Bob: (yawn) What time is it?
Crow: 2:07 am
Bob: Remind me why I'm up at this microsecond...
Tom: Cause we have an emergency story to riff.
Mike: Why is it an emergency?
Crow: Because this guy is really down. See? Read this.
(Crow hands Mike a piece of paper)
Crow: It's a print out of his message from Hanako Breithaupt's The List.
(Mike reads)
 

Mike: Boy, he sounds desperate.
Tom: And that's why we're doing this.
Mike: So, which out of his fics are we going to riff?
Tom: We picked out a story that he wrote for Al's Waiter's "ReBoot Shorts" contest but never submitted.
Mike: So, let me get this straight: D^K wrote a story for Al's Waiter's "ReBoot Shorts"?
Bots: Yup!
Mike: And didn't submit it?
Bots: Yup!
Mike: And even though we MSTed the submissions to the contest, we still have to MST D^K's short?
Bots: Yup!
Mike: Somehow, that doesn't sound fair. To us I mean.
Tom: Too late, it's starting.

The Man In The Rain Coat

Bob: (yawning) ...was in bed.

by D^Knight

Bob: (waking up) Hey I recognize that name! He's a ReBoot Project Metaverse fanfiction writer, right?
Mike: Doesn't he do his own type of MSTing with two friends of his, too?
Tom: Yeah, but for some strange reason, he wanted his story shredded.
Crow: He's just strange that way.
Bob: So that's why we're here? To make him feel better by putting his story down?
Crow: Basically.
Bob:  Okay, just checking.

The rain was appropriate for the occasion.

Bob: Because it was Dot's birthday and she was turning 30; she wanted to be depressed.

Stronger than a drizzle, but not enough for a downpour.

Mike: In other words, it was just plain, regular rain.

Not many people knew about this place in Floating Point Park.

Crow: Except the love-sick teenagers who all knew about it.

Everyone assumed that Floating Point was a happy place, a place for relaxation, a place where all your troubles could be forgotten.

Tom: Also, the only place where engagements, picnics and walks take place in fanfics.

They never went to this particular area.

Mike: It was said to be haunted by the ghost of Megabyte.

Dot Matrix walked through the markers.

Mike: (Dot) Look at all the colors! There's a red one... and a blue marker. This green one is all dried up.

Now and again, she would stop, and brush the dust off some forgotten one.

Bob: (Dot) There you go little guy.
Crow: (One Binome) Thanks. I needed that. I get so dusty!

Perhaps it's the way everyone deals with bad experiences, she mused.

Tom: By abandoning them at the city limits.

They grieve over it for a while, then they totally forget about it.

Crow: (sobbing) Oh why did you leave me? Why, oh why! (stops) Alright! I really need something to eat. I'm starving!

Sprites and binomes seldom left bodies when they ceased their file existences. They either faded out, or they were nullified.

Bob: Meaning, they either left a horrible smell of sulphur behind or became a energy sucking null.

However, a long time ago,

Mike: ...in a galaxy far, far away...

someone felt that these unfortunate people should be remembered.

Hence this graveyard.

Crow: Which really served no purpose what-so-ever.
Bob: D^Knight just said it's used to remember the sprites and binomes who were deleted.
Crow: But they could always be restored in a system restart.
Tom: He's got ya there.

The countless people nullified by the Games before Bob arrived.

(Bob polishes his nails on his uniform and looks at them proudly.)
Crow: Yeah, then the people just got destroyed by the two virus' in the system who were just trying to get at Bob.
Bob: It was all their fault if they did.

The countless people Megabyte had killed in his mad lust for power.

Crow: See? Told ya.

And the countless people nullified and deleted when the Twin City was destroyed.

Mike: Which no one really knows about, other than that fact.
Bob: Well, now Mainframe is making two new TV movies, so maybe it'll be explained in them.
Crow: Or Mainframe will just torture everyone by not explaining it.
Bob: Wouldn't be the first time.

Dot glanced down at the bouquet of flowers she was holding. They had been hand picked; she wasn't going to cheapen this occasion by ordering the flowers.

Tom: ...from a flower shop that she owned so she probably wouldn't have had to buy them anyway.

Now, the flowers were wet with the rain.

Mike: Well, that's how rain works: Water is wet. Rain is made of water. Rain falls on flowers. Flowers get wet.

As was Dot herself; her hair was plastered to her head,

Bob: Which it does when it's dry too.

and her face was wet with raindrops.

Mike: See rain explanation above.

But not tears.

Tom: Cause the author said it was raindrops.
Crow: And the author intends to point out every detail, even though he's already explained it.

She would not cry now; it was unbecoming in a Command.Com.

Crow: And Command.Com's are robots, therefore lacking in emotion.

As Dot trekked through the rain, she kept her gaze downwards, partly to negotiate through the haphazard placing of the grave markers,

Mike: Wouldn't that be "to navigate through the..." instead of negotiate?
Bob: No, that's actually the proper use for that verb.
Mike: Hmmmm... (grabs a dictionary)

partly to keep the rain out of her eyes, and partly because she didn't trust herself to remain composed when she saw The Marker.

Crow: Dum dum dum!

It was The Marker to her now; she had gone to it so many times, it was almost a surrogate for that which she had lost.

Tom: News at 11. See sprite raised by a surrogate colored marker.

Almost.

Tom: News at 11. See sprite almost raised by a surrogate colored marker.
Mike: (pointing in the dictionary) Hey, what do you know! Negotiate is used properly.
Bob: Told ya.

Some sixth sense made her look up just before she reached her destination. What she saw made her gasp.

Crow: (Dot) Phong, I see dead people.
Tom: (Phong) When, my child?
Crow: (Dot) All the time.

A man in a rain coat.

Mike: And here we get the title of our story.
Rest: Oooooo...!

He didn't seem to have noticed her yet.

Crow: He was too busy burying someone.
Bob: We've already established that sprites don't leave bodies behind when they die.
Crow: I never said that someone was dead yet.
Bob: Oh.

His face was turned away, but Dot could almost swear that it was him, standing there...

Mike: Him?
Crow: Oh, I get it! It's suspenseful!

Crow: Hey look Mike! It's a limbo line!
Bob: How low can you go!

The Twin City was bright and shiny.

Tom: (binome) I'm blind! Someone turn it off!

Never mind that it was pouring outside; inside, it was all warm and comfy and cozy.

Crow: In the padded rooms of Mainframe's Insane Asylum.

Dot Matrix didn't know much about the Net at that time; after all, she had only recently been initialized.

Tom: Flashback alert!
Mike: Awwww... it's a baby Dot storwy!
Bob: Wit' de iddy biddy Dot!
Crow: (Dot Warner) Call me Dottie and die.

She watched the door in anticipation.

Crow: Wow! Look!
Tom: It's a door!
All: Oooooo!

Soon, he would be coming home. He would be there for her, now and always.

Mike: Again with the he. Who is he anyway?
Crow: My bets are on Megabyte.
Tom: Dibs on Phong.
Bob: My guess is a young version of me.
(everybody looks at Bob)
Bob: What?

The door opened, and the man in the rain coat stepped in.

Mike: Ooo! Re-occuring theme.

"So," he said cheerfully, even though he was still dripping, "how's my favourite little sprite today?"

Crow: (Dot) Busy. I still watching the door for the him to come in.
Bob: I'm thinking "he" is referring to Dot's father.
Crow: Then why can't D^Knight just say that?
Bob: Why are you asking me?

Dot grinned, then laughed as the man in the rain coat picked her up and carried her.

Crow: (Dot) Argh! You're all wet!
Mike: (Mr. Matrix) Because it's raining outside, honey.

There was nothing but happiness now, nothing but joy.

Tom: (Singing) Happy, happy! Joy joy...

Nothing but joy...

Bob: And the rain outside.

Tom: Everybody limbo!

It had also been raining, on that day.

Mike: It rains a lot in Mainframe, doesn't it?
Bob: Actually, never at all.

Dot Matrix, now 1.0, paced the room alone. The wait had been long, and throughout that wait, there had been no news.

Crow: Only lousy TV sitcoms.
Tom: (Mike the TV) Today on Acquaintances, Dos Cellular gets fired from his job as a textologist.

Why wasn't he here? He was supposed to have been here when this whole thing started!

Crow: So, if anything went wrong, he could be blamed for it.

Work, work, work, that's all he ever did...

Mike: Gee, I wonder where Dot got that quality from?

The door opened, and the man in the rain coat walked in.

Tom: (Dot) Are you stalking me?
Crow: (Mr. Matrix) Tell me Dot, do you like scary movies?

Immediately, all of Dot's anger was forgotten. She ran to him, and hugged him tightly,

Crow: ...around the neck, cutting off his air until he turned blue.
Tom: And discovered that it was actually Bob.
Crow: So she squeezed tighter.

not caring that the man was still dripping wet.

Mike: Because it was raining outside.

"They've been in there for so long, and they didn't tell me anything, and I don't know what to do!" she wailed.

Crow: (Mr. Matrix) Shut up.

The man in the rain coat patted her shoulder absently, evidently very worried himself. "I know, Dot, I know. But we can't do anything until the doctors come out."

Mike: (Dot) Then I get one of those special jackets?
Tom: (Mr. Matrix) Yes honey.

Dot looked up at him.

Bob: (Dot) I can see up your nose.

"You're a doctor."

"Yes, but I don't feel qualified to doing this sort of thing, you see. Besides, the Twin City Hospital doctors are far better than me."

Tom: (Mr. Matrix) Because I suck.

Implausible as that concept was, Dot had no time to contemplate that, as the door at the other end of the room opened.

 Crow: And he walked in.

A white-coated doctor walked into the room. "Family name of Matrix?" When he received confirmation, he said, simply, "Congratulations."

 Mike: (Doctor) You may have already won a million dollars!

The man in the rain coat blinked. "You mean..."

Bob: (Mr. Matrix) I'm a millionaire?
Mike: (Doctor) No, I'm just playing with your head.

"That's right. You have a beautiful

Crow: ...bouncing...

 baby boy."

 Tom: (Dot) Oh Daddy! Can we throw him off the roof and watch him bounce?
Mike: (Mr. Matrix) After supper honey.

Before anyone could react, the man in the rain coat rushed out of the room.

Mike: And back out into the rain.

Dot trotted after him. After all, she did want to see her baby brother.

Crow: (Dot, aside) I want to see the creature that will be taking over my room...

Crow: Congo line everyone!

And it had also been raining on that day.

Mike: And Mainframe was flooded.
Crow: (singing) I'm singing in the rain....

The sky had, if only briefly, been illuminated by a light which defied description.

Mike: So, we won't be getting a description?
Bob: Looks like it.
Crow: I wonder what "a light which defied description" looks like?
Tom: You'd have to see it for yourself cause no one would be able to describe it to you.

It was then followed by the loudest noise anyone had ever heard.

And then there was silence,

Bob: Because everyone was now deaf.

only broken by the pouring of the rain.

Mike: That's one hard rain.

Dot Matrix knew, in her core, what had happened. She had seen the direction where the light had come from. She had known where most of the sprites would be today.

Tom: Everyone knows that. Dot's Diner.
Crow: The place where if you need to find someone, they're bound to be there.

And now, as she ran out into the rain, she could no longer see the skyline which had been a constant memory throughout her entire existence.

Mike: Because Rick Moranis was playing with his machine again...

Behind her, she could hear Enzo running off somewhere.

Mike: Dot's Diner.

The cold, analytical part of her mind

Crow: Proving that she is indeed a automaton....

knew that the first place her brother would seek refuge in was Old Man Pearson's Data Dump. For a split second, she felt like joining him.

Crow: (Dot) Hey Enzo! Let's go to the junk yard and get really dirty!
Tom: (Enzo) Yeah! Mom and Dad would love that!
Bob: ...

A CPU suddenly pulled up beside her, and a one binome, dressed in a police uniform, stepped out. "Miss Dot Matrix?" he asked, as though she could be someone else.

Mike: (Officer) You are under arrest.

Dot nodded numbly.

"We regret to inform you..."

Tom: (Regis) I'm sorry the answer was D: The stuff under your shoe.

The rest of the message was lost in a haze, and Dot stood there, numbly, watching the ambulances and the CPUs zoom past her.

Bob: *sniff*
Mike: You ok Bob?
Bob: Yeah. I'm ok. *sniff* I just got... some *sniff* theatre dust in my... *sniff* eye.
Mike: Ok, honey.
Bob: (whispering) Poor Dot. *sniff*

Finally, she screamed, in a desperate gamble that this was only a bad dream, and that she would wake up soon, she must wake up soon...

Mike: (Hanako) You know you've written a bad ReBoot fic when... f) At the end of your fic ... it's all just a bad dream.

The sound of the rain drowned out the cry of a sprite in despair, a sprite who would carry with her an unshakeable grief for the rest of her life.

(Bob starts bawling)
Mike: (gets up and begins to comfort Bob) It's okay, Bob. It's ok. Let it out.

Tom: No, I won't do it. That joke is dead now.

Dot walked towards the man in the rain coat, and laid a hand on his shoulder.

Tom: Ah. Hello Thing.

Matrix started, then relaxed. "Oh, hi, sis."

Crow: (Matrix) Who's hand is this?

They stood there in silence for a while, first looking at each other, then looking at The Marker.

Mike: (Dot) Pretty isn't it?
Crow: (Matrix) Yeah. Orange is my favourite colour.

Finally, Matrix asked, "Where's... you know..."

Tom: (Dot) Bob? He's on the SOL.
Crow: Yeah. Blubbering like a baby.
Bob: (sniffing) Log off!

"He's in his room," Dot said.

Mike: (Dot) I locked him in.

"He locked himself in there.

Mike: Oh...

I don't think he'll come out for some time."

Bob: (Dot) He's finally figured out how to finish Final Fantasy VII

"I see."

Crow: (Matrix) Yeah, but at least you have two eyes.

They stood there for a while longer.

 Bob: (Matrix) So...
Mike: (Dot) So...
Bob: (Matrix) ...
Mike: (Dot) ...It's raining out.
Bob: (Matrix) ...Yeah. I'm getting wet.

With great care, Dot knelt down, and placed the bouquet of flowers beside The Marker. She stood up, and turned to leave.

"Dot."

Tom: (Matrix) I just like saying "Dot".

She stopped, and looked back at her brother.

"Do you think..." Matrix licked his lips, and tried again. "Do you think... he'd be proud of me?"

(Snickers from the guys)

Dot didn't say anything. Instead, she just drew her brother into a big hug.

Tom: (Dot) No. You're a gun raving lunatic. Of course he wouldn't be proud of you!

"I think he is," she said, after a long time. "I think he is."

Bob: (Dot) But then again, I'm just humouring you.

Together, they walked back through the grave markers, back towards the system.

Mike: Because somewhere between the flashbacks, they had somehow gotten away from Mainframe... though they were in Floating Point.

Above them, the rain petered out, then stopped.

Bob: For the first time in the fic.

In a while, it would be sunny again.

All: (singing) Out came the sun and dried up all the rain....

Email all comments to me.

Crow: Hey! We're done.
Tom: Well, that was fun.
Mike: It ended with the sun.
Bob: Now we can get up and run!

(Everyone gets up and begin walking out of the theatre)

Mike: (stopping Bob) You ok now?
Bob: Yeah. I don't know what came over me. Guess I'm just tired, that's all.
Mike: You can go back to bed now. See you in the morning. (walks out)
Bob: Yeah, see you Mike.
(Bob looks around the theatre, the screen, the seats, then slowly leaves.)