DracoNix v4.03b
copyright 2025, all rights reserved.

->
->sv.bat
^>/slayers/virtual
^>type virt_09.txt
^[echo off]

^  -REVISED VERSION-
^  Not for sale or rent

[-MORE-]

Slayers Virtual chapter 9 - Killing Time

Lina blinked open her eyes.  The sensation of falling made her skin want to 
peel itself off her body and flee, yelping - but she quickly realized that 
she wasn't actually falling.  Instead, she was merely in a free fall.

'Well, that's good', her mind babbled, 'at least I'm not going to hit any 
sort of ground at an incredible spee-'

"LINAAAAAA," the disembodied voice boomed.

She flinched.  And then she began to get irritated.  As if everything else 
hadn't been wierd enough, now this.  A peculiar warming sensation spread 
behind her eyeballs.  She didn't have to touch the two spots on her forehead 
to know that they were rapidly growing hot.  Again.

With a concentrated effort of will, she forced the pain back enough to 
speak.  "Who the hell are you?"

Immediately, she regretted it.  The thought occurred to her that one 
shouldn't ask a question if one doesn't expect to find out the answer.

Before her, partially shrouded by the black gloom, a horrid, looming shape 
materialized.  She saw bright, blood-red eyes that shed crimson light onto 
her form.  She saw, dimly, multiple rows of teeth that glistened in the 
reddish light, with tiny threads of saliva hanging here and there between 
them.

She didn't allow herself to contemplate the shiny skin which faintly 
resembled armor, or the huge, fleshy, wing-like protuberances, or the 
gigantic fingered and clawed feet which grasped at the void that surrounded 
them.  Her mind had shifted into Serious Mode, and stubbornly refused to be 
terrified.  After all, CGI graphics were cheap these days.

The lurking Cthulu-like shadow-being grew silent.  The gleaming, pupilless 
eyes burned relentlessly into Lina's mind until she thought her retinas 
(retinae?) would incinerate.

She began to be afraid.  Not uncertain, not nervous or anxious, but 
genuinely afraid.  And it was at that moment that the creature laughed.  A 
horrid, insane bellowing laugh, with a rich audio overlay of screaming, 
tortured souls playing subtly behind it.  It had to be nothing more than a 
sound effect.  It HAD to...

[-MORE-]

Gourry awoke some time later, with an urgent need to vent his bladder.  He 
fumbled out of bed and headed for the restroom.  He stepped over the 
lump-like thing in front of the door, did his
business, and then looked at himself in the mirror a little, waiting for his 
brain to tell him what to do next.

For most people, waking up is a difficult part of the day simply because 
one's brain doesn't work quite right.  It takes time to poke gray matter 
into good working order.  Taking this philosophy to Gourry's scale of 
'intelligence', the obvious result is that he was almost as conscious as the 
average head of lettuce (given the circumstance).

'Wait a minute,' he thought to himself (slowly).  'What did you just step 
over?'

He looked at Lina.  She lay on her face.  It occurred to him (slowly) that 
something might be wrong, and he went to wake up Amelia after several 
minutes of intense contemplation.

Lina sat up as Gourry poked Amelia awake.  Amelia's nature made her a much 
lighter sleeper than anyone else, and she was completely awake within 
moments.  As for Lina, her headache had grown quite worse, beginning to 
crawl again-

"Neee, Lina-san!  Are you all right??!" inquired Amelia anxiously, using far 
too much punctuation.  "You don't look so good!"

-and Amelia's sucrose-laden anxiety was hardly making it any better.  "It's 
the virus itself," Lina realized out loud.  "It's influencing my brain."  
The headache was throbbing violently at
a caliber which would have knocked her unconscious immediately a few days 
earlier, but which she could now withstand (barely).  "Anyway," she added, 
"wierdness notwithstanding, we need to get to
work, to keep our lead on RPR's people."

Amelia woke everyone else up.  They collected what things they had, piled 
into Sylpheel's car, and drove straight to the public library.

[-MORE-]

Before the ancient, dusty brick walls and high steps of the public library, 
a band of teenage hackers (more or less), a cyborg, and a tennis instructor 
peered at a scribbled sign posted on the locked doors of the institution.

LIBRARY HOURS: 10:00am - 6:00pm

"It's 5:44," Zel noted.  "Sunrise is in thirty-nine minutes."

"Good, then we've got plenty of time for breakfast!" Amelia gushed.  "Aren't 
you hungry, Miss Lina?"

"What place is going to be open at this unholy hour?" grumbled Lina, who 
still wasn't completely awake.  "We should've stayed in the room and called 
in room service."

Sylpheel offered, "We passed a Pancake Breakfast Hut a few blocks back.  I 
think they were open."

"okay, let's go," Lina mumbled.  In the dim morning light, her pallor went 
relatively unnoticed.  'This headache is probably going to be the end of 
me,' she thought briefly to herself, as the five ambled back down the steps 
to Sylpheel's car.

[-MORE-]

Eight minutes later, they were seated in the painfully generic Breakfast 
Place and wolfing down appetizers and bread rolls.  Gourry spoke first, 
around a mouthful of fried cheesesticks.  "Are you sure you're alright, 
Lina?  You look kind of odd."

"Like someone who's been jacked in too long, and hasn't moved or eaten," 
nodded Amelia.  "I've seen it before."

Lina pointed, "You?  I didn't know you knew any other serious deckers."

"It was in the mirror," said Amelia, with an adorable little pout.  "But 
anyway, it's not possible!  We've all been moving and running and stuff a 
lot for the past few days.  Miss Lina has done more than anyone else in that 
time, sooo..  I guess.."  She trailed off.

"The virus," stated Zel (who wasn't eating) simply. "You said that it was 
archived inside your own brain, Lina.  We've seen things that are quite 
disturbing to a normal mindset-"

"The Mazoku attacks," interjected Sylpheel.

"-yes, and Lina's ability to run her programs in real life.  It seems 
obvious that she's carrying something more than a segment of an adaptive 
virus.  She feels like something left in the refridgerator for three weeks, 
and then set aflame.  Her pulse is weaker than usual, her pupils are 
dilated, and her body temperature is uncharacteristically low.  I'd say that 
the virus is taking a toll on her emotionally and spiritually."  He folded 
his arms, and lowered his head while the impact of that sank in with the 
others.

"Ano.." said Gourry.  "How-"

Bonk.  Lina lowered the now-empty (and bent-inward) plastic basket of rolls.

"Don't even start," she said, "because he's right.  I've been feeling..  
drained..  ever since that ZIP got dumped in here."  She tapped at her 
temple.  "Vague concepts elude me, it's harder to concentrate, and I've been 
having real wierd visions.  I think the virus is active in my mind.  
Normally it couldn't do anything, 'cause programming code isn't even 
remotely the same format as human thought, but after what Zel told me, it 
makes sense.  I suspect that the RPR headset I played in as a kid did 
something to my brain - formatted a piece of it somehow, turned it into 
genuine wetware.  Hence, the virus is having some kind of effect on that 
piece, which in turn is acting as a 'translator' for the rest of my brain, 
spreading the virus' effect.  I can't think of anything else to explain my 
condition.  I have this premonition that whatever happened to Mom, is also 
going to happen to me."

Gourry, still rubbing the bump on his skull, decided it'd be easier to just 
go along with that monologue, and so, he nodded in the way which he'd 
noticed that Lina tended to like.  Amelia and Sylpheel, on the other hand, 
clearly understood the situation.

"B-b-b-but," stuttered Sylpheel, "do you know what that means?  
Gabriev-sensei once showed me the effects of the Shaburanigdo virus on an 
unprotected test system.  There was notable physical damage to the hardware 
by the time the virus' run had finished.  Even the monitor had been burned 
out."

"And you're saying something like that is going to happen to Miss Lina?" 
gulped Amelia, eyes wide and shining.

Sylpheel nodded.  "Lina, when you're online today, download a copy of the 
Ceipheed Solution and run it on yourself.  It might help."

Lina glared at her.  "I don't have a deck, and even if I did, how am I 
supposed to deliberately access my own mind?"

"YOSH!  You're lucky that I, your truest friend, am willing to risk my own 
deck to save a dear friend's sanity!"

Sylpheel went on, quietly choosing not to acknowledge Amelia at the moment.  
"Find out if you can.  Experiment.  We're probably all going to get killed 
if you die, Lina."

[-MORE-]

Those words echoed in Lina's mind later in the day, as she sat on the 
hopelessly backward library's terminal, immersed in Amelia's deck.

Amelia's construct was, to make a long story brief, entirely too pink, and 
entirely too frilly.  The huge dog-eared poster with "JUSTICE" and a happy 
sun scrawled on it in friendly yellow paint was the particularly irritating 
aspect of it all.  Shunting the imagery aside, Lina spent a minute or two 
familiarizing herself with Amelia's OS setup, and then connected to the 
'net.

Finding the Ceipheed Solution was easy.  It was linked all over the 'net in 
countless public forums, and a network of DracoNix servers specially chosen 
for their reliability had the full solution available for download.

Downloading it, however, promised to be irksome.  The pathetic 'net 
connection provided by the public library allowed a data throughput rate of 
only about 4k a second.  Pathetic.  It would take almost an hour to download 
the latest update.

Sitting in Amelia's posh construct, watching Getright slowly nibble up the 
Solution, Lina pondered to herself.

'How will I access my own brain?  What will I do once I figure that out?  
Will the Ceipheed Solution even apply correctly?  None of this has ever been 
done.  Aren't there going to be massive compatibility problems?  And why the 
HELL is there so much stupid crap in Amelia's construct?'

The data trickled onto the hard drive, streams of hexadecimal numbers slowly 
forming a program, encoded program strings slowly building up as the 'net 
supplied a steady stream of numbers and letters..

And within the deepest, darkest depths of Lina's mind, within the construct 
that she didn't know she had, a slavering creature with triple rows of 
teeth, and red eyes like laser sights, paced restlessly...

[-MORE-]

Lina jolted awake suddenly.  She was still in the too-sugary setting of 
Amelia's construct.  Checking Getright, she noticed that the Solution had 
finished downloading.

'I must have drifted off,' she thought, and then, 'This is it.  How do I 
access my own mind?'

Focusing with all the clarity she could muster, she had an answer within 
seconds.  'It's my own damn mind, I'll access it however I like.'

Somehow, it worked.

She closed her virtual eyes and used her imagination.

[-MORE-]

DRACONIX-POS
FREE SOURCE PSYCHE OPERATING SYSTEM
(c) 2017, no rights reserved

[/amelia/construct]

('Hmm', she thought.  This should do nicely.)

[/amelia/construct] root
[/amelia] cp /amelia/SOLUTION.ZIP /berkowitz
DESTINATION NOT FOUND

('Dammit,' she thought, 'it's not as I thought.  How would my mind identify 
itself?')

[/amelia] cp /amelia/SOLUTION.ZIP /kami no lina
DESTINATION NOT FOUND
[/amelia] cp /amelia/SOLUTION.ZPI /lina'smind
FILE NOT FOUND

('A typo?  HERE?!  Damn it all.')

[/amelia] cp /amelia/SOLUTION.ZIP /hiddenplace
FILE NOT FOUND

('This is going to take forever..  But I can think at the speed of a 
computer within my own mind.  So..  ...   ...aha.  Mental truth is always 
going to be wierd with respect to RL.')

[/amelia] cp /amelia/SOLUTION.ZIP /inverse
COPYING...
...5%
...16%
...48%
...71%
...DONE

[/amelia] dc /inverse
[/inverse] PKUNZIP SOLUTION.ZIP

[-MORE-]

The command-line metaphor snapped out of existence as the Ceipheed Solution 
blossomed and took shape within her consciousness.  She could percieve the 
Shaburanigdo virus now - a metaphor of a cancerous growth, beginning to worm 
its roots into other areas of her brain.  These roots were rapidly severed, 
and dissolved away of their own volition, as the blooming flower of the 
Solution curved up through them.  As the program finished its run, the 
petals folded themselves into a perfect sphere around the seething lump that 
was the virus.  It exuded a tendril and poked irritably at the barrier it 
found itself enclosed in, but could not penetrate it.

Lina sighed inwardly with relief as the Buku-S Virus faded slightly and 
became dormant.  Amelia's construct slowly faded back into sight, as she 
eased herself out of her mind's storagespace.  Her headache was still going 
strong, but the feeling of worms writhing under her temples, and the painful 
bright-red throbbing behind her eyes, had both gone.

She wrote something on the banner in Amelia's room, then jacked out.

[-MORE-]

She opened her eyes to Amelia shaking her frantically.  "Miss Lina! Miss 
Lina!  Speak to me!"  Her eyes were glittering wobblingly - Lina 
comprehended immediately that she was a hair's breadth away from tears.

In the space of a single blink, Amelia glomped onto Lina and sobbed 
profusely into her shirt, gasping between sobs.  "Oh, Lina, we were so 
WORRIED!  You've been in for two days straight!  Your vitals were starting 
to drop off.."

Two days?!

Lina gaped for a moment at her surroundings.  They were still in the 
closetish computer room of the Podunk Library, but everyone was there, 
looking haggard and worried.  Gourry had dark circles under his eyes, and 
absurdly unkempt hair.  Sylpheel, like Amelia, seemed close to tears.  Her 
laptop was open in one hand, with a small cable that Lina now noticed was 
running into Amelia's deck.  Even Zel's posture gave her the slight 
impression of concern.  All of them were visibly pleased that she was awake, 
and just beginning to brighten, like a little child will when it's forgiven 
for some error that seemed world-shattering just a few moments earlier.

She smiled brightly at them all, flashing a V for victory.  "I did it!  The 
Ceipheed Solution worked, I'm sure of it."  She gingerly disengaged herself 
from Amelia, then Amelia's deck, and stuck the two together off on her 
right.  "I was really out for two whole days?"

Sylpheel nodded numbly.  "It was a lot like REM, except we couldn't wake you 
up.  You kept murmuring things."  At Lina's heated glare, she hurriedly 
added, "Nothing we could understand, though."

Gourry blinked.  "Ano..  Do you guys hear something?"

Everyone paused (even Amelia, who had by now calmed down somewhat).  Lina 
tilted her head.

"That's the sound that the Mazoku made when they..  appeared..  isn't it, 
Miss Lina?"

"Ohshit."  Lina peeked out the door.

Sure enough, about six of the same violently nondescript 
black-business-suit-clad individuals with resonating crimson for eyes were 
patiently going through the library, searching.  The old librarian had 
passed out on his desk.

And one of them was looking straight at Lina.

Lina fired the shot without thinking, throwing the door wide open and off a 
hinge as she did so.  "ELMEKIA LANCE!"

A shining ray of greenish light needled straight into the owner of the 
offending gaze.

Perforated, the creature reeled backwards and de-rezzed; rows of shelves 
collapsed inwards as their supports were suddenly vaporized on one side.  
Every other pair of ruby-shining eyes in the entire library clicked over to 
focus intently on Lina.

"Surrender the data, Lina Inverse," they intoned simultaneously, and 
advanced.  They spared no time, reducing any opportunity to prepare.  Black 
tentacles began to reach for Lina.

She quickly ducked back into the room, concentrating on what she was about 
to do.  She focused, for that short moment, on allowing the intensity to 
rise without panicking.  "Get ready, everyone, there aren't that many of 
them.  This should be easy."

[-MORE-]

All in all, the Slayerz somehow failed to destroy the library.  A few more 
bookshelves were collapsed, or bisected along interesting angles; the walls 
of the library acquired various bullet holes; and an ancient microfiche 
machine fell victim to the awesome backhand of the Hikari no Racquet.

It was an easy victory, and they all felt good about it in their various 
ways.  "Let's go on and get the hell out of here," panted Lina, "the cops 
will be here soon and we need to keep on the move.

So they went outside.  About three seconds after they had all piled into 
Sylpheel's car, it had become apparent that something was wrong.

"Where's my steering wheel?" asked Sylpheel calmly.

A reciept fluttered down innocently from the sun-visor above the driver's 
side, alighting in Sylpheel's hands.

'I.O.U.: 1 steering wheel.  -Xelloss :)'

"How dispicable!" Amelia burst out.  "To steal an innocent young woman's 
steering wheel and incapacitate her vehicle, inhibiting her ability to aid 
the cause of tha Slayerz!  It's..  it's diabolical!"

Lina sighed, Zel dropped his face to one hand, Sylpheel just stared blankly. 
  "Great.  Now what?"

[-MORE-]

Author's Notes v2.0:

Profuse thanks to 2F-san for the screw-up.  I don't think I could've had 
nearly this much written if I hadn't had to have it halfway finished a week 
ago.

I had considered writing in a confrontation with Xelloss, but on reflection, 
decided not to (since it didn't happen in season one Slayers).  It would 
still make an excitingly dramatic scene for some future author, however.

The Ceipheed Solution allows Lina to think more clearly, since the virus has 
stopped being a factor in her consciousness.  She might even escape the 
hellish Headaches of Death for a time.  Of course, they have to update the 
Solution every few years for a reason...

I just had to stick in that bit at the end.  It seemed like the kind of 
thing Xelloss would do just to annoy everyone.

Suggestions, flames, questions go to apollo43@hotmail.com.  As always, I'm 
willing to help anyone who asks with ideas, or with editing for the story.  
(Twoflower:  Please change this link on the main page!  I can't get into the 
other account anymore, so I'm unable to answer any mail sent to it.)

PS:  I apologize for the horrible line spacing in the first edition.  With 
any luck, it'll be better this time.  I took out many of the ASCII-13s, so 
either every paragraph will be one line, or word wrap will take care of it, 
on your browser.

Good luck to all you authors!  (please disregard the blatant advert soon to 
follow.)
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