This is a work of fiction, all characters are the property of
Mainframe Entertainment Inc. No copyright infringment is intended,
I've played with the characters and tried to put them back where
I found them. Please do not edit this story, or redistribute
without my permission. If you recieve this story from someone
other then me, please let me know. Any comments, good or bad
are always welcome, you can reach me at clearsky@cyberus.ca
Have fun reading, I know I did in writing it! :P
"Friendship"
Written by Clearsky
completed February 9, 1998
Enzo ran. He didn't care who saw him or where he was going.
there weren't many people on the streets right now anyway, most of
Mainframe's inhabitants were gathered in Kits Sector. The explosion had
destroyed the entire Twin City, along with all of its population; a
population that included Professor Alfred Matrix, Enzo's father. He had
heard the explosion a few nanos ago, and like every other sprite in the
system, had rushed to the VidWindow to find out what had happened. He'd
seen the first reports, and that had been enough for him. No one could
have survived the destuction; what had been the workplace for every
High Energy Sprite in the entire city was now a small island with a few
twisted buildings, half melted by whatever had gone wrong. No one could
have survived that, no one...
Enzo dragged his sleeve across his eyes as he ran in a futile
effort to wipe the tears away. His sleeve was already soaked with
tears, but he didn't notice. All he knew was that Dad was gone, and he
wasn't coming back, ever. The seven month old Sprite kept running, not
caring where he was going, as long as he could get away. He'd seen the
horrified sympathy in the looks of the binomes at school, and when he
fled the classroom, in the looks of binomes on the street. He coulnd't
take it, all he wanted was to be alone...
His foot slipped on something and Enzo skidded to his knees,
scraping one on the rough pavement. He looked up, and realized where he
was. "Level 31... the lowest level in Mainframe..." For a moment, fear
overlaid the sadness, then the grief came flooding back. "I don't
care... at least Dot won't think to look for me here." Remembering his
sister made the tears threaten again, she was probably going through the
same kind of pain he was, but he couldn't handle it... thinking of Dot
made him think of Dad.
A general noise came from the road behind him; someone was
coming. Enzo stumbled to his feet and ducked inside a fence, not noticing
the sign he passed: "Pearson's Data Dump." He took a running step and
didn't realize until too late that there was no ground under his feet.
He fell, screaming all the way, to the junk pile 40 feet below. His
impact made a resounding crash, and somewhere nearby, a pair of glowing
eyes opened.
*****
"Ow... whoa.. wha-what happened?" His head hurt. That was Enzo's
first thought, just how much his head hurt. He didn't believe
he could hurt that much, then the ache from the rest of his body
caught up with his brain. He opened his eyes and noticed he was on
his back, lying on a pile of degraded parts and some other stuff he
didn't want to look too closely at.. it might look back. He shoved
himself to his feet, then fell to his knees again as the system
tilted. "Whoa.. this is not good!" He grabbed a pipe and pulled
himself up, feeling all the various scratches and bumps he'd gotten,
then looked up.
"Whoa, duuude... I fell from there? I'm lucky I wasn't deleted!
Now, how am I going to get back up there?" He frowned, realizing there
was something wrong. He could hear a low rumbling sound not too far off,
but had no idea what it might be. "Hey, where am I? What's going
on, how did I get here?" He looked down at his sleeve, and vaguely
remembered wiping his eyes. 'Now why would I wipe my eyes.. was I
crying? Why in the Net would I be -"
Another sound, this time the siren of an emergency vehicle,
and he remembered, all in a rush. The explosion, the running, the
fall... and he remembered - "Dad..." he wailed, and unseen things
skittered away from the sound of his voice. "DAD!!!"
The sound of his sobs were loud; other then the occasional
faint siren, there was no other noise in the data dump. Even through
his crying, that struck Enzo as rather odd. What was dad always
telling him about the dump? He tried to remember, then realised the
metal plate he was sitting on was shivering, and he heard the low
rumbling again, but this time it was *much* louder. He looked up
with a gasp, and saw two glowing eyes staring back at him from the
semi-darkness.
The eyes didn't move and the growling didn't get any louder,
and instead of becoming more afraid, Enzo started to get angry. How
could that- that- whatever it was go about doing its normal job of
keeping the junk yard clear of intruders, when the Twin City had just
been destroyed? How could it not be affected by his dad's deletion?
Enzo got mad. He picked up a chunk of rock and threw it at
the red eyes, then picked up a piece of wood and threw that too.
Anything he could get his hands on he threw, yelling and crying,
angry that this thing, whatever it was, was somehow ignorant of his
loss. He finally found a length of pipe and ran forward, yelling as
he swung the pipe around, ready to hit-
A dog. Enzo blinked. It was a huge red and yellow dog, and
it was sitting there behind a pile of rocks and junk, chewing on a
piece of sheet metal. When the dog saw him, it jumped up and started
wagging its tail, evidently waiting for him to throw the pipe he
held. The dog barked, tilted its head and lolled its tongue at him,
then flipped the piece of metal it had been chewing back over its
shoulder to fly off into the darkness. The dog barked again, waiting
for Enzo to move.
It was bad enough that this dog didn't know he was hurting,
but now it wanted him to play with it? Enzo dropped the pipe in
disgust, then, ignoring the dog, he turned and started looking for
the way out of the junk yard. At the far side of the pit he saw a
light, so he started towards it. When he got to an open space a few
nanos later, he saw more lights and a shack with a ramp behind it
that led back up to the city. He wrapped his arms around himself and
shivered; it was dark and he wanted to go home...
As he trudged through the piles of scrap metal, Enzo noticed
that the red and yellow dog was following him. He spun around and
yelled at it, "Go away! I'm leaving, I don't want any of this stupid
junk, so leave me alone!" He started walking towards the lights
again, but the dog wouldn't leave, it kept following him as he
stumbled around in the junk. After the tenth time of falling and
scraping his knees, Enzo tripped, landing against a stack of boards,
knocking them out from under a pile of crates. The junk on top of
the crates was well over three times his height, and Enzo looked up
to see the entire pile of junk sliding towards him. He froze; he was
too tired and bruised to move very fast anyway, and there was no way
he would have made it out of the way even if he had been his usual
hyper-active self. Enzo closed his eyes and waited for the first
impact.
Suddenly he found himself yanked up and out of the way, and
being carried out of danger. Something had clamped around his waist
and was holding him suspended horizontally in the air, face down.
He wiggled a bit, and turned to look behind him, when he heard the
resounding crash of the junk pile come tumbling down. Enzo's jaw
dropped open in shock - if he'd been caught under all of that,
he'd have been deleted for sure... then he saw what was holding him.
The biug dog blinked at him and tilted it's head, and Enzo
almost hit the ground face-first before the dog tilted its head
back the other way and placed him on his feet.
"Uh... thanks!" Enzo stood there, still stunned by the
combined noise, relief at being alive, and the method of rescue.
He looked down at his shirt: there were no bite marks, and no pain
from the dog's teeth, in fact, he had hardly even felt being grabbed.
He looked back up at the dog. Its mouth was big enough that it
could probably eat him in three bites, and he froze again as it
stepped forward, bringing the end of its nose right up to his face -
then a huge red tongue flopped out and slopped over his face.
"Eww! Phooey!" Enzo dragged his sleeve across his mouth,
grinning in spite of his gloom, and laughed a little as the dog
pushed him down with its nose and licked him again. "Hey! Will
you-" Enzo couldn't say more, as the dog put one huge paw on his
chest and continued licking his face. "Ack! Will you stop- ick!
Hahaha! Stop it!"
"Frisket!" Light blinded Enzo as it poured over him. The
door of the shanty had opened, revealing a One binome in the
doorway; the light came from twin floodlights on either side of
the door. "What've you caught this time, boy?" The grizzled old
binome stomped down the wooden steps, shading his eye from the
light. "Who's this... a young Sprite! And not in very good condition
either. So lad, what're you doing in the dump? Trying to steal
something for kicks?"
Enzo shook his head and tried to shove the dog, Frisket,
off his chest. It didn't work. The binome noticed, "Frisket! Down
boy, get off the lad and let him get up." He walked over and offered
Enzo his hand, pulling the boy up smoothly despite the fact that
Enzo was taller then him. "So? Speak up lad - what're you doing here?"
"My- my name's Enzo. Enzo Matrix. I was just-"
"Matrix?" The binome shook his head sadly. "Ah, boy...
it's bad news I got for you then..."
Enzo sniffed and wrapped his arms around himself as he
looked up at the sky. Smoke was drifting far overhead, and Enzo
felt tears start slipping down his face again. "I know... the
entire Twin City..." He closed his eyes, not wanting to believe
it was real, and whispered, "Dad..."
He looked down at the touch on his arms. The dog, Frisket,
was bumping him with his nose on the one, and the binome had his
hand on the other. "Now, then, my name's Pearson, I run the dump,
and this big lump of data is Frisket, and you're Enzo. We belong
here, you don't. You should be with your sister - she's probably
worried sick about you." He waited until Enzo nodded, watching his
face carefully.
"Come on lad... let's get you home."
*****
Enzo looked out the window, staring at Mainframe splashed
by emergency lighting, looking towards the sector where the Twin
City used to be. There was almost nothing left there that was
recognizable, and most certainly no survivors. There was, however,
about 2 million more nulls in Mainframe then there had been before.
It seemed that his dad's experiment to un-nullify sprites had
backfired and ended up nullifying everyone in the city. Enzo rubbed
his eyes; he was too tired to cry anymore, and he was so sore,
every movement hurt.
He'd arrived at their home in Pearson's old car,
accompanied by the dog, Frisket, who wouldn't leave him alone. Dot
*had* been worried about him, and as soon as they had landed, she'd
run up and hugged him. That had started him crying again, and the
two of them had held each other and cried for about 5 nanos before
Enzo ran out of tears. Dot had looked at him and told him to go
get some sleep, and that they'd talk in the morning. She hadn't
asked him where he'd been, or if he was ok, it was more then obvious
where he'd been, and that nothing was ok. He'd been grateful for
that, and he'd turned to thank Mr. Pearson before he went inside.
"Mr. Pear- Whoa!" Enzo had almost jumped 3 feet in the air
as he turned and found himself face-to-nose with Frisket. He'd gotten
another face wipe from Frisket's tongue before Pearson
called him off, but that was allright. He was getting used to it
by now, and actually reached around and hugged the dog's neck.
"Thanks, Frisket, for everything." Frisket had nodded, barked and
jumped back into the front seat of Pearson's car. Dot just looked
stunned.
"My... that's a big dog."
Mr. Pearson just smiled. "That he is, ma'am. Now then, how
about the two of you go get some rest. You look like you need it."
The two Matrixs had nodded; Dot was still rather distant, but she
managed to say "Thank you Mr. Pearson. I had no idea where Enzo was,
and, well, thank you." The binome had nodded and gotten into his
car. Just before he took off, he yelled at Enzo. "And make sure you
stay out of the dump from now on! I don't want to catch you in there
again, you hear me?"
Enzo had nodded, then struggled upstairs into bed. He was
exhausted but couldn't sleep yet, so he sat there and stared out
the window. The sound of a sigh made him turn. Dot stood in the
doorway, and came in whe she saw him looking at her.
"Do you know... we're the only ones left?" Enzo blinked.
"Only ones left?" He thouht about that for a moment while Dot
nodded. "You mean, we're the only high-energy Sprites left in
Mainframe?" He couldn't believe it. *All* of the system's highest
classed Sprites were gone? Nullified? ALL of them? All his friends,
his classmates, all gone?
Dot nodded, tears sliding down her face. "All of them, except
you and me, little brother. We're all that's left."
Enzo had thought that he had no tears left, but a tear
squeezed out one eye, and he clutched at Dot as they fell like rain
again. Dot held him tightly, like an anchor in a storm. Brother and
sister sat like that for a very long time, knowing that all they
had left was each other, fiercely determined not to let go.
*****
When Enzo woke up, he was laying in bed. Dot had apparently
put him there before she had headed off to sleep, because the door
of her room was closed when he went into the hall. Enzo sighed, and
got cleaned up. His face felt like it had been scratched by sandpaper,
and looked like it too, in some spots. The got some of the medical
'goop', as he called it, out of the first aid box and watched most
of the scrapes and scratches disappear. The goop, however, couldn't
make the pain of loss any less, so he concentrated on just healing
his scratches. He was having a hard time doing it, apparently there
was a kind of traffic jam outside. He tried to ignore it. Dot still
wasn't up, so hewent down and made himself some breakfast. He wasn't
very hungry, but managed to eat some of it. The noise from outside
was louder, and there seemed to be a lot of yelling. He got up and
opened the door.
There were at least 20 CPU's outside, two of them mangled
and on their sides. About three times that many binomes were hiding
behind the cars, and they were all clustered around.. Frisket?
"Frisket!" The dog's head whipped around and he launched
himself over the cars towards the open door. The binomes scattered
in a panic, almost climbing over each other in their hurry to get
out of the way. Enzo heard the nearest officer shout "Watch out,
boy! That dog's unstoppable!" Frisket bounded up to the door and
slid to a stop, right in front on Enzo, and licked his face.
"Ack! Phooey!" Frisket panted happily and pushed him over,
then licked his face again while Enzo tried to push him away.
Frisket finally stopped, then wagged his tail as Enzo tried to get
up. He found a paw planted on his chest again, and Enzo looked up
into Frisket's eyes, and he could swear he saw the dog smile. Enzo
grinned and grabbed the spiked collar, pulling down as hard as he
could. The dog yipped and rolled to the side, letting Enzo up, but
not before he'd covered his face in doggy kisses again.
The two of them, boy and dog, looked up at the sound of
laughter. Dot stood in the doorway, grinning, and the police
binomes were laughing as Frisket pulled Enzo around on the ground.
Dot, laughed as Enzo let go and Frisket immediatly started licking his face again.
She shook her head, grinning, and said, "Well, this
looks like the start of a wonderful friendship."
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