The Daemon Conflict
By: LadyBard
Prologue
The place smelled of
sickness and death. The tiny viral despised the dark surroundings. She knew it
wasn’t natural for it to be so, but it was the truth. She was benign, and for
that, her mother hated her.
The immense structure was
not always a den of malevolence. It was once a place of power - well it was
now, but now it held a dark power. The Guardians no longer held the power in
the Super Computer, and her mother had twisted and warped the Council Hall and
Chambers to suit her own ends. It was to the Chamber that the tiny viral had
been summoned.
Several bugs passed by
her, hugging the damp wall oozing with the inky poisonous secretions. They were
a grotesque collection of obsidian-shelled, things, larger than any binome,
with razor-sharp pinchers, and mandibles oozing with poison, or scorpion-claws
that could snap a sprite or binome in two without effort. Despite her mother
despising her, the bugs dare not accost her in any way. She was, after all, the
daughter of their mistress.
When she came before the
immense door, which was carved with the likeness of a bloated spider split down
the middle, she halted before the two Guardians who stood at attention. The
yellowish infection pulsed at their temples. Without a word to her, the brawny
male Guardian opened the door.
Before she could even
step across the threshold, her mother rasped, ”Enter child. Don’t stand there
gawking.”
She meekly stepped
forward, “You sent for me, mother?”
“Pathetic weakling! You
are a true sign that our strain needs to be renewed.”
The tiny viral flinched
at her mother’s cruel words.
The darkly beautiful
viral who sat at the circular Council table waved her inside with a clawed
hand. The six insect-like legs that protruded from her mother’s back stretched
out as though to embrace her, but the little viral knew the damage the razor
sharp appendages could cause. “Have you spoken to the General Ashar?”
“Y-yes, mother,” she was
terrified of her mother’s chief advisor, who seemed to share the same hate for
her as her mother did.
“And?”
“Megabyte has been
deleted.” The Super-Virus Daemon screamed. One of her appendages lashed out
shearing the nearest piece of furniture in two, “Who?”
“The Mainframers,” the
small viral whispered.
“Guardian 452 and the
renegade Matrix!” Daemon spat. “So our intelligence reports were true.”
“Yes, mother.”
“And what of your
sister?”
“Well --,” she knew this
news would further throw her mother into a rage and she was reluctant to reveal
it, “Apparently, she has betrayed us.”
“Then you will destroy her.”
“I?”
“You are a viral are you
not? However weak, you are the last of my line. I am loath you destroy your
sister, but such traitorous actions will not go unpunished. It will not matter
once we have Guardian 452 and the renegade. With them, our strain will flourish
once again.”
Her mother’s mouth split
into a malicious grin, one which made the young viral shudder.
“Mother, how will I
destroy her? She is my sister!”
“Melissa,” Daemon spat
out her name as though it pained her to utter it, “You will go to Mainframe
with the General and delete your sister. She doesn’t know you exist, so she
will be taken by surprise. Your powers are in all respects similar to hers. It
should be easy even for you, and it will prove your loyalty to me. Do you think
I did not know you were processed benign? I did not delete you outright because
I needed you.”
Daemon moved closer to
her and again Melissa shuddered, “But that can change, do you understand?”
“Yes mother,” Melissa
cowered.
“Dismissed,” Daemon
accentuated her command with a wave of her hand.
Melissa gladly fled.
Her brother was deleted,
and now her mother had commanded her to delete her sister. How could she? She
had never even seen Hexadecimal and now she was expected to delete her?
Melissa sighed and for
the ninth time in all her days she wished that she were anywhere better than
this, that someone would come and take her away from this horrid place and show
her that there is a better life before it was too late.