you want to work in TV!”
“It’s the principle of the thing!”
“Look, Mouse is approaching the school now,” said Dot, pointing to her. “Now can you give up the vigil?”
“No! It could be an alias! Or an illusion! Or-”

“Remind me again why I go out with you.”
“I’ve got a great body.”
“True, true.”

* * *

Lessons came and went, as lessons are wont to do. Mechanics lessons came and went with much damage, tears and recriminations being caused by Bob’s ineptitude, which ‘Old Man’ Pearson had much fun pointing out on the way out to lunch.

“Are ye daft, lad? You don’t put a turbo-lock into the initiator! It causes untold damage, ye southern git!”
“I know, I know…”
“No ye don’t. Ye keep ruddy doing it! That’s the third bleeding time in a row!”
This went on for a while.

* * *

“I don’t take kindly to failure, Cyrus.”
He couldn’t meet the virus’s glare. “I didn’t know Al’s had a-”

“Silence, you fool! You should have been more prepared. You should have actually put up a fight. Now Capacitor and his little group will think we can be beaten easily. They won’t be scared away from G-Prime. We’ll clash with them again. All because you couldn’t perform a simple reconnaissance task. Just… get out of my sight.”

Cyrus ran from the bike shed, desperate to reach the safety of a crowd. Joining Megabyte’s gang had seemed a good idea at the time but now he was in, he couldn’t get out. And he hadn’t expected things to be like this.

Sure, yes, he’d known early on that the gang would hurt people and generally do criminal acts. That wasn’t what he was worried about. What he was worried about is that now it seemed likely he might get hurt, or found out. He’d thought he’d be generally safe. Instead he stood to lose everything if he stayed in the gang and stood to lose everything if he left it because Megabyte had the dirt on him now and he’d use it.

Still, could be worse. He could be one of the basics who got their GIGO fix off Megabyte.

Speaking of which, there went Mouse. Heading for the bike sheds with a grim expression on her face. Yep, however bad he had it, he could take solace in the fact she had it worse.

* * *

“Ah, Mouse! How nice of you to drop in.”
“You don’t have to mock me,” she muttered.

“I know I don’t. It’s just really rather gratifying.” He tipped three pills from one container into a smaller one, and handed it to Mouse. “Twenty creds, if you please.”
She stiffened. “It’s ten.”
“If you feel the price hike is too high, you could just not buy the product.” He smiled. “If you don’t mind the consequences.”
“Bastard.”
“Yes, yes, yes. The money, if you please.”
She folded. She didn’t have much of a choice. And as the enormity of the situation hit her again, all she could do was stare at the GIGO pills.

She shouldn’t take them now. Not at school. She could be caught or do something stupid.

She shouldn’t take them now.

She took one.

* * *

 Bob had heard from Dot that some of the Business Studies students were weird but he’d never expected to find them congregated in a huddle, Gavin Capacitor and Dot standing in the centre, and playing a funky rap track from a CD player while Dot & Gavin swayed in time to the music.

“Arrrr, yo. Arrr- solutions for working in a market that has accrued depreciation of upgrades and possible future market flux!”

“Sell in bulk and at discount to low-grade Systems and initiate a policy of diversification!”
A large cry of approval went up from the massed students.

Dot grinned and continued to sway. “Right, yo. Yo. Y- threat of exchange rates and interest rates that make foreign products/services cheaper than yours!”
“Find ways to lower unit costs to lower price while maintaining profit level or just lower price and take less profits if firm has price-inelastic goods! No, I mean price elastic goods! …arrrr, blast it mateys!”
A groan went through the group and they began to disperse. Dot was undoubtedly the winner.

“Hey, Dot! I didn’t know you were into… whatever that was.”
“Normal revision techniques are for wimps,” she said. “To lunch?”
“To lunch!”

* * *

Hexadecimal wandered about school in a slight daze. She could vaguely hear the comments made behind her back and notice the looks she was getting, but they did not register in her mind.

She wasn’t quite sure what she’d been doing for the last hour. Ah well. Couldn’t have been that important then.

And there was Bob! Bob!

Why was he with that other girl?
Oh. Dot. She remembered what he’d said about Dot.

“Hex! Hi!” Bob waved at her. “How’re you doing?”
As she watched, a halo appeared above his head. Orange and glowing. It grew, covering his body within nanoseconds and his whole form glowed orange.

It was very beautiful.

* * *

Hex was just standing there, her mask a wistful smile.

“Hex?” Bob frowned. “Hex? Uh, see you later, I guess.”
“Does she normally do that?” asked Dot once they were out of her earshot.

“She’s always slightly random but… she’s never just zoned out like that before. I dunno what she thought she was looking at.”
“Gave me the jaggies.”

“So, what happened in class this morning?” he asked, wanting to change the subject. He didn’t want to think about the implications of what the virus had done.
“We’ve got up to Worms in Biology. Sweet User, those things are ugly.”

There was a lot of chatting about various things, and they met up with the old crowd of Enzo, Matrix and so on.

At some point, Bob realized that Mouse wasn’t going to be showing up. This was troubling. Report Files were able to be picked up by students during Lunch Break so they could read them before their parents; this allowed Bob to get Mouse to alter his Mechanics report. But if she didn’t show up soon, he’d be unable to do it. And his parents would read an unaltered report and then-

He turned to a passing Binome. “Help me, please! Do you know where Mouse is?! Purple skin, hair looks like it’s radioactive-”

“Oh, her,” said Brenda the biker Binome. “Didn’t you hear? Got sick, threw up, was sent home. Probably nerves or something.”

“I see. Thank you.”

Bob was in the spam.

* * *

It took him a while to pluck up the courage. Finally, Bob opened the door to his home and went in.

His parents were waiting for him. They did not look happy.

“You lied to us,” his dad said.

Bob stayed quiet.

“You’ve obviously been altering your older reports. You lied to us and you’ve been failing Mechanics.”
Still quiet.

“Answer me, damn it!”
“Yes.”
“I thought we raised you better than that.”
“Are you even trying in class?” asked his mother.

“How can you ask me that?! Of course I-”

“It doesn’t look like you try."

"I'm not very good at it, all right, but that doesn't mean I'm not trying!"

"Bull." His father finally moved towards him, looking almost like he wanted to hit him. "You're not trying. This is your only shot at getting a job and you're screwing it up!" He gestured around the room. "Do you just plan to scrounge off of us for the rest of your life?"
"Wha- just because I'm not going to be a mechanic doesn't mean I can't get a job!"
"Oh, get real Bob!" he yelled. "The only chance you had was at taking over the family business but that wasn't good enough for you, was it? You had to keep your head in the clouds and get ideas above your format-"

He didn't want to accept the implications of this. He chose denial. "What are you saying?"
"We're saying that you have unrealistic expectations," said his mother. "You're a low format and you don't have the skills or functions to achieve all you want. It happens to people."
"And the only job you could get you've thrown away because you didn't try, and now what do you plan on doing?"
So that was the way it was. That was the reason they wanted him to follow in the family business. This was what they thought of him.

Frag that.

He couldn't, wouldn't, accept that.

"What I plan on doing," he said slowly, "is not listening to another word of this crap."
"What did you-"

"Shut up."

His father looked at him, eye to eye, glare to glare. And his expression set itself.

"You're not thinking clearly at the moment. Now I'll tell you this just once- if you walk out, don't even think about coming back."
And Bob found himself giving the same grin he'd seen on Hexadecimal so many times.

"That just suits me fine."

* * *

After taking a few steps around Kits, his arms laden with his stuff that he'd packed into cases before leaning and with no idea of where he was going to go, it struck him how basic he'd been.

"Nice plan, Bob. And you're going to stay… where, exactly?"

He had other family members in Mainframe but it wasn't likely that he'd have much luck there. He didn't know them that well and they'd side with his parents on this. Going back to his parents would be the most sensible bet but considering he'd just stormed out in defiance over their faith in him, he'd feel a bit of a prat.

An idea came to him, and it wasn't much better than his idea to storm out.

Ah well. He didn't have many other options.

* * *

"Enzo, please stop Frisket from trying to eat my work notes," despaired Welman Matrix.

The dog was dragged away from the office, whining all the way.

"C'mon boy, you know you're not supposed to eat people's stuff! Remember when you ate Matrix's trainers and core-dumped all over the floor?" Enzo thought for a moment and then grinned. "That was alphanumeric!"
Frisket suddenly turned his head towards the door and began growling, just a few nanoseconds before the doorbell rang. Enzo groaned; it was probably Daemon doing her User's Witness thing. That always resulted in cycles of philosophical and religious debate between her and dad, which always delayed the dinner.

He opened the door and found Bob standing there with bulky cases and puppy-dog eyes.

"Help."

A nano later, Enzo hesitantly called over to the office: "Uh, dad? Bob's having problems at home and just showed up. Can he stay here?"
"Hmmm? Oh, sure, sure," said Welman in the voice of a man who was not listening. A few nanoseconds passed before he said "Wait, who's doing what now?!"

* * *

Welman soon agreed to it (this time knowing what was going on) and Bob found himself getting a grilling from the Matrix family.

"Your parents really said all that?" Matrix shook his head. "You're better off out of there, Bob But why'd you come here?"
"Only place I could think of. Well, I thought of going to Hex's but-"
"You'd go random there?"
"That's it."
"Well, don't worry, we'll help you out," said Dot. "You can stay for however long you need, dad won't mind. Frisket, on the other hand…"
"Ah, don't worry Dot!" said Enzo. "Frisket won't do anything, will ya boy?"
There came a low and sinister growl in reply.

"Well, probably not."
Welman came into the room, looking like he'd found a Web Portal in the house. "Now, Bob About sleeping arrangements. Um."
"I thought I'd room up with Enzo and Matrix?"
"There's no room." Welman had his fingers clasped together and looked down at them like they were the most engrossing thing in the world. "And not much in my room either. In fact, the only room we can put you in-"
Bob and Dot looked at each other. And blushed.

"Indeed. But we have a sleeping bag you can use!" he burst out, still glad he could shelter his daughter in some way. "Um."

"This shouldn't be a problem," said Dot in measured tones. "We're sensible people with sound minds. We can handle this."

* * *

Neither of them could get to sleep. Being so near to each other, and in Dot's bedroom no less, was sending them very strong and irrepressible hormonal signals.

Both forced themselves to look at the ceiling, at Dot's posters on the wall (The Mainframe Strolling Players, a copy of a spreadsheet from Al's, a collage of corporate Icons, an odd punk band made of up Numerals), at the inside of their own eyelids and not under any circumstances the other person in the room.

Things were getting very tense.

"Dot? You still awake?"
"Very much so."
"So, uh… how about the Pong team, eh?"
"Oh yeah, they're doing great. Phong's a master."
"Yeah. Uh… Megabyte! What a cool guy!"

"He is, yes. Very."
"This isn't working, is it?"

"Not really."
"Help."
Dot finally gave a snarl of annoyance. "This should not be happening! I've never had this problem near you before!"

"We've always been in crowded public areas and with others. And now… we're in your room. In our pajamas."
"OK, so we keep thinking about sex. It's not that big a deal, right? It's just a Software Exchange between two Sprites. We can put it to the back of our minds and get to sleep without incident."
"You really believe that?"
Dot whimpered. "No."
"Y'know, when I came here, I was all full of angst about my parents. Why can't I think of that some more instead of… exchanging?"

"Well, you always were a bit estranged from your parents, weren't you? You always wanted to go beyond your set format. This is just you doing that, when you've already wanted to for an age. But… User damn it, we've only been going out for a few seconds!"
"We've both been perving over each other before then and you know it," he said.

"True. Well… let's try to get to sleep anyway."
It was a good few milliseconds before either managed it.

* * *

Hexadecimal slept, arms wrapped around herself as she did so.

She'd done another painting. Tried to. One of Bob and his halo. But it didn't turn out right and she'd destroyed it in a fit of rage.

She had an odd dream where she was running around Mainframe with a Paint Program and making it into such pretty colours. It was a wonderful dream.

She would try to paint it in the morning, only for it to not come out right And then she'd destroy it and cry and continue crying for a long time afterwards.

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