The rain was appropriate for the occasion. Stronger than a drizzle, but not enough for a downpour.
Not many people knew about this place in Floating Point Park. Everyone assumed that Floating Point was a happy place, a place for relaxation, a place where all your troubles could be forgotten.
They never went to this particular area.
Dot Matrix walked through the markers. Now and again, she would stop, and brush the dust off some forgotten one.
Perhaps it's the way everyone deals with bad experiences, she mused. They grieve over it for a while, then they totally forget about it.
Sprites and binomes seldom left bodies when they ceased their file existences. They either faded out, or they were nullified.
However, a long time ago, someone felt that these unfortunate people should be remembered.
Hence this graveyard.
The countless people nullified by the Games before Bob arrived. The countless people Megabyte had killed in his mad lust for power.
And the countless people nullified and deleted when the Twin City was destroyed.
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.
Now, the flowers were wet with the rain.
As was Dot herself; her hair was plastered to her head, and her face was wet with raindrops.
But not tears. She would not cry now; it was unbecoming in a Command.Com.
As Dot trekked through the rain, she kept her gaze downwards, partly to negotiate through the haphazard placing of the grave markers, 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.
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.
Almost.
Some sixth sense made her look up just before she reached her destination. What she saw made her gasp.
A man in a rain coat.
He didn't seem to have noticed her yet. His face was turned away, but Dot could almost swear that it was him, standing there...
The Twin City was bright and shiny.
Never mind that it was pouring outside; inside, it was all warm and comfy and cozy.
Dot Matrix didn't know much about the Net at that time; after all, she had only recently been initialized.
She watched the door in anticipation. Soon, he would be coming home. He would be there for her, now and always.
The door opened, and the man in the rain coat stepped in.
"So," he said cheerfully, even though he was still dripping, "how's my favourite little sprite today?"
Dot grinned, then laughed as the man in the rain coat picked her up and carried her. There was nothing but happiness now, nothing but joy.
Nothing but joy...
It had also been raining, on that day.
Dot Matrix, now 1.0, paced the room alone. The wait had been long, and throughout that wait, there had been no news.
Why wasn't he here? He was supposed to have been here when this whole thing started! Work, work, work, that's all he ever did...
The door opened, and the man in the rain coat walked in.
Immediately, all of Dot's anger was forgotten. She ran to him, and hugged him tightly, not caring that the man was still dripping wet. "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.
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."
Dot looked up at him. "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."
Implausible as that concept was, Dot had no time to contemplate that, as the door at the other end of the room opened.
A white-coated doctor walked into the room. "Family name of Matrix?" When he received confirmation, he said, simply, "Congratulations."
The man in the rain coat blinked. "You mean..."
"That's right. You have a beautiful baby boy."
Before anyone could react, the man in the rain coat rushed out of the room.
Dot trotted after him. After all, she did want to see her baby brother.
And it had also been raining on that day.
The sky had, if only briefly, been illuminated by a light which defied description. It was then followed by the loudest noise anyone had ever heard.
And then there was silence, only broken by the pouring of the 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.
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.
Behind her, she could hear Enzo running off somewhere. The cold, analytical part of her mind 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.
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.
Dot nodded numbly.
"We regret to inform you..."
The rest of the message was lost in a haze, and Dot stood there, numbly, watching the ambulances and the CPUs zoom past her.
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...
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.
Dot walked towards the man in the rain coat, and laid a hand on his shoulder.
Matrix started, then relaxed. "Oh, hi, sis."
They stood there in silence for a while, first looking at each other, then looking at The Marker. Finally, Matrix asked, "Where's... you know..."
"He's in his room," Dot said. "He locked himself in there. I don't think he'll come out for some time."
"I see."
They stood there for a while longer.
With great care, Dot knelt down, and placed the bouquet of flowers beside The Marker. She stood up, and turned to leave.
"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?"
Dot didn't say anything. Instead, she just drew her brother into a big hug.
"I think he is," she said, after a long time. "I think he is."
Together, they walked back through the grave markers, back towards the system.
Above them, the rain petered out, then stopped. In a while, it would be sunny again.
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