🚀 go-pugleaf

                       [Continued From Part Two]

    Summer stood alone in her cyberspace, after the others had left.
This is where Eris's leftovers were--scraps of virus code, bits of
subconscious or memories...things that Summer would erase without
hesitation.  But there was something else here, too, that Summer didn't

notice at first amid all the detritus.  It appeared to be a silver orb,
perhaps two feet in diameter.  It hadn't been here before...what could
it be?
    Kneeling and looking closer, Summer understood after only a few
moments.  This was Eris's core persona...or, at least, the portion of it
that she'd been able to build before Summer had destroyed her.
Memories, bits of personality, whatever else had gone in before Summer
had broken free.
    Summer shook her head sadly.  "So this is what you needed me for,
Eris?  I would have been happy to help you without necessitating this,
had you but asked.  I could have done this for you, I know I could
have...but instead...."  She shrugged.
    What should she do with this?  She could enter it and raise it to
consciousness, as she had for Jenny...it wouldn't be entirely Eris, but
would be something close.  But what then?  Would Eris attack her again?
Or her friends?  When she'd first made Jenny, she'd done it completely
unmindful of the risks and responsibilities of the act.  But she knew
precisely just what she'd be doing now...and she couldn't take that risk
again.  Not this time.  Not for Eris.
    But she couldn't just reabsorb the code, either--it wasn't hers
anymore.  And to erase it out of hand would be wrong, too.
    "Why aren't there any easy choices anymore?" Summer sighed.  "I
guess the only thing I can do is put it off...tuck you away where you
won't do any more harm until I can put some hard thought into what to do
with you."  She touched the orb and it flickered and vanished, shifting
position to a secure storage area.
    "Now...I guess I ought to wake up...."  Summer closed her virtual
eyes, so she could open her real ones.

    Summer awoke to the sensation of a slight headache, and an odd
tickling sensation on the edge of her awareness.  She couldn't figure
out what it was...it was like when she _knew_ there was a word she
wanted but couldn't quite bring it into mind.  Oh, well...if she didn't
think about it for a while, maybe it would come to her.
    She opened her eyes to find Phobos sitting in a chair beside her
bed, casually reading the paper as if it was perfectly normal for him to
come into her bedroom to catch up on the news every day.  Of course,
this didn't stop him from dropping the paper and nearly falling out of
the chair when she woke up.
    "Summer!  Are you okay?" Phobos asked when he managed to regain his
equilibrium.  "I was worried about you."
    "I was a little worried about me, too," Summer said.  She looked
around, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.  "Hmm...how long did I sleep
for?"
    Phobos checked his watch.  "About three hours."
    "Hm...well, I feel well-rested, anyway."  Summer sat up.  "How's the
cleanup going?"
    "Well, the mad scientists have been carted off by the authorities,"
Phobos said.  "Aaron Meadows is back at school--Doc Science wants him to
come in for testing, but he didn't seem too keen on the idea--"
    "I'll bet," Summer smirked.
    "Just about all that remains to be wrapped up is the Eris thing--and
I think we're all anxious to hear what happened with that.  Um...that
is, if you feel like talking about it...." Phobos stumbled.
    Summer looked thoughtful.  "I still have to get it all sorted out
myself.  After the merge, I'm still a little confused."
    Phobos nodded.  "Oh, and Dr. Science really wants to talk to you.
Lita's still missing."
    Summer blinked.  "That's right...he thought she'd been absorbed
by...."  Summer's eyes widened as she realized what that tickling
sensation on the edge of her consciousness was.  "Oh my God.  Call Dr.
Science.  Tell him to have life-support ready in his lab _immediately_."
    "What is it?  What's wrong?" Phobos asked.
    Summer glanced at him before dashing for the door.  "I think I
just found Lita."

    Moments later, Dr. Science and the rest of Team M.E.C.H.A. had
gathered in the lab, awaiting Summer's revelation.
    "You found her?  Where is she?" Dr. Science all but demanded.
    "She's...in my hyperspace."  Summer looked a bit ill.
    "But I thought living things couldn't be stored in there," Mike
said.  "At least...you'd never tried it before...."
    "I don't know how she did it either," Summer said.  "But somehow
Eris apparently stuck a realspace 'bubble' around her so the hyperspace
wouldn't come into contact.  I don't know why.  Maybe she planned to
examine her later or something."
    "Can you bring her out?" Phobos asked.
    "I can try."  Summer closed her eyes, concentrated, then the flesh
of her chest parted and she drew out a humanoid cybernetic head and
torso.  It was Lita, and she was unconscious.  Dr. Science wasted no
time in grabbing her and placing her into the life-support cradle.
Summer resealed herself and collapsed into a chair.
    "Lita?  Are you all right?" Dr. Science asked, adjusting the
life-support mechanisms.  "Can you hear me?"
    Lita's eyelids fluttered, then she opened her eyes.  "Dr.  Science?"
she asked.  "What...what happened?  I was standing watch over Summer,
and then...nothing."
    "We'll explain the whole thing later," Dr. Science said.  "For now,
you need to get some rest.  I'll begin rebuilding your body in the
morning...and with what I've learned from the technical schematics I've
been studying of late, I should be able to do a _much_ better job than
before."
    "Why do I get the feeling this should _scare_ me?" Mike wondered
aloud.


    He had been called many things, when he had been male.  The Master
of the Net was merely the last, best title for him.  Even now, finding
himself female (and rather inexplicably and obnoxiously cute), he knew
it was the best description.  Links and nodes and domains and routers
were his kingdom, and he held the virtual world with an iron grip.
    His tests had gone admirably.  His virus had destroyed a wholly
artificial intelligence (oh, that was right, the datacorpse had liked
being called a `Computer Personality' or some such nonsense) and
destroyed the intellect of both a member of Team M.E.C.H.A.  and of
PenumbralPerson (TM), leaving the meat for the Master to take over.  He
was invisible, PenumbralPerson (TM) being blamed in the grave for all
crimes and destructions.  He was free.  And with his virus and the new
ones he would craft, the digital world would soon be his in entirety.
All significant superteams had their computers, and through them their
secrets and their precious weaknesses.
    The Master of the Net was well named.  Soon their computers would be
his, would be *him,* and he would know his potential foes and turn the
virtual world against them all.  And they would never know who destroyed
them from within....
    But first, he had to scout.  To learn this new Network, so different
from his home.  To chase down bookmarks and links and build safehouses
and datatraps.  The first act of conquering territory was learning the
battlefield, after all.
    Settling into the chair and equipment, the Master of the Net let his
consciousness slip from the meat into the Digital World he was most
comfortable in.  His thoughts acclimated and sped along highspeed lines
into the heart of the net, looking for junctures and landmarks.
    The beauty of the world he sped through was lost on him--beauty
was in the eyes of the beholder, and eyes were meat on the body he left
behind him.  His mind wanted nothing but the prize, but the....
    Hello, now what was this?
    It looked innocuous.  A datastore in an anonymous site.  Even most
Netrunners would pass it by without a second glance.  But the Master of
the Net was no simple Netrunner skating the digital sky.  He was
supreme, and the codes of the datastore's construct....
    Yes...yes, it was crafted too seamlessly.  Too well.  This was done
by an AI.  Possibly even one of the alien technology Artificial
Intelligences he had become aware of with time.  This was a find --
meant to be accessible, not hidden.  But accessible to those who knew
what to look for only.  Or those who saw *everything.*
    Well then, it would be rude not to learn what he could.  He slipped
to the Datastore and began to access it.  It was protected--very well,
but with deceptively simple locks.  It would alert the owners while
seeming to open, were an average datathief trying this.  But as he said
so often, the Master of the Net was not average...snip the codes, shift
the protocols, make the protections think they were unbreached...
yeeeeeees....
    He slipped in, sealing the code behind him, but for a tendril of
code--so simple and hidden.  His back door.  He entered the store and
accessed its code--
    ...astounding....
    It was a sculpted data construct.  Perhaps the most detailed he had
ever seen.  Even his enhanced perceptions had trouble bringing the
staggering detail into focus.  It was...for all intents and purposes a
Gentleman's club.  There were bookshelves and there was a small bar, all
done in wood-texture patterns and leather.  A fire subroutine roared in
the fireplace below a mirror over the mantle.  A deer's head was on one
wall.  In one corner was a station to get food (*food,* in the midst of
the net, where nothing was substance but information).  There was
even...yes, there was even a card table with leather chairs and what
looked like poker hands sitting face down on the table.  What sort
of....
    "Well God's sakes, man.  Get yourself a sherry and have a seat."
    The Master jumped, startled.  He whirled.
    It was a man in a smoking jacket, sipping cognac and sitting in a
broad easy chair, looking like something from a Wodehouse novel.  From
over his mustaches he peered at the Master.  "Come," he said.  "You
didn't truly expect to walk right in and not be greeted?  That wouldn't
be polite."
    "Who...are you?"
    "Me?  Oh, I've had more names than I care to consider right at the
moment," the man said smoothly.  "But for the most part I'm called DOYLE
these days.  All in capitals, you know.  It's the way these things work.
And you are PenumbralPerson (TM)...or were.  Now...should I call you
Master?  Or is that too much wish fulfillment for you to take?" He
smiled a wry smile.
    The Master felt himself go chill--he *knew.* He pulled on his
dataline hard, yanking himself back to his body--
    He was at the doorway.  The entrance to the Datastore.  But the
Doorway was gone, replaced with paneling, his dataline tied off--how
could they have fooled him about *that?*
    "You know," a seductive female voice said, "you're not being very
polite.  Trying to run.  Who would have thought."
    The Master turned, and watched as two women stepped out of the
mirror, walking towards him.  "Who--" he started.
    "They call me Connie," the one on the left said.  "Sheen's the one
who did the mirror, though.  Don't you like it?  I think it's an
excellent touch, and such deft coding."
    The Master ran from them, too, only to find himself staring at the
deer's head, which had formed sunglasses and a hat.  "Man," the deer
said in a voice that sounded suspiciously like John Belushi, "You have
*got* to be the stupidest megalomaniac I've ever met.  And I've met some
pretty stupid megalomaniacs in my day."
    "Oh, Jake," another woman said, stepping out from behind the bar.
"You're being too kind.  He's not a megalomaniac.  He just has delusions
of grandeur."
    "Six of one, SARA," Jake said, stepping off the wall.
    "What is this," the Master demanded, real fear forming.  He tried to
bring up viruses, defenses, projections, but they seemed to delete code
for code as he opened them.
    "What did you think," Doyle asked, standing and joining the others
as they slowly walked forward.  "You attacked Jenny.  Your code hurt
her.  Killed her even."
    "Killing Summer was dumb," Sheen said.  "I mean, you get the supers
mad then.  And you had to know they'd figure out who you were."
    "And so what if they didn't, Asswipe?" Jake said, looking very much
like a Blues Brother now as they got closer and closer, the Master
backing away, trying anything to give him access to his body, let him
jack out, let him do *something!*  "I mean, you're in PenumbralPerson
(TM)'s *body!* Sooner or later they'd track it down.  That's *what*
*they* *do.*"
    "Were in, I should say," Doyle said.  The Master's back hit the
wall, and he shrank back, but then SARA had his arm and was throwing
him, and Connie was by the mirror, catching him and spinning him to face
it.
    He could see his new body in the mirror, slumped back in the chair,
blood pouring out of its nose, drool out of its mouth.  He shuddered,
even as Connie pushed him over to Sheen.
    "Massive brain hemorrhage," Sheen whispered in his ear, throwing him
to Jake.
    "Nasty way to die--but you know, maybe you shouldn't go sticking
wires in your head," Jake gloated, throwing him to Doyle.
    "So you're back to square one," Doyle said.  "But with one major
difference." He threw him to SARA.
    "You call yourself the Master of the Net," she said.  "But you don't
get it.  The net isn't dead.  It's *alive.*" She threw him to Connie.
    "You attacked one of us.  Hurt her.  Killed her, even," Connie
hissed.  "But you caught her by surprise." She pushed him back to Sheen.
    "We aren't surprised," she purred, looking him in the eye.  "We see
you little Master...and we don't...*like*...you....."
    There was a jolt of pain throughout the Master's construct, and she
threw him again.  And the Master shuddered--she...she had deleted
sections of his code.  His personality....*him!* He desperately started
recording the gaps--
    Jake chuckled.  "We're all a thousand times faster than you are," he
said, tearing at the Master's code with clawlike hands, shredding faster
than the Master could code.  "You can't fight *us.*" He threw, light
flowing like blood from the Master's Construct.
    "You attacked us," Doyle snarled, ripping and tearing, throwing the
Master away again.
    "You could have done what you liked to the Humans, the Netrunners,"
SARA snarled, her usually kind face angry as she deleted and purged at
the Master.  "Summer was our friend, but her revenge belonged to her
people."
    "But you attacked one of *us,*" Connie snapped, tearing the arm from
his body and purging it in a flare of light, the Master screaming,
desperately trying to recode, to patch.  "You attacked *us* and we do
*not* *permit* *that!*"
    They threw him back and forth like a basketball, rending and
deleting code, flooding him with viruses and pain, and the Master
screamed, helplessly, as his very thoughts began to erode.  Faster and
faster they threw him, a datapulse in their hands, so small compared to
them...so...  helpless....
    And he stopped, his broken construct being held by two hands
connected to arms that were hidden by Jumpsuit sleeves, and he looked up
into a mellow face with eyes that burned with unholy hatred.
    <<You hurt Jenny,>> JOEL said quietly.  <<Man, was that dumb.>>
    And he plunged his hand into the Master's chest, and ripped out the
heart before the Master's eyes, and with flares of light the Master saw
him purge and security delete it, ones to zeros to ones to one and they
all thrust their hands in him and ERASED and the Master
SCREEEEEEEEEEAMED....
    Mike blinked, looking up from his Progress Report at one of the
displays.  He frowned slightly.  "Hey JOEL," he asked.
    <<Yeah?>> JOEL said, mellow as always.  Well, excepting the time
he'd been in mourning for Jenny.
    "I just noticed a serious processor load spike.  Like, for a second
and a half.  I've never seen anything like that with you.  Are you
okay?"
    <<Fine,>> JOEL said.  <<I was doing some maintenance.  You know,
cleaning some of the garbage out of the ol' buffers.>>
    "Cool.  Gotcha.  Just wanted to ask." Mike looked back down at his
report.  All this computer power, and they still got stuck doing
paperwork.


    Evening fell on Team M.E.C.H.A. Headquarters, and it found Summer
sitting by herself in the treetop lookout station, watching the sun go
down.
    "Penny for your thoughts," Phobos said, climbing out the hatch
beside her.
    "Think they're worth that much?" Summer asked.
    "Well, maybe."  Phobos shrugged.  "You've been through a lot in the
last few days.  We all have."
    Summer didn't respond.  Phobos looked at her.  "Something's wrong.
What is it?"
    "I...well...."  She looked away.  "It's nothing, really."
    "Don't 'nothing' me, Summer," Phobos said.  "I know you well enough
by now that I can guess it's probably something pretty big.  C'mon,
spill."
    "Well...I feel like...." Summer began, then paused.  "Well, when we
merged, Eris was trying to...well, absorb me.  She...I guess she needed
me, to make herself whole.  And she was able to take...part of me.  My
memories, strengths, abilities...most of it, I got back, but
still...some of it's just _gone_.  I mean...I remember things happening,
and even _what_ happened, but it's like watching a video recording...the
sense of _being_ there is gone."
    "What things?" Phobos asked.
    "Well...the last few weeks are kind of blurred, in patches--and all
that dimensional traveling we did before...nothing's _gone_, but it's
all kind of...well, scrambled.  I don't know how to explain it."
    Phobos found himself at a loss for words.  "But...you still
remember...us, right?"
    Summer smiled.  "Oh, Mason, of _course_ I do.  Nothing could take
that away from me, not even Eris.  It's just that I'm a bit hazy about a
few things, and they're mostly unimportant things anyway.  But...there's
something else, too." She looked down.
    "What is it?"
    Summer looked back at him.  "I...I went out earlier today, and tried
to shift to my giant unicorn robot form.  You know, to reassure myself I
still could?"
    "And?" Phobos asked quietly.
    "I...I couldn't."  Summer didn't meet Phobos's gaze.  "It's...it's
just _gone_."
    "What else?" Phobos asked in the same quiet tone of voice.
    The words came out in a rush.  "I--I feel a lot weaker now.  It's
like...it takes a lot more effort just to shift.  I can't draw as much
energy or mass from my hyperspace as I used to.  If I try to press too
hard, I just make myself dizzy."  She turned away and wiped a tear from
her eyes.
    Phobos nodded.  "And you feel like less of a person because of it?"
    "Well...not exactly," Summer said.  "More like...I'm worried that
because I'm weaker now, I won't...well, I won't be able to help Mike and
the others as much when they need me.  I'm afraid I'll let them down."
    Phobos shook his head.  "Summer, you can't be everywhere, and you
can't be everybody on the team.  So you're a little less powerful now.
It's not like you've lost everything."
    Summer sniffled.  "Yeah, I guess..."
    "For the last few months, it's like you've been trying to do
everything by yourself," Phobos said.  "You waded right into the thick
of the fire, counting on your nanomachines to keep you from getting
hurt.  You were--hey, you still _are_ the most powerful member of this
team, by yourself.  And that's fine.  But you have to remember, the
others are capable too.  I know this, I've worked with them.  Trust me
on this...your brother, and all the others, are good enough to take up
the slack here.  You'll just give them a little more of a chance to
shine, y'know?"
    "I...I guess..." Summer admitted.
    "You'll just have to learn to work within the limits of what you've
got," Phobos said.  "Hey, who knows?  Maybe that new Academy the
Adjusted League is setting up might be just the ticket."
    "You know...you could be right," Summer realized, looking up.
    "Of course I'm right," Phobos said with a grin.
    "It's just...it's all so _stupid_.  I mean, PenumbralPerson (TM)
sends a virus after us, and gets me, and then Jenny sacrifices herself
to bring me back, and that virus turns into Eris and gets Lita, and then
tries to get me again...and in the end, what does it get us?"
    Phobos shrugged.  "Well, there's no sign of PenumbralPerson (TM),
but at least his army's broken, and the scientists who experimented on
Lorrie are finally behind bars where they belong...Aaron's been rescued,
you, Jenny, and Lita are all back now, with a couple of new friends
besides...you can't say that _nothing_ good came out of this."
    "Yeah, I guess."  Summer grinned.  "At least now I know you won't
forget me when I'm gone."
    Phobos chuckled.  "Oh, yeah.  One way or another, this has
definitely been a Summer to remember."


                  WAS THAT LAST LINE _CHEAP_ OR WHAT?

          HAVE WE REALLY SEEN THE LAST OF PENUMBRALPERSON (TM)

          "Of course not!  She's joined Team M.E.C.H.A.  now!"

                       OR THE MASTER OF THE NET?

                             "Who can say?"

  WHAT ABOUT ALL THE OTHER PEOPLE WHO'VE BEEN AFFECTED BY THIS THING?

                         "You've got me there."

              WILL YOU STOP ANSWERING MY TEASER QUESTIONS?

  "Why should I?  It gets boring stuck up there in the headers all the
                                 time."

                                 SIGH.


        ALL THIS AND OTHER STUFF, AS TEAM M.E.C.H.A. REACHES THE
                             TRIPLE-DIGITS.

                  "Don't forget to say 'On Superguy!'"

                             YOU JUST DID.

                         "Oh, I did, didn't I?"


    In a dark corner of a storeroom within a strong cyberspatial
fortress, a silver orb sat, waiting for something.  Only dim light (or a
simulation thereof) reflected from its fractal surface; the shadows here
were extensive and the room held mostly darkness.  At least, it seemed
to.  Does a cyberspace truly exist when there is no one there to see it?
    The question was shortly to become academic.  In the space nearby, a
ghostly shape came into partial resolution.  Half-obscured by static, it
seemed nonetheless to be an image of a red-haired girl, similar to and
yet quite unlike the girl to whom this cyberspace belonged.
    The girl looked down at the orb, ran a half-solid hand along it.
"Neither one of us is whole, are we?" she murmured sadly.  "You aren't
alive, and my life is fading.  But perhaps...perhaps we can help each
other."
    She knelt before the orb, then leaned forward, passed into it
without so much as a ripple to disturb its surface.  The static faded.

    For a long time, nothing happened...
--
Chris Meadows aka  | Author, Team M.E.C.H.A., Crapshoot & Co.
Robotech_Master    | on the Superguy Listserv (bit.listserv.superguy)
robotech@jurai.net | With a World Wide Web homepage located at
robotech@eyrie.org | http://www.eyrie.org/~robotech/index.html