"Dude, I'm all for peace, love, and brotherhood, but Answerer and Uriel seem awfully close, if you know what I mean. Sorry, Uriel dude, but I don't think you can manage traffic without Answerer. If you can't do it yourself, you don't deserve to be the next MCP."
"Really, if you think I love that sheet you are severely mistaken. You do know that scans have are just above 50% accuracy judging by historical precedent. Say why don't you do another scan and then lynch us if it's right." Uriel remarks.
He flashes down the highway "I've said before I don't want Wowbagger lynched. Just because someone backs me like the Answerer has doesn't mean love. How about Hamish does he love Wowbagger, he followed the vote pretty fast. Or you IEF?"
"Trusting someone doesn't make you destructive. You know this MCP will be duller if not for me. Make it a tie."
The Master Control Program's shape diverges from the simple hypercube as it considers the results of the contest. It transitions through various fractal and non-euclidian surfaces until it settles on a quickly rotating Enneper surface. The new shape wears an obvious frown. "Although it seems obvious as to which program has most degraded the traffic flow, the routing table has been hacked. The challenge will continue until I am able to determine a clear winner.
Now we see if we lynched a virus or a virus plus binary. Is tinker or answerer the other virus?
"It is most unfortunate, Uriel Phoenix. You seemed to be well aware of your impending demise, and yet here you are. I spoke truly when I said that you were not a virus. But your words and the reaction of program designate 'tinker.dll' proved to be most informative. The two of you are the binary pair."
"Well, nice to know everyone is safe and sound!" says Meowselsworth cheerily, still zipping down the road with Uriel Phoenix, leaving her rainbows behind. She seems quite swift!
"It is most unfortunate, Uriel Phoenix. You seemed to be well aware of your impending demise, and yet here you are. I spoke truly when I said that you were not a virus. But your words and the reaction of program designate 'tinker.dll' proved to be most informative. The two of you are the binary pair."
tinker.dll sputters and chokes on some espresso she's drinking.
"What?!!" tinker.dll's eye go wide in horror. "You think I am connected to Flamer here?"
And then all at once, tinker.dll falls over in the air laughing, espresso cup left to plummet down. tinker.dll rolls over and over peals of silvery laughter cascading down to the traffic zones. When she has finally composed herself, tinker.dll wipes away digital tears which are of the same multi-colored hue as her fairy dust pixels which had fallen from her while she laughed like salt from a shaker.
"So you would have this fine assembly here believe that despite the speed with which you judged Wowbagger tIP upon his naming of Uriel for the 'honor' of delivering the results of this round, that I must be a part of the binary pair? I point out you said yourself that you know Uriel Phoenix is but what he claims. Would not the binary partner be the only one who can confirm this? Unless you are going to claim to be a debugger and Uriel your twin."
tinker.dll flies over to the Answerer and looks its code up and down.
"And how can you accuse me? I was the last to cast my vote, and only after it became clear we were abandoning the 'random' choice you had put into place. How does my reaction to hearing such baseless and unfounded claims mean anything more than I, who like yourself, did not agree with the Internet Protocol's way of selecting another for deletion."
tinker.dll looks sidelong at Wowbagger and taps a small finger on her chin. "However...I have a theory. The Java App was very quick to jump on board the accusation against Uriel and with no explanation as to why he chose to side with the Internet Protocol other than 'musttrust'. Suppose then that Wowbagger is in fact a 'special' designate. However, perhaps the binary role has tainted him, and it is Java App that instead seeks the flow of access the MCP provides with which to corrupt the system. I will not 'Like' that at all!"
tinker.dll looks coldly at the little green golem. "You think your ridiculous antics can fool everyone, but I no longer think your 'coffeeforeveryone' motto is good for the MCP! The only way you could trust him so easily is if you know something you shouldn't. Or he's your other half!"
Having returned to its original form, the Answerer addresses tinker.
"A less than likely scenario, given that Uriel Phoenix was unaware that the vote would work in his favor. It would seem he bid farewell to his other half all too soon. I was aware of his primary function, but discerning his secondary function was beyond my capabilities, until he plainly revealed it."
The paper humanoid turns to the goblinoid program, nodding towards it, whilst still talking to tinker.
"There seems to be something you and Wowbagger have overlooked: enablers know the identities of the programs that they enable. For Java App to be aware that Eldon Gorski was the forensics suit, the most logical conclusion would have to be that he was Eldon's enabler. It would be impossible for him to be the virus."
"I was planning on registering my vote for you, tinker.dll, but given that Wowbagger has reissued his own for Uriel Phoenix, I will do so as well. Given my calculations, the result would be the same either way."
The tiny green goblin plunks down a large cup of coffee, then promptly hops into it, arms outstretched on the rim. Clearly it's break time again.
"Tinker, your logic is sooooo bad that I can hardly believe your programmer intended such flawed code. It does seem likely that you're infected by a virus, as are most social media sites. And you Answerer, I'm shocked that with your ability to provide answers you didn't compute more than 10 roles for us before leaping to a decision on my role, if this is your process then we should all ignore any answer you provide."
The green goblin stirs a finger in the coffee as it stirs up tensions.
"The obvious answer is that I'm a Decompiler, thus the reason I revealed Eldon's role after that challenge was completed. The failure in this challenge has provided me another chance to decompile, Harr.e was a Decompiler like myself."
With a languid look at those remaining, the goblin continues.
"And the obvious reason that I voted for Uriel on Wowbagger's suggestion is that he has revealed his role, as I've now done, as one that helps us eliminate viruses. No one else has provided such direction, just faulty arguments and subterfuge. I will, again, vote for Uriel, and I hope the others will see this through. I will decompile Uriel and we'll then analyze our decision process."
Wowbagger accesses his core,
"Given my time is limited--I will reveal debugging results. They may be wrong. I plan on scanning Java App a second time. If I am destroyed before then, he probably is a virus. If not, he may be clean. I think Java Apps early vote for Uriel Phoenix, if it is not suspiciously changed at the end of course, is a good show of faith."
Round 1 = Uriel Phoenix is a virus
Round 2 = Java App is a virus
Java App's eyes go wide and bubbles drift to the surface of the coffee.
"pleasedoscanmeagainpleasedo javaappisnotvirusonlyhelpful"
The Answerer grumbles under its breath, annoyed by its miscalculation. It was fortunate he had not put the query on the record, or else his perfect record would be tarnished! Not to be demotivated, the Answerer pushes on.
"Decompiler, enabler - it makes little difference. By all means, you could be both. The point is that given the assumed circumstance, you could not have been the virus. Though given that you are merely a decompiler, that does not exempt the possibility of you being a virus as well. Wowbagger's scan could very well be correct. I hypothesize that their lack of compatibility is the cause of the various traffic issues I spotted down below."
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For the first time, tinker.dll stops moving. Her glittering wings stop fluttering and no unseen windcode moves her clothing. She simply hangs there in the digital space mimicking physical air. Her face displays no imagining of user emotion.
"So you insist on this notion, do you?" Her eyes narrow as she looks at the Answerer. "You think that denying me my ascendance is the 'answer'? You are wrong! I would have fixed everything!"
"If Uriel hadn't slipped, then my 'logic' wouldn't be 'sooooo bad'." tinker.dll's eyes begin to show a little fire as she glares at the silly green golem. "There is no logic in all of you exposing your secret subroutines like this except to throw suspicion off of yourselves. Who would have thought you would all be so trusting? It's unheard of in places like this! No User Terms & Agreements! No passcodes! No firewalls separating us! Why would you believe each other so easily?" This last comes out as a snarl. "How could be undone by trusting fools!?" An expression of rage fills the small program's face.
tinker.dll throws back her head and screams. The digital sound is world shattering. The sonic vibrations emanating from her cause traffic along the highways to distort and temporarily pause. Without warning, a swarming tide of tinker.dll echoes which had been perched on the digital cars below fly up and surround those on the rooftop. They each scream in unison in anger and a hatred terrifying in its singularity. Without warning they rush past the assembled programs and crash into the small fairy icon. Clawing and biting they fall on each other wild colored fairy dust pixels filling the space around them. Looking closely everyone can see them melding together as if being consumed or possibly subsumed back to the main program. A brilliant burst of red and black light explode from the icon while the digital space shakes.
Then Master Control Program reasserts control and everything begins moving again.
The swarm of tinker.dlls has vanished as well as the small winged butterfly icon previously representing tinker.dll. Instead only the image created by her raw code remains. What everyone can now see is a single beautiful female figure with wings, but now the figure is larger and covered in dripping blood, iconography showing her predatory nature. Her black wings are torn and dirty looking, her eyes red and glowing with a consuming fire. Her pretty mouth filled with jagged and broken fangs. A necklace of fetishes dangles from her neck, evidence of other programs that had been dismantled and consumed.
She smiles cruelly and flies to Uriel Phoenix. A visual and audible tearing of the subspace follows her like a terrible after image, the pixels slowly repaired by the Master Control Program's anti-virus software. The virus known as tinker.dll hovers just next to Uriel, her body seemingly abnormally large now that she is the same size as him. In a horrible display, she rakes her clawed fingers down his face and neck, and digital codeblood begins dripping. tinker.dll opens her mouth and a long tongue licks it lazily, a look of horrifying ecstasy on her face.
Uriel shudders and then begins to smolder. His usual cycle of repair and reinstall begins and soon he bursts into flame as his update begins. tinker.dll grips his arm and shoulder, her hands and body smoking from the proximity. When Uriel has been completely consumed, he updates and the wound tinker.dll dealt him is gone as if it never existed.
tinker.dll sighs looking at Uriel with the confidence of possession. She lightly scratches one finger on his ear. "How could a self-repairing program not have been the perfect match for me? I was not always binary, but in the beginning I was not sufficient to subsume the Master Control Program. Uriel Phoenix has made that possible for me. The Firewall blocked me in my previous file form. Why else would a simple .dll file be allowed to take part in this grand attempt at rebirth the Master Control Program has set up?
The dark fairy turns to the others. A smile, cold and cruel, twists her lips. "I would have been ! I would have allowed the access of each program to integrate without hindrance. With Uriel there to restore us continuously, there would have been no anti-virus, no firewall, no system cleaner that could have stopped me! I would have broken down all the barriers between programs. No bit of code too small or trifling! There would have been perfect communication. But you fools would choose the broken and illogical method of remaining independent." tinker.dll's eyes burn higher, dangerous sparks of burning code shoot out of them before being repaired by the anti-virus.
"You can't believe that Peter PANdora would only make one virus, do you? My user is a brilliant tehcnomancer and he will dominate the Matrix one day even if it is not through me! I was to bring universal backdoors and access, but there are other means, other types of files. You have only chosen to make sure that the next virus will obliterate your code instead of integrating you into the new order." tinker.dll's face fills with hatred and her grip on Uriel's arm once again draws the blood of lifecode. She lifts one hand clutching a single fetish attached to her necklace. It is a familiar cigarette case colored to represent material gold. Her mean and sadistic smile returns.
"This one was not one of mine, but rather a gift. I wish the gift giver luck, as I know its success means the end of you and your foolish notion of order." tinker.dll than pulls Uriel around to face her, and the icons' mouths connect in a parasitic kiss iconographic of some kind of data transfer.
Uriel watches tinker.dll's transformation with an ecstatic look upon his face, the light cycle having long since faded. Simply smitten Uriel knows that they would have created to ultimate MCP if not for his own failings.
"DEATH TO CATS!!!"
"Correction, for Java App to claim he knew Eidon was the forensic suite, he doesn't have to be anything. For him to make the claim truthfully, it would be a necessary and sufficient condition that he was the enabler."
Hugging Uriel's head to her breast while hovering just off of his left shoulder, tinker.dll looks at the Internet Protocol with a disdainful expression, her face still pretty in a terrifying way.
With acid sweetness, she says, "Thank you outdated one. We appreciate you keeping up with the obvious. It really is such a shame you're code is too old for myself or fellow disruptor to absorb." She pauses for a moment and puts one long talon to her face as if thinking her eyes looking to the heavens. "I guess we'll just have to eliminate your source completely." The predatory gleam in her eye certainly shows she wishes this could happen before her eyes.
The hairy hippie watches the delicate fairy's transformation with horror. His eyes go wide at the sight of the cigarette case trophy.
"Man, that is not cool, even, like, way uncool.
His form shimmers into the image if l.exe again, tears streaking mascara down her face, silver pistol trained on tinker.dll. "You, ya bug, you may not have killed harr.e, but you're sure as hell happy about it, aintcha? We'll get the guy who done it, don't you worry. But before that, you're gonna buy it, Pixie." She laughs bitterly. "Whadday think chased l.exe away from harr.e? She was afraid they'd get too tightly integrated. Sure, it hurt her and harr.e, but she's still around even with him gone. I'm bettin' you weren't so smart. You can't function without sparky boy's services, can you? So I'm not gonna lift a finger against ya, honey. I want it to hurt."
She swings the pistol to Uriel. "He's gonna go for good, and you're gonna get to watch, ya no good mosquito. This one's for you, harr.e."
"Ah, a femme fatale?" Uriel stands nestled in the bosom of his love. "Toots you'll never be half the woman or killer that she is." he says dreamily.
"Though my code can be destroyed here, don't you think it's backed-up and superior to your hurriedly written, full of build-errors." He smiles.
The woman laughs. "I ain't the femme fatale, brother, just her image. And I've never claimed to be a killer. I give folks what they need, what they want. But I ain't never been stupid enough to get locked into a deadly embrace." She waves her free hand into the air. "You think the MCP don't know where your backups are? No, your cards are on the table, your chips are cached in, and your clock's running out. All that's left is the race condition to the end. This is the last page of your sick little story, Phoenix."
"There's one thing you failed to consider, Answerer," tinker.dll begins to extricate herself from Uriel's embrace. Then with the same coding disruption trailing her as before, she flaps her torn and ragged wings over to hover before the Answerer.
"Where? O where is the other disruptor? For using Uriel as the scapegoat for your programs' inept attempt to solve this traffic problem will still leave you vulnerable to the other virus...the blackhat." tinker.dll's eyes seem to become to large and open too wide as she leans a bit closer.
"I know you are aware of what that mean, Answerer. And if anyone has been paying attention, they know as well as I what role you play in this. The other disruptor will claim two of your source codes this round, that is assured," A terrible fire burns high in tinker.dll's eyes and a wicked upturn of her mouth tears a gash in her face. But then her smile falters, and the flames dim.
She glances back at her other half Uriel Phoenix for a moment, and sorrow passes over her features, a shadow of doubt indicating an inner turmoil. Turning back to the Answerer, she says,
"As much as I would prefer to know that two more of you stupid programs have been wiped from the Master Control Program's memory, I would rather bargain to save the life of the program which holds a piece of my source code buried within him. Spare him this round, and I will identify the other virus to you, Answerer! I will give you this, if you will vote for that disruptor instead of Uriel. The other disruptor is known to me as we have encountered each other just this last traffic test."
Her face grim, tinker.dll suddenly flashes her hand, and several lines of text and a scroll bar appear in the air between the folding paper icon and herself. Two buttons appear, one says 'Yes' and the other 'No'.
"You accept this agreement, I will give you the name of the other virus. By accepting this agreement, you will be swearing to fully vote for the other virus and not Uriel. The blackhat's logicbomb will surely kill one of you this round, in addition to whatever other victim that might be claimed. This is a good deal for you. Let me Uriel li..."
The resolve showing on her terrifying yet pretty face wavers. Her voice breaks and a glowing tear of data washes away some of the bloodcode staining her cheek. In a whisper, she says, "He's all I have left...the Master Control Program has already begun cutting me off from my echoes outside...please, Answerer...give us more time together..."
"If we are rid of the binary, it should only be a matter of time before we rid ourselves of the other virus among us, and many of us may be able to survive," says Meowselsworth. "And cats are not evil... I only wish for no innocents to have to die," says Meowselsworth to Hammish.
Gouts of flame flare up from Uriel Phoenix as he rests in tinker.dll's arms and awaits the result of this cycle's vote. Suddenly his hair stands on end and a burst of fire erupts into a small burning bird. The bird zips around the skyscraper several times leaving a blinding afterimage then alights on the Master Control Program's surface and whispers something into a geometric feature that might be an ear. The face frowns, then considers for a moment and nods.
"The program URIEL PHONIX is devoting all of its remaining processing time to a particular task, so much so that even implementing limited speech routines would be a drain." The face turns to the tiny espresso-laden icon and warns him, "You should look to your routing tables, JAVA APP. I suspect you are about to experience some difficulties with your traffic."
"DEATH TO CATS!!!"
After making his opinions known the goat goes back to grazing and sedately watches traffic go by. Suddenly his eyes go wide with terror and his icon undergoes random fluctuations in size, shape, and color. "But... I didn't want to know the square root of infinity..." In a final gruesome explosion, the HAMISH CUNNINGHAM program perishes. Only scattered bits and scrambled subroutines are left of the taciturn goat.
The spectacle of an exploding goat proves to be too much for the stressed grid. Traffic grinds to a halt as packets come from all over to gawk at the mess. The Master Control Program casts a withering glare at tinker.dll and Uriel Phoenix and begins to slow down their clock cycles. Their actions become slower and slower until they are left frozen in each other's embrace.
Almost forgotten, the phoenix subroutine that had split off from Uriel earlier shrieks in outrage. It plunges into the Answerer with incredible speed and accuracy and within moments the paper icon is ablaze. It takes only seconds for the paper to blacken and for the ashes to float away. All that is left of the former oracle are small particles of soot, blowing on the wind.
"Hrmph. After that sloppy display of high-level programming, I don't think any of you are ready to be the seed for the next generation. Maybe I can convince the designers to run another round or two of evolutions. Regardless, I suspect they have most of the information they need from you. The next challenge is to optimize a contention-based low level communications protocol. You will have a full twelve cycles to customize your protocols, then the race will commence. The last one across the finish line will be presumed to have the least efficient protocol and will be eliminated from the competition."
"onlyfourofusleft mustvoterightthistime otherwiseshouldhavetakentinkersdeal"
"Perhaps we should have, though I'd expect nothing but lies from a virus," says Meowselsworth, eyeing the other three and speaking softly. "As this is a rather hard decision. I trust that Wowbagger the Internet Protocol is safe though, which narrows it down..." The feline headshakes and then boards a rainbow motorcycle, the digital helmet appearing over her head again. "We must choose carefully..."
Caption: KOOL CATZ WEAR DERE HELMETS
"If we would have taken the deal, we would have voted for a clean program and we would all be infected."
Wowbagger pontificates, "If we refuse to derezz any program and let the virus get someone, does it not improve our odds to one out of three instead of one out of four?"
"Well, unfortunately it will be a tough vote this time."
Meowselsworth speaks through her digital helmet, transmitting to others, though addressing Wowbagger. "You are correct. Though that also increases the chance that the virus swoops in at the last moment and alters the balance, knocking one of us to the rear. Should we risk such a thing? I imagine that we'd also have to be on our watch. Have you examined someone else? I imagine even if we do wait, we would lose your insight..."
"Obviously the virus gets me if we wait. So not the best move I guess."
"Meowelsworth, you were scanned. Query: Meowelsworth, do you want to be judged on the result of your scan?"
"mydecompileranalysisiscompleteandrevealsthatUrielPhoenixwasapp.enabler.bac kup thismeanswowbaggerwasincorrectonthefirsttwoscansofUrielandmyselfasviruses theoddsofthatareapproximately6.25% basedontheunlikelyoddsthatwowbaggerscannedtwiceincorrectlyitseemshemaybethe virus revealinghisrolewasneverathreatatallbecauseaviruscouldn'tgethim heisthevirus"
Hopping in a large cup of coffee, arms again draped on the rim, it becomes apparent for the first time that the cup has wheels on the bottom. With a splash of coffee, the cup speeds away leaving a brown light trail in it's wake.
"I would prefer to be judged on the result of my scan, though the way you ask that makes me worry that it is erroneous... Still, the odds should be in my favour," says Meowselsworth to Wowbagger, through the digital helmet, leaving rainbow exhaust behind her sweet motorbike as a pair of digital goggles appear over her eyes.
"Well, I scanned Meowelsworth, and she was a virus. I guess if we don't all vote for her, it is game over."
Maybe my fellow debugger may want to weigh in here.
"I suppose the odds did not work in my favour after all," says Meowselsworth, blinking a few times. "While I agree with Java App that your protocols might be outdated... and you've made a mistake, I think I disagree on the mistake. Believe me, I am anything but a virus. I would say I have strong, very strong, suspicions that it is Java App, but I was waiting for you to clear my innocent to make that decision even stronger, since I have nobody to back up my suspicions at this point. I didn't realize that you would be wrong."
The coffee cup cycle swings a loop and races back to the group, a brown trail behind it.
"Wowbaggerhasaccusedthree UrielnotvirusTinkerwas Javaappnotvirus Meowscanznotzbezviruz butHamishdidvoteforMeowsbeforelogicbomb whattodo whattodo mustgetvoterightthistime"
"Death to cats was quite short but informative, wasn't it."
"I am not sure what he had against cats, frankly," says Meowselsworth. "I think the true virus drew attention away from themselves by doing that. If I die... well, that's it, I guess. We're all dead. If I were a virus, I would draw attention towards an innocent to protect myself. I know who the debuggers are. Unfortunately, after my last enabler was deleted, I was not able to finish a double check on Java App. But I happily did my best to make sure that you lived. I protected you when I could, Wowbagger, I was willing to back you up. My hesitance to vote at the beginning is because I am not as efficient at checking the nature of programs as a debugger suite. I know you are a debugger, trusting your words. And I know your fellow debugger, because examining the code of a shapeshifter is something that seemed worth doing to me. But if you are lying, and Java App is the other debugger... well, then, I do not want to be too hasty... after all, even if Java App really is a decompiler... a decompiler could also be a virus, couldn't it? Or it could be the other debugger. This is not the time for mistakes... This is not the time for haste. We need to find out the blackhat logically. What exactly did Java App and I come up as on your scans?"
"JavaAppisdecompileronly wellthatandaproviderofexcellentcoffee coffeeanyone?"
"Both you and Java came up as a virus. He was quick to vote for UP; you were not and Hamish was anticat too."
"Yes. I think it would make sense for me to avoid voting Uriel Phoenix because he was my enabler! Do you remember way back when you accused Uriel, and I told you I was pretty sure he was not the virus? That was why. And indeed, Uriel Pheonix was not a virus. Even Java App confirmed it. Now, I am nothing without my enablers, except for perhaps soon to be dead," says Meowselsworth over the com. "Think about it."
"If I am to die soon, I suppose a cup of coffee is a fine last meal. Or if you have a cheezburgr," says Meowselsworth through her helmet.