From: "Joshua Falken" Subject: Quantum ReBoot - Installation (part 4) Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1998 22:19:14 -0300 Message-ID: <01bdf4b5$290b3460$LocalHost.4@smdksbcr.telnet.com.br> Quantum ReBoot -- Installation written by Joshua Falken _________________________________________________________________ I come from outside of the Net. Through lives, peoples and cities, to this place, Mainframe. My format? I think... Leaper. To change the history for better, to put right what went wrong. ReBoot! _________________________________________________________________ Chapter 4 Mainframe Silicon Tor "Then there was an increase in the energy level?", did Megabyte ask calmly. "Yes sir!", Hack answered. "Yeah, an increase, yes!", Slash completed. Before the two continued, Megabyte called Herr Doktor and his spy, that was in the Principal Office's underground. "Herr Doktor, that increase of energy will affect the... obtaining of the files?" "No, Lord Megabyte! In fact, it will even help!" "Indeed? Good." Megabyte turned off the vidwindow and he smiled. Soon, he will be in Supercomputer! _________________________________________________________________ Project Quantum Leap Control Room "But how this happen?!", did Al ask. He was not understanding. "Well... it seems that Enzo do... an independent Leap.", Sammy Jo Fuller said, the Project prodigy girl. "It seems that a sprite can't be a long time in stabilized Quantum Leaping state in the Time". "Translation?" "Although Sam has not leaped out of Enzo's aura, the kid - due to his digital state, pure energy - couldn't be in the Waiting Room, where the energy was in a stable state in relation to the Time... the energy of a sprite needs to be in an excited quantum state out of his present Time, what can only be gotten... during a Leap!" she completed. "Do you mean that Enzo is lost in Time, like Sam?" "Yes." "Not exactly." Ziggy contradicted. "What?!" everybody asked, surprised. "As Enzo Matrix is a condensed energy being, its energy impression is strongly marked in the Time stream. He can be found much more easily than Dr.Beckett... but I recommend Dr. Beeks that she interview the new 'guest'". "Well Ziggy, seek the boy! If he is not in the Waiting Room in the hour in that Sam leaps, Sam will be trapped in Enzo's place." "Yes Admiral." _________________________________________________________________ Mainframe Room Read-Only Sam and AndrAIa were seeking anything that could explain the system crash. Al had not appeared yet with an explanation for the event or a way of avoiding it. AndrAIa once in a while looked at for Sam with a strange glance. Sam and the another guy didn't seem common sprites! But she didn't get discover what they were, unless someone that came to avoid a disaster. "Hi, Sam!" Both, user and game sprite, got scared. "Sorry!" "It's O.K., Al." Al was turned to AndrAIa. "Andrea... could you let Sam and I talk in particular?" Sam noticed that there were problems. More. She will answer, when they heard an alarm. _________________________________________________________________ Houston, Texas January 26, 1967 Enzo was very scared. "Hey Jeremy! What is happening?", did a 30 year-old woman, with brown hair and blue eyes, ask concerned. "Nothing." he said. Enzo went to a bathroom and he was locked there. At he was looked in the mirror and he had a shock. Instead of his image, he saw a 26 year-old man, blonde hair and blue eyes, with a certain similarity with the woman. He was trying discover what had happened with him. He was forced to be calm - it was it that he thought Bob would do. _________________________________________________________________ Project Quantum Leap Control Room May 16, 2002 "We found the kid!", Gooshie announced. "He is on January 26, 1967!" "But for we contact Enzo, we will have to leave Sam by himself!", Donna warned. "No, Dr. Elesse.", he answered. "After that weird leap in Cokeburg, we built a second Imaging Chamber, for the case of the first fail. Of course will consume a great amount of energy." "And who will be the observer?" Of that time Ziggy went who answered to question. Verbena has just arrived. "During the observations in the Waiting Room, we monitored Enzo's brain waves - if such word is applied. In comparison to the neurological files of the Project staff, the person with more similarity to try a neural link is Dr. Verbena Beeks." Verbena was surprised, but she was recovered soon. She asked: "Where is the handlink?" _________________________________________________________________ Houston, Texas January 26, 1967 Enzo was in the bathroom, looking at his reflex in the mirror, when he saw a kind of blue rectangular portal to open up. A black woman came through him. She seemed familiar to Enzo. Verbena Beeks said: "Hi, Enzo!" "What did happen?! What am I doing here?! Who are you?!" Verbena already expected that reaction. She saw Enzo's true face. A 12 year-old boy, of green skin, blue eyes and black hair. She was surprised. He was not very different from a Userworld kid... except for the color of the skin, of course. She calmly explained: "Well, your name's Enzo Matrix and, for accident, you're participating of a time-travel experiment that became... a little ca-ca. You're in Jeremy Ryder's aura, a NASA engineer..." _________________________________________________________________ Mainframe Meeting Room November 12, 1999 "Is it then? Is only that?", did Bob ask. "Unfortunally, yes. It's difficult find information about that energy state. The only system in the Net in that that knows this state is called Ziggy." Turbo made faces when saying that name. He thought: "What type of name is Ziggy?" "Thank you Turbo.", and Bob turned off the connection with Supercomputer. Dot and Phong looked him. He shook the head. "Anything?" "In only a system there are information detailed regarding Quantum Leaping's state, but it is an isolated, ultra-restricted access system." Dot will say something, when they heard the Archive's alarm. They were direct to the Core Control Room. They found 'Enzo', AndrAIa and Al coming from the Read-Only Room. "What did happen?" Sam asked. "Megabyte robbed the Net access command and two driver files!" Dot has just verified. "Without the drivers, anything can happened if the User input a Game!" "Or an installation routine!", Sam thought. He and Al changed glances. That was the cause of the problem! _________________________________________________________________ Houston, Texas January 26, 1967 Verbena had finished speaking. "Then... am I in the Userworld?!" "Yes." She said. "And you are a User!", Enzo was with anger for having been cheated. "Yes. And you are very right in being furious." "And I really have. Do you know how many sprites and binomes you nullified?!" "Enzo, perhaps you don't believe, but until Sam leaps into you we didn't have the smallest idea of your existence!" He looked well her, and he saw that she was being sincere! In Name of the Net! The Users didn't know about... On that moment, they heard a beat in the door. "Jeremy, are you O.K.?", a feminine, concerned voice asked. Verbena beats the handlink. "This is Regina McCormick, your 'older sister'. She is 32 years old. Widow, the husband died in a car accident five months ago. She is pregnant and the baby can be born to any time." "It's alright, sis! I'm only washing the face!" "Ok." Regina said, without being convinced. Enzo went back to Verbena. "You said that for me back, I need to change something. What?" Verbena beats more in the handlink. "Come on, Ziggy! Ah! Here is! According to Ziggy, you can be here to avoid the three astronauts' death tomorrow during the tese of Apollo 1, or avoid 'your sister's' death for complications in the childbirth, tomorrow too." "And which is?" "Which is the what?" "Which is the mission?!" She said in a low voice. "We don't know." _________________________________________________________________ Mainframe Core Control Room November 12, 1999 Sam had seen the robbed drivers' names. Winsock.dll and Instcom3.dll. Al announced: "Sam, according to Ziggy, without the file Instcom3.dll to conduct the show, the program's installation will crash Mainframe!" Bob, that couldn't hear Al, said: "We have to recover these files, if not..." He was interrupted by a feminine voice announcing (it seems airport announcement voice, Al thought): "Warning, incoming Installation Routine! Warning, incoming Installation Routine!..."