~ A Wedding In Mainframe ~

You couldn't have asked for a nicer day for an outdoor wedding. The sun was shining, birds were singing, and a light breeze made the floral arrangements sway as if they were dancing.

Bob stood by the altar, nervously readjusting his bow tie.

"Bob? Is it time yet?"

"Any nano now, Enzo." The guardian smiled down at young Enzo, the ring bearer. "We're just waiting on your sister."

"And she gets mad at me for being late to Ancient Languages," Enzo complained. "This is important!"

"Believe me, I know it is!" laughed Bob. "She'll be here."

It was only a few moments more before the Wedding March began to play. All of the wedding guests fell silent and turned their attention to the flowery archway behind them.

The bride stepped through the archway, and she was beautiful. She wore a flowing white dress covered with tiny pearls that had been stitched on by hand. On her head was a veil of intricate lace, and in her hands she carried a bouquet of one dozen perfect daisywheels.

Bob took a deep breath. This was it. It felt like he had waited an eternity just for this moment.

But where was Dot?

"Bob!" As if on cue, Dot came crashing in through several expensive-looking floral arrangements. Her peach-colored dress was stained with a variety of foodstuffs, and one of her poofy sleeves was missing. "I've got the slice of magic wedding cake!" she shouted, shoving guests aside as she sprinted toward the alter.

The guardian turned to Enzo. "Hold on to those rings! Now that we've got the cake, we only need one more item to end this thing!" With that, the groom took off down the aisle and shot a quick blast of energy from his palms straight at the bride. The impact knocked her to the ground, apparently unconscious.

The bride's charred daisywheel bouquet tumbled to the aisle, and Bob made a move to grab it. Unfortunately for him, the bridesmaids' ears were uniquely tuned to detect the sound of petals hitting the ground. Almost instantly, Bob was swarmed by women in ugly peach dresses with poofy sleeves. Just as he was about to reach the flowers, one of the bridesmaids threw a chair at him. Bob fell to the ground and avoided being hit, but he had lost his chance at the bouquet.

The chair-throwing bridesmaid nabbed the burnt daisywheels, and waved them triumphantly over her head. She was quite pleased with her defeat of all the other bridesmaids, until she felt a tap on the shoulder. Turning around, the bridesmaid saw a disheveled and angry-looking green woman holding a handful of cake. Then she saw an icing-covered fist heading directly for the bridesmaid's own face.

There was a loud "crunch" sound, and the bridesmaid buckled to her knees. It looked as if the woman's nose had been turned sideways. Bob winced, and Enzo cheered. Dot just shook out her fist and calmly kicked the remains of the bouquet over to Bob. As the guardian picked up the broken bunch of stems, there was the usual flash of purple.

"Game over," said the System Voice in its familiar monotone. Bob, Dot, and Enzo found themselves back in the middle of Baudway.

"Oh, man!" Enzo groaned. "When did the User start playing such girly games? 'Kimmy's Dream Wedding: The Game'? How lame is that?"

"The User works in mysterious ways," Bob said.

"You boys are just lucky you missed 'Kimmy's Ultimate Beauty Pageant: The Game.' It would have made for an interesting eveningwear competition, but I don't think you would've had much fun in heels." Dot laughed, but Enzo didn't think the idea of wearing a dress was quite as funny. He decided to change the subject.

"What took you so long to get the cake, Sis? It seemed like Bob and I were waiting forever!"

"I'm sorry, but those game sprite caterers are tougher than they look! Besides, getting the rings is an easy enough job when you reboot as the ring bearer," Dot pointed out.

Enzo nodded. He knew had gotten the simplest task... but something else was bothering him. "So-- what's the point of a ring bearer, anyway?"

"Got me." Bob shrugged. "They just taught us to play the games at the academy. We were never expected to understand them."

Dot wasn't sure she even wanted to understand that ridiculous game. "Must be a User thing. Like that ugly dress with poofy sleeves I was lucky enough to reboot into."

"Oh, but Dot! Peach is your color, it really is!" Bob teased.

"I haven't worn peach in a long time," said Dot pseudo-defensively. She paused a moment, thinking. "You know what I just realized? This is the first time in a long time just the three of us have been in a game cube together."

"Just like the good old cycles." Bob smiled, but Dot could see a little sadness in his eyes as well. She knew exactly how he felt.

"It doesn't seem that long ago to me," Enzo chimed in. "Hey, can we go out for energy shakes now?"

"Uh-uh, Enzo," Dot scolded. "You know better than that. You still haven't finished your homework."

"Just like the good old cycles," Enzo grumbled.

Dot removed her organizer from her belt, and activated the planner function. "And I'm already late for reviewing some system registry reports with Phong. Bob--"

"Yes, I know. I'll get back to the anti-Daemon security measures at once, Miss Command.com." Bob was tempted to salute, but thought better of it.

"Thanks, Bob. Maybe I'll be able to stop by and see you during the CPU training exercises." She grinned at him. They both knew she would probably be too busy to follow through on that, but it was nice to pretend.

Bob grinned back. "I'll look forward to it."

As the three of them parted ways, Bob couldn't help thinking how nice it was to finally have things back to normal.

(back)

Written by MG from a minor glitch.
Inspired by ReBoot from Mainframe Entertainment.
Read by ReBoot geeks from who-knows-where!