A piece of the action

Who: Lester Seventeen-dot-Phelps and SNIDEWhere: Their computer suite onboard EnlightenmentWhen: Right now. Oh dear.
 
Lester frowned as the ship lurched and someone on the bridge called the bodily appendage file he'd just finished working on: "fixated! Completely fixated!" He sighed and then interfaced directly with Holly.
 
"Oi!" Holly's disembodied head was floating serenely above the virtual bar in a dingy London Eastend pub. Lester stepped across the sticky carpet.
"Hi, Holly," Lester said placatingly. "Listen, I'm really sorry to barge in like this..."
 
"Yeah, I'm a little busy right now," Holly scowled as suddenly a bottle levitated from the bartop, hung upside in mid-air, then smashed itself against nothing. Shards of digital glass fell to the mucky floor. "You're not even supposed to be in here."
 
"Please, I need to know. The computer registered an attack, then: nothing. That's not good. Even the standard monitor channels died." Holly's face scowled as a barstool was picked up by an unseen hand and smashed itself across empty space. Splinters formed a deadly rain not far from Holly's cheek.
 
"It's a virus. All right? Those clever clogs up on the bridge closed the firewall you left open, but the AI virus is inside and it's making a mess. I can't get internal defences to work while the virus is dancing the Charleston on my interfaces. So unless you can help: bugger off."
 
Lester looked panicked as more furniture joined the invisible bar-room brawl. He ducked as an ashtray whizzed past and snapped the handle off a beer pump. "I can't help you." SNIDE slid across the bar, ducking under more debris. "But we know someone who can, right SNIDE?"
 
The little robot turned, dipped his round body in a nod and flung himself back at Lester as he severed the direct connection.
Lester sat up from his desk and found the file he had brought with him, especially for this occasion.
 
"N-not much of a fighter," he quivered as the sounds of fighting echoed in the holographic halls, "b-but I know a man who is." SNIDE did a little somersault, then leapt the distance to Lester's head where he nestled into the glittering device on the man's temple. Lester loaded the file he had brought with him since the beginning of his journey and then slumped back into the stupor brought about when interfacing directly to Holly.
 
Holly's bar was even more of a mess as an invisible body was hurled through the window, scattering the painted sign declaring "Planet Holly's Wood." Suddenly, through the shimmering snow fall of glass stepped a tall, broad-shouldered stranger. He wore a smart suit, under a sharp coat in a light-grey with a faint lustre to it. The man wore a simple mask over his eyes and a silvery-grey trilby topped it off. He cracked his knuckles in their shiny black leather gloves.
 
"What have we here Shinto?" He asked in Lester's voice over his shoulder as temporarily the virtual carnage ceased. "Rough-housing in our town? I don't think so." A tiny robot wearing a miniature yellow cape and domino mask over its round body spidered its way up the man's coat and sat on his shoulder. "Time for the Silver Shadow to pick up the tab!"
 
Shinto hurled himself from the shoulder of the Silver Shadow, becoming a tiny ball of whirling death. He struck an area of invisibility, slicing in with his clawed legs to an unseen digital body. A cloud-form of data disintegrated, scattering code across the damp carpet. Then the Silver Shadow leapt in too. Arms and legs flying, he pounded relentlessly into the invisible enemies. He delievered a particularly stunning upper-cut, catching an unseen assailant under the chin and was rewarded by a huge 2-dimenisonal flash emblazoned with the word "KA-POW!"
 
The Silver Shadow turned on Shinto angrily. "I told you to turn that stuff off!" Shinto shrugged, but then someone grabbed the ka-pow and smashed it like glass over the Silver Shadow's trilby.
 
"You ruffians just don't know when to stop do you?" He retorted bravely and slugged the invisible thug square in the face.
 
***
 
Lester slumped prone in his chair by the computer, a silly grin on his face and a line of drool sticking his chin to his shirt. SNIDE twitched happily on his temple as the two of them battled the virus in Holly's main memory bank.
 
The door slid open and two Krylons regarded the area with the same contempt they always reserved for biological creatures and their dwellings.
 
"The Light-Bee is near here," the first one said, regarding its sensor modules. "Find it, destroy the hologram."
 
The second Krylon moved forward, its arm ended in spinning pincer blades which it raised above its head to get a decent, devastating chop.
 
Underneath, Lester giggled inanely and twitched in his self-induced stupor, the long shadow of the Krylon plunged him into darkness...
<Dum Dah DUUUMM! Will the Silver Shadow be able to save Holly? Will someone be able to save Lester? Will he ever be able to live down the drooling or the roleplaying? Find out in the next exciting post by... someone else!>
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