Death in Fire
Prologue
The Guardians have had only two fears since before time had begun. Viruses and the
Web. All they could do against the viruses was study them and try to discover a way to
destroy viral code. But the Web...they were ready to go to more drastic measures with the
Web.
One brilliant scientist, Upgrade Neo, who had been a hacker before she had been
recruited from a system in the Web. She knew practically everything about the Web. And
so, Dr. Neo was given the job of building a weapon against it.
And so she came up with an idea of building thinking weapons. Each with their
own weapon. These thinking weapons looked like sprites, their outward appearance
would draw no attention. Dr. Neo named them cyborgs.
Her first one she named Wind. Her defense was building a shield around the
system to protect them from the Web. The Collective said that it wasn’t good enough, she
had to build a better one. Wind was put in a cryo chamber.
Her next project she named Elf. Her powers made the system fight the Web. This
time, the cyborg did not have enough defense. The Web still had a good chance to win.
This one was also put in cryo.
The next was named Snow. Her powers froze the system and the portal. The
Collective once again found fault with this cyborg. Once again, Dr. Neo put one of her
creations into cryo.
Her final project, Phoenix. The powers of this single cyborg surpassed all three of
Dr. Neo’s former experiments. In the event that the Web attacked, she would explode.
She was a ticking time bomb. When she blew, it would not only destroy the system, but
the portal and a good portion of the Web in a fiery inferno.
The Collective approved this cyborg. They put her in cryo with the others for safe
keeping.
When the hacker Mouse was sent to Mainframe to locate and confirm the
presence of a Web creature, they begin the process of waking Phoenix from cryo. In case
the bomb failed to destroy the system.
When it was confirmed that the system was not destroyed, Phoenix was in the
middle of her awakening. They programmed her to go to Mainframe as soon as she was
on-line. When she was almost on-line, Daemon attacked. In her attack she flooded all the
lower labs of the Academy with a freezing agent. Dr. Neo and a few others managed to
escape.
Phoenix’s awakening continued, slower than it would have regularly taken. It was
more than an hour later when she was awakened, after the liberation of the Super
Computer from Daemon’s grasp.
But her programming was still the same: Destroy Mainframe at all costs.
