Written by Joshua Falken
Chapter 4 - A Young Woman's Night Out
The hollow sprite faced the corridor, uncertain for a moment. She could turn back yet. She shook her head. No. She would take that until the end.
She walked in direction of the elevators and pressed the calling button. While she waited, she saw that the door of the stairways was open.
"What am I thinking? I can't go down stairs being invisible." Dot thought, after she went to the stairs area. "I can't see my feet." Looking at the descending way, she saw the steps perfectly, even in the darkness. She considered that. "But... if I'm careful and walk slowly..."
She breathed deeply and she gave the first step. She didn't fall downstairs like a analog. Taking the second step, she felt as if she was learning how to walk again. Slowly, she arrived to the floor below.
"Alphanumeric!" She exclaimed, a little louder, for that small victory. She looked at for the sides, to certify that no one had heard her. As nobody appeared, she began to go down the second flight of stairways. More ten to go.
The guard of the reception of the building where Dot lived arched his eyebrows, when the stairs door opened up, as if by itself. When he approached to examine it, the door of the main hall, that was locked, suddenly opened up and later it closed also by itself, as if a ghost was haunting that.
A bright of fear went by the guard's confused eyes.
Dot walked in direction of the Principal Office, when a truck passed close of her, sneezing water of a puddle. The water reached her legs, turning them visible. The shines of the water drops delineated her legs as small blinking lamps.
"What?" A groggily voice was heard.
Dot turned and saw a homeless binome, that had been sleeping hidden in an alley, look at her. Or better, at her legs, since it was the only visible part.
The binome saw a pair of brilliant legs to run and to disappear, as the shines were weaker. Then, the shines disappeared completely. He looked at confused for a moment, before saying:
"Never again I drink ROM and High Energy Shake together."
He gone back to sleep.
Mouse and Ray has just left the Principal Office, after finished a complete checking in the defense sheilds. They were close of an automatic machine, when she decided take a cup of java.
The hacker stopped suddenly, looking at the sides.
"What is wrong, love?" Ray asked.
She frowned, her hands on the pockets of her coat.
"Did you already have the sensation of being observed? For more ridiculous than it could be?"
"No."
They looked at in turn. The few people that were in the street didn't pay attention to them. Distracted, Mouse actived the machine. None of the two noticed that the thermostat moved, and that the thermometer had gone up a little.
She let out a scream, when she had the first sip.
"What did happen?!"
"This java is too hot!"
"Did you burn yourself?"
"No. It wasn't so hot, but..."
Ray looked at for the thermometer: normal temperature. For a test, he also caught some java. It was normal. They looked at eachother, confused.
Dot laughed a little, in disbelief. She had moved away from Mouse and Ray and she was at some blocks away of them.
They didn't notice that she was beside them! Neither when she messed up with the thermostat. Not very hot, just enough to catch them of surprise. Sure, it was very infantile, but she couldn't resist! But it was good to see Mouse confused, for a change... The hacker had looked directly at Dot, but she hadn't perceived!
The sprite walked on the main street of Baudway sector, surprising herself that nobody saw her, needing once in a while dodge of somebody that came in collision route.
All of sudden, she feel dizzy. She hold herself on a pole. When that feeling passed, she noticed that she was in front of the Algorithm Theater, the few sprites and binomes standing in line to buy entrance. She was not surprised: since the Users began to upload the movies of their world to the Net, some of them made an incredible success, as the one that was now showing: "The Sixth Sense". She remembered the very favorable comments that her friends did about the movie, especially the ending. Matrix and AndrAIa got to see the movie twice just to certify that they had really understood the story. As well as Mouse and Ray: she said that she had not liked it, but she had not convinced anyone of that.
She sighed. She and Bob had thought of seeing that movie, but they had to postpone it due to an AVERT emergency... Later, so him as Enzo had watched the motion picture, and they loved it. But as well as Matrix and AndrAIa, they refused to comment the end!
She was in front of the entrance door, when she saw a couple pass through the turnstile. Her invisible eyes narrowed. "Why not?" She thought.
Dot jumped over the turnstile. The ticket collector didn't noticed.
She went until the auditorium, being careful to not bump into anyone, what was easy, since there were few people for the last session. During the trailers that preceded the feature, she stretched out her hand to try to do a shadow in the screen. Obviously, she didn't have a shadow. She should already have foreseen that, but even so... she could not wrap her mind around the fact that no one see her.
She shrugged, when the intro music of "The Sixth Sense" began, and she leaned on the chair, crossing her legs, to watch it.
The spectators began to leave, after the end of the movie. Without their knowledge, they had someone accompanying them, with a smile. Partly, because Dot had liked the film too. But also, because she felt... well... a different sensation... that didn't get to explain exactly yet.
She was going to the terminal station of one of the four train lines that tied the five hard drives, that now composed System Mainframe. When Mainframe had been restored, the User, besides recuperating Mainframe B and everybody that lived there (including her parents), had also installed more three hard drives, enlarging the system capacity a lot.
She was to cross the street, when a truck came in high-speed. Dot jumped back to the sidewalk moments before the near-impact. While the truck left, Dot beated with the left hand in the forehead. She was invisible! The driver cannot see her! If she had not seen that truck, now she would be... Dot shrudded, trying not to think in the possibility.
Crossing the street with triplicated attention (with the help of her intensified vision), she entered in the station. She looked at the clock, still lacked some nanos for the arrival of the train of Verhoeven-Wick Route, that tied Mainframe A and C. While she waited, she noticed two sprites, standing, awaiting the train too. Both they seemed known to her. One of them was a young man, of gray skin and blue hair, with a somewhat cynical expression in his face. The other one was a young woman, of silver skin and red long hair, who remember Dot of Mouse, with an bored expression that said that she would like to be in anywhere else. Curious, Dot approached of them.
Lynn Cog was with her patience in the limit. She had burst three printing deadlines and she had to repage the Mainframe Date-Times' edition that was being printed now... and now she had to deal with Roger Pagemaker, one of the cynical and sensacionalists reporters she knew. She complained to him:
"Roger, I don't have patience to stand your cheap moves, ok?"
With a malicious smile, he shut his mouth and turned for the other side. She was with her back to him, when she felt someone *very* close of her. Suddenly, Lynn felt a hand in her Ascii. Blushing in shame, she closed her fists, looking daggers to the responsible for that.
In the moment that the train stopped in the station, Lynn Cog narrowed her eyes and hit a punch in Roger Pagemaker's right eye, a punch so strong that he fell on the ground. Indignant, he asked why she did that.
"As if you didn't know the why!", it was her answer, before she enter in the train.
An old binome was seated in one of the train cars, knitting, when suddenly she heard a woman voice burst into laughter. It seemed that the woman had heard a really funny joke. Annoyed by the laughter, the old lady lifted her eyes.
She almost had a core.com attack. The laughter continued, but there was no one there! Shaking, the old lady disembarked soon that she could when the train stopped in the next station. The voice silenced for one moment, then she laughed again.
Dot was seated, close to the door. She dried her eyes, has just laughed a lot. First, the punch that Lynn Cog had given in that idiotic reporter, that importuned Dot since from the accident. Dot knows that she shouldn't had provoked the woman, but he deserved that.
Then the reaction of that old binome lady, scared with Dot's laughter. Sure, she should not laugh of the fright that she gave to that poor old lady. But she didn't get to avoid it.
Dot was to disembark in the last station before the train to cross the bridge that tied the two hard drives, when AndrAIa entered in the train. Surprised, due to the lateness of the time, and curious, Dot changed of idea. She wanted to know where the game sprite was going.
Later, AndrAIa was in front of the Susan Calvin Sporting Center. Before entering, she looked at the sides. She didn't get to shrug off that sensation of being observed. "Delete that!", she thought. She asked the security guard if Matrix was still in the Center.
The guard she informed that he was in the shooting stand.
With a sigh, AndrAIa went in that direction. She didn't notice that the guard had a problem to close the door, as if that had being caught in the ground.
She opened the door of the shooting stand and heard the shots that her boyfriend gave on the targets perfectly.
"Didn't you pass your bedtime?" She asked as soon as he removed the hearing protector.
"Huh? Hi, Andi."
The door opened up slowly again.
Shaking her head, AndrAIa approached him.
"I don't understand why you practice shooting until the still of the downtime. You have System Mainframe's best aim, Enzo." He frowned a little. Besides his mother and his sister, only AndrAIa could call him by his real name without that he got angry. vThe renegade shrugged. "If Daemon attacks Mainframe, I could very well to be ready to blow up her head."
She looked at him a little apprehensive. He noticed and understood the reason. He said, in practical and calm tone:
"I'm not looking for it. But I guess that if the situation arrives to that point, it's better to be prepared to stop her."
AndrAIa relaxed. For one moment, she was afraid that that violent rage that he had during the game-hopping was returning. That rage originated of several factors: his rage of Megabyte, the frustration for having lost that fatidic game, the fear of having failed with his friends in that moment, the frustration for not could go back to Mainframe... All this combined inside of him, turning him a bitter and extremely temperamental sprite. Even cruel, sometimes. AndrAIa cannot avoid of thinking, during that time, that was as if he was becoming a virus, the thing that he most hated. And she thought Matrix had also noticed that, unconsciously.
The table was turned during the end of the War against Megabyte, when they faced each other. Matrix was about to delete the virus, but he didn't. Matrix never said the why, but she thought that he had to prove to himself that he was not as Megabyte, to exorcise that demon of his soul... and he archieved that.
Not that his personality has changed all of sudden: everything that he had gone although had left scars on him. He continued a sprite with a very short temper, someone easy to irritate. But not in the way that scared her. Annoy her, yes, sometimes.
Matrix noticed the way how AndrAIa looked at him.
"What?"
"I was only thinking in how much you changed. Just that."
He gave a ironic laugh.
"And what did you you wanted? After telling me that could imagine me as that guy with the axe in "The Shining"?"
She smiled, embarrassed. That was another factor for Matrix control his temper: he could accept that AndrAIa could be angry with him, after all sometimes she had all the rights for that, but he didn't get to accept that she could be afraid of him. When she said after that movie, that she could easily imagine him in that way, going random and trying hurt her... Well, you can imagine the shock that he had.
They were in silence for some moments. Then, she said:
"Then, let's go?"
"Go ahead, I have to put a few things in place."
AndrAIa left the room. Matrix looked at for a moment to the open door, before catching a small box in the pocket. He opened it.
He become alert in an instant. He thought to have heard someone gasping. Blaming his imagination, he murmured somewhat tiffed with himself:
"You didn't have courage, isn't? Again."
He closed the box with the wedding ring, and left the room.
Dot shook her head, with an incredulous smile, while she walked through the Sporting Center.
Matrix thinking of proposing marriage to AndrAIa?! She knew how much they had passed together, so was to be expected that they are thinking in something like that, but she was surprised that was him who was thinking seriously in that subject...
When Dot stopped of think on that, she saw that was in front of the Olympic pool. The water was completely calm and clear. She placed her left hand inside of the water, forming a kind of hollow bubble. The contour of her hand was perfectly visible. She chuckled.
She removed her hand and she looked thoughtful at the pool.
A sound of a double click can be heard, followed by the sound something diving into the pool. A bubble in the form of a sprite was visible in the middle of it.
She swimed the whole extension of the pool twice, the arms visible due the sheet of water and the body visible because of the bubble that formed. When she left the pool, the water covered her completely, doing a transparent bubble of her. Ghostly, in a certain view. She smiled.
Dot caught a towel and she began to dry herself, while wet footprints marked the route that she proceeded.
Later, the hollow sprite went back to her apartment, going by the Kits Sector, of Mainframe A. She noticed that she was just a block away of the building where Bob lived. She stopped, an idea forming in her head, remembering the talk that she had in her apartment earlier.
"Don't ever think on that!" She murmured to herself. She turn her eyes to her boyfriend's apartment, that was with the light turned off. "But... it would not do any harm..." She said, in a whisper, giving up to the idea.
Bob woke up with the ring of the bell. Looking at the clock, he become surprised, due to the lateness of the time. Of surprised, Bob gone to angry when he saw through the peephole. There was nobody there.
As soon as he turned to return to the bed, the bell rung again.
"What in the Web...?" He murmured surprised, when he don't saw anyone again through the peephole.
When the bell ringed by the third time, he opened the door and he walked to the corridor. Seeking who was playing a joke on him. There wasn't anybody in the corridor.
Scratching his head, confused, he went back to the apartment. He imagined if that strategy game didn't have get him more tired than he thought.
After catching a energy can in the kitchen, he sat down in the sofa. Drinking the energy, he appreciated the silence of his apartment. Mike, his TV that couldn't be turned off because the remote control runned away, on that moment was in some system, playing the tour guide, for Hex. He laughed when he thought that Hex, a chaotic virus, was a spy for AVERT... after all, nobody would think that a virus, in special a chaotic one, could be helping them to defeat Echelon...
He got startled when he heard a noise coming from the kitchen. Placing the can in the center table, he teleported himself for there. There was no one there, the noise had been a pile of glasses that had fell in the sink.
When he returned to the living room, he was surprised when he found the energy can on top of the sofa. Shrugging it off, he finished drinking the energy, and he went to the bathroom, to have a good bath. Maybe he would relax a little. Closing the door, he frowned at the sound that the door had done, as if it had beaten in something. While he took a shower, the door opened up slowly. He didn't care. He closed his eyes for one moment. When he opened them, he thought see a shadow in the steam.
"But what the...?!"
The shadow had disappeared.
Leaving the shower, Bob looked at the sides, startled. He could swear that... He shook his head. And he laughed at the idea that he had.
"*She* would never do that." He murmured for himself, smiling of that ridiculous idea. The smile disappeared soon later, with a afterthought. "I mean, I don't think so..."
He looked at the sides, searching anything out of the normal. He joined his hands, and made a kind of energy net, of the size of a blanket. When he heard a noise behind him, he threw the net, that dropped in the ground. The noise was from the door, that beat when it close.
Laughing at himself, he went back to the bed. Some microsseconds later, he slept.
The tuft of hair on his forehead moved, as if an invisible hand had moved it. A small depression appeared in his cheek, as if it was being touched gently by a finger. The depression went down slowly for the neck, reaching his chest.
Bob didn't stir. Marks in the form of a pair of a woman's hands appeared in the sheet that covered him. The marks moved, as if they were massaging him. After it stopped, his lips moved, as if they were being kissed. The ghost of a smile appeared in the face of the sprite that slept, before he bolts woke up, sweating cold.
He didn't hear when the door of his apartment opened and closed by itself.
It was almost the beginning of the uptime when Dot arrived in her apartment. She entered, carefully to don't wake up her brother.
She didn't believe in everything that had gotten to do due to her invisibility... in the train station, in the movie theater, in the sporting center, in Bob's apartment (she didn't avoid a smile)... They don't even imagined that she was beside them! They thought that was their imagination when they noticed something! Only Bob thought that she could be there, but even so he laughed at the idea. He didn't could picture her doing that! All that did that she felt something that she didn't get to define very well. It was something as... freedom.
She stopped, thoughtful.
It is, that it was the only word to describe... freedom.
The invisibility had its drawbacks, as in the case of the truck that almost ran her over, or when Bob (without knowing, of course) had almost slammed the door of the bathroom in her nose... but anyway...
In the bathroom, the faucet opened up and a small puddle of water floated in the air and splashed over her face, turning it visible. With an undecipherable tone and a serious expression in her face that disappeared, as the water slipped away, she said:
"It is incredible what you can do when you don't have to look at yourself in the mirror anymore."
To Be Continued...