Been meaning to do this but the cold version 2.0 made me forget to do so:
In any case I wrote and posted a short fic in Richard Adams Watership Down 'verse.
It's called "Both Sides Now" and can be found here.
http://www.yuletidetreasure.org/archive/59/bothsides.html Thanks and take care, Karrenia
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Disclaimer: Reboot and all of the characters who appear here or are mentioned are not mine, they belong to their original creators.
Written for koryou's unfilled request from the Live journal 2008 New Year Resolutions Challenge; although it's not long enough to be uploaded to the archive.
"Fools, Heroes, and Lovers" by Karen
It is a known fact in Mainframe that reality can often be mistaken for a rather trippy acid trip, or that might just be the mood-altering substances that she indulges in from time to time. "Sometimes, remarked Hexadecimal thoughtfully,
'Obvious insanity has it advantages, I mean, really, there are things that really do go bump in the night, and then the ones that just bump and moan. Not, that I ever really believed in ghosts.”
Ghosts were not really, there were more like sonar echoes that traveled
through the network and interfered with transmissions. In her time, Hex thought, she had concocted her own share of spectacular ‘ghosts in the machine, gambits and Trojan horse viruses. Bob had always been there to stop her and the Big Man, who had enlisted her services.
"Bob, such a sweet boy." Hexadecimal sighed, this one with more than a touch of longing both at denied mayhem and mingled passion denied. "He believed in other kind of ghosts, mainly those of his own making."
She smiled again and raised her hands up to about level with his her eyes, lounging back in a high-backed chair in the cavernous room that she had taken to referring to as the
Contemplation Room.
"The world makes a certain kind of sense, at least through my eyes,; order and chaos constantly tugging at either end of the spectrum." Hexadecimal laughed and the peals of her mirth at the mental image thus created bounced off each of the four walls before at last fading away. "Like a cosmic tug of war."
She shifted around in the chair to glance at the holo-image on one of the banks of computer screens lining one third of the room. "Our Hero! The emphasis in her voice could have been taken by any listening to Hex's monologue as either mockery or sarcasm, both of which she certainly harbored, but she also meant it in the sense it was intended. Bob had saved the world of Mainframe.
Her hair fluttered out behind her, a crimson curtain almost the same shade as her outfit.
"If anyone had asked me, which they did not, might I add, the only value is in
fighting the good fight, and really what does that mean, 'good fight?"
As she thought about that Hexadecimal almost feel out of her chair as a sudden thought struck hair, and she dug her nails into the arm rests of her chair. It was an unwelcome one and it did not go unnoticed by the cringing servitors who hovered near the far wall of the room. "Did I love him? Would it have mattered if it did?'
"The Great Game is over, and we both choose our side; our means and methods and even, our allies."
"It was a gamble and I lost."
Hexadecimal laughed, this time at her own folly and then muttered under her breath.
"Sometimes obvious foolishness is better than doing nothing at all."
She smiled and sat back down in her chair, her back straight, and her lips pursed, again fluttering her hands in front of her eyes in order to better contemplate the sheen of her crimson-painted nails.
"I should have thought myself well beyond entertaining thoughts of petty revenge; beyond the need for recriminations and trying to place the blame. And the Name of a Name knows how much blame there was to go around."
Hexadecimal got bored of admiring her painted fingernails and slumped back into the padded cushion of the chair. "Bob, if you had asked me, the value of a hero is one who does what he does to save those who cares for; yet is not around to speak for himself."
Then, after a moment of silence with a nod of her head allowing her hair to fall over and across her eyes.
"Even if you never hear any of this," Hexadecimal sighed again and allowed
a brief smile to curve her equally ruby-red painted lips, "I just want to leave you with one thought. She sighed closed and then opened her eyes again.
"In this world of ours, you can please some of the people some of the time, but not everyone all the time."