Twisted Fate
- Part [x]: Infection_p.2

All vidwindows were open and filled with the image of Dot as she approached the Tor’s front door. The sprite looked nervous and upset, and Megabyte, as he sat in his throne watching her knock at his door, knew exactly why. His fingers danced across the buttons on his chair’s arms, opening the door and allowing her through.

“So you’ve finally discovered it, have you?” he mused to himself. “It took you long enough, my dear.” He steepled his fingers and sat back, allowing himself a sly grin. “Well, come along then,” he continued, “Come tell me what a naughty boy I‘ve been.” He then sniggered and turned his head to the right. “Herr Doctor!” he called.

“Yar, Lord Megabyte, sir?” the binome replied, at his master’s feet in an instant.

The virus waved his hand in another direction. “My legs, good doctor.”

The doctor obliged and then stood back as the virus connected his legs back to his body. “We have a visitor, good doctor,” Megabyte said as he gave his ankle a twist. “Ms Matrix is here. Would you do me the honour of accompanying me to meet her? I believe she may be in a rather… delicate condition.” He gave the doctor a significant look and then sniggered, whilst the binome took a few moments to click on in return. Once he understood, though, he was quite taken aback.

“Oh, my Lord!” the doctor gasped, “Can it be…?”

“Yes. It’s rather good, isn’t it?”

“It’s impossible!”

Megabyte just smiled and began to lead the way. “Well, it’s clearly not. It was just rather ‘improbable’, shall we say?”

The doctor ambled on behind him. “Then I shall be very interested in examining the patient, sir,” he said as they both disappeared into the darkness.

----

Dot walked on, taking one careful step at a time as she retraced her journey down these ill-omened halls. The lighting overhead was dull and gloomy, and the passages were so quiet that she could hear nothing but the sound of her own, staggered breaths. It was at a junction, separating off into four more corridors, that she finally heard Megabyte’s familiar voice call out to her from the darkness, “Well, Ms Matrix, this is a surprise.” He emerged from out of one of the hallways with his twisted little doctor in tow. “Welcome,” he added.

She straightened up and held her ground. “Megabyte,” she said.

He inclined his head slightly in greeting then offered her his elbow. “Come. I believe we have something to talk about.”

“Yes,” she said, taking his elbow without thinking. “But I don’t think your doctor’s invited.”

“Oh, come now,” the virus said, giving her a smile. “I’m sure his medical advice would be appreciated.”

Dot blinked at him. “That doctor’s?”

The virus didn’t flinch. “Yes,” he said plainly.

Dot was silent for the rest of the trek, wondering how to deal with all this. It had to all be a part of one of Megabyte’s great schemes, she was sure it had to be.

He led her to a smallish chamber, one that was dark but somehow comforting, and offered her a seat whilst he exchanged a few quiet words with his doctor, who then retreated toward the wall. The virus then sat opposite her on another chair and looked her in the eyes.

Dot stared back at him, but she couldn’t hold his gaze for long. She felt too mixed up inside to try to present a picture of strength right now. Besides, this virus knew her far too well to fall for that façade; she had shown him her whole spectrum of emotions, both when he was masquerading as Bob and again when he was being Megabyte.

“Can I offer you a drink?” he asked after a while, in his typical civil but unnerving manner.

Dot waved a hand at him. “No, please, I want to get this over with. I’m expected elsewhere.”

The virus cocked his brow and looked over his fingernails. “Or rather ‘expecting’…?”

She stared at him again, her face a picture of vulnerability. “So, you already know...”

His visage didn’t budge.

Dot felt a bit sick all of a sudden. “I bet you’re ecstatic, then,” she sneered, feeling a painful lump build in her throat. “To have won such a momentous victory over me…”

“I am rather thrilled, I must confess,” he replied.

She glowered at him. “You blue-tinned bastard, why did you have to do this?”

He sat back, as unruffled as ever. “There’s no need for that kind of tone.”

“Isn’t there? My whole life is about to crash down around me because of this!”

He gave her an intense stare. “My dear, you should have thought about all that before you jumped into my bed.”

She exhaled loudly and looked away. “I know,” she growled at herself. “I’m a fool.”

“Now, now… I thought we made a rather exceptional couple.”

She looked at him sharply. “Can you be any more insensitive?”

“‘Insensitive’?” He feigned a look of hurt. “Am I not being civil enough for you?”

“You’re being too civil, like you always are. I’d rather you got riled up about this.”

He looked slightly amused. “I‘m afraid I can’t oblige. I’m just far too good at keeping my emotions in check.”

Dot conceded with a reluctant sigh. “Then maybe you will make a good father…” she said aside.

The virus heard her, though, and smiled slowly, tapping his chin with his sharp claws. “Hmm… maybe.”

There was an uneasy silence.

Dot soon began to feel that she had lingered here too long, and they still hadn’t got to the point. “What am I going to do?” she thus asked. “I have to tell them. They have to know.”

Megabyte looked at her hard in return and crossed one long leg over the other. “I am hoping that you are not considering… deletion.”

She shook her head. “Of course not.”

“Then is it not obvious what you have to do?”

“Yes, but… this is a long-term commitment, not a temporary measure. I wanted to plan for my future family, to--”

“Oh yes,” he interjected, “we couldn’t be doing without your plans could we?”

“Stop that. You knew that this would happen! You did this knowing full well you would infect me.”

“Viruses infect, my dear, it is a fact you have always known. What were you expecting to happen…?”

“I expected an infection… but not this.”

Megabyte’s brow rose slightly. “Ah. You expected something more sinister?”

Dot just stared at him again. He was so infuriatingly calm, she wanted to wring his neck. “So why did you do this? Why a child? Why not something ‘more sinister’… more like you?”

“I made no plans. I honestly had no idea whether or not I could co-process a child with you, or with anyone for that matter. I am a virus, created by a User, not by any natural means. Our union was an experiment.“

“One where you knew what might happen, nevertheless!”

“So you didn’t think at all then, Dot Matrix? The thought never occurred to you that maybe, just maybe, laying with this virus might result in the development of a - what shall we call it? - ‘baby-byte’?”

Dot stared at him and breathed unsteadily. His red eyes fixed on her with a strange intensity, and it unnerved her.

“You cannot blame me for all this, Ms. Matrix,” the virus continued, pointing a claw at her, “You were a willing party in our union. You must accept as much responsibility as I.”

Dot trembled a little in anger, but knew he was right; she just wanted to make him culpable for all this, like he usually was, but this time she couldn’t because she was just as much at fault as he. “Then what should I do?”

Megabyte paused once more to collect himself and then made a gesture for his doctor to approach. “I would appreciate you letting my doctor have a look at you.”

“I’ve already been scanned by Phong,” she said quickly, dismissing this proposal with a wave of her hand. “I don’t need another test.”

The doctor looked disappointed though Megabyte was, as ever, unreadable. “It would make me feel better, Ms. Matrix,” he added.

She looked at him warily. She didn’t want to know what was going on inside that head of his, she really didn’t.

“It is a phenomenon that I am eager to investigate, Frau Matrix!” the doctor explained, rubbing his little hands rapidly together. “Ze child of a sprite and a virus, oh, it has not been done before! My congratulations to you both, by ze way…”

The doctor made a little bow and Dot gave him a very cautious look.

“Thank you, doctor,” Megabyte replied. “I’m sure Ms. Matrix would express similar sentiments, but she is still in relevant shock.”

“Oh, quite natural,” the doctor replied with a wave of his hand. “After all, she is ze first.”

“How wonderful,” Dot murmured.

“Yar, it is!” the doctor chuckled, with far more enthusiasm than Dot felt was appropriate. “And I am so pleased that it is you, Lord Megabyte, to be the first as well. Oh, it is quite amazing! A virus and a sprite! Think of ze possibilities!”

“Thank you, doctor,” Megabyte said again, but with an edge to his voice that made the doctor understand that it was time to shut up.

Dot sheepishly met the virus’s eyes again and sighed.

“So, you will not allow my doctor to examine you?” he asked.

She shook her head and felt the emotions within her swell and clash; the lump in her throat ached and her eyelids were desperate to shed the tears of a confused and crestfallen sprite. Before Dot knew it, she was crying into her hands.

“It is ze hormones,” the doctor commented aside, and got a sharp look from his master, who then just watched Dot for a while. Though her emotions were comprehensible to the virus, he was unable to relate to many them, including this kind of irrational fear that she showed right now; there were some things for which he was not programmed.

He at length resolved to get to his feet and approached the despairing sprite, kneeling before her and taking her shoulders in his hands. “Be random for once, Ms Matrix,” he murmured, out of his doctor’s earshot.

Dot rose her face a little and wiped away her tears as she again met his eyes.

“Do something spontaneous,” he continued. “Have the child of a virus.”

Dot paled at his words, hardly wanting to believe that it was in fact reality. “So, this is the length you’re willing to go to for revenge?” she whispered. “To create an innocent life.”

Megabyte looked at her carefully before he gently placed a hand over her belly and said, “Revenge can be sweet.”

Dot couldn’t decide whether he were being sincere or not right now - he seemed truly excited by this notion, so much so that it frankly scared her - and yet she could hardly bring herself to trust him She consequently gave him a sceptical look and pulled away from him. “It’s all too much,” she whispered. “It’s not fair. You know it’s not.”

He just stared at her in return.

“Megabyte,” she said, studying his face carefully. “I have to stop this. I love Bob and my family, and…”

“Yes,” he nodded, “But it is my child that you carry.”

Dot again hesitated - now that had been the voice of the virus she had once known. He had made the words into a statement, a threat almost, and she didn’t like it. Part of her still wondered what it was that she did like about him…

She thus resolved to end this interview and got to her feet. “I think we’ve said enough,” she said, wiping the final traces of her tears away.

“Do you?” he countered, looking up to her from where he still knelt on the floor.

Dot’s brow contracted a fraction at him and she felt the urge to snap a retort, but she didn’t. She simply clenched her fists a couple of times and then opted to turn and walk away.

Megabyte now slowly rose to his feet and watched after her. His doctor paced to his side and opened his mouth to speak, but the virus silenced him outright with a sharp gesture of his hand. He then called, as Dot reached the chamber’s door, “You can run from me now, my dear Ms. Matrix, but you can’t run from the truth. Nor can you cure this infection. This infection will last a life time.”

And Dot closed the door behind her, before making a dash for the Tor’s exit.