ReBoot Episode 12 (1_12) (code 9415a)
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"IDENTITY CRISIS, part 1"


Title credits

Written by
Jono Howard
Story by
Gavin Blair, Phil Mitchell, Ian Pearson

Synopsis

Dot is trying to make things better for the binomes that are in Megabyte's sector. Some very important information is stolen, and Dot loses confidence in herself. She starts losing her sense of reality in "The Funhouse".

Story

As the episode opens, a game cube is already in place on top of the Wall Street sector. It is an idyllic setting, birds and butterflys along a stream. Bob is fishing. (He is wearing a commando outfit; plenty of grenades on a camo vest, and his shiny silicon hair in a black flat-top crew cut.) Suddenly his revery is interrupted by an Apache attack helicopter, a Stealth Bomber, and a tank. The tank stops a little too close to Bob, and out pops Enzo in Desert Storm fatigues. Enzo complains that the game is too old, it's boring. Bob warns him, "who knows, maybe one day you'll end up in The Fun House". (Bob knew a sprite in the Supercomputer who's best friend's cousin got caught in the Fun House, Enzo thinks it is just a fairy tale.)

Off on the side, the User is not doing so well; its tank is stuck between two buildings. The crew of the Stealth Bomber try to take it out, but the Bomb gets stuck in the plane. (This is the first time that the British binomes Algernon Cholmondley-Worthington III ("Sir") and Binky Ffarquarson lose a plane). Bob decides that it is taking too long, pulls out a handheld rocket launcher, and takes out the User's tank in one shot. Game over.

It is Dot's big day, so the two guys hurry back to the Diner. (We see a lot of vehices moving round her place.) Dot is working on a checklist. "PID containment node, check. CCI display, check." When she calls for Cecil, everything goes wacky. The colors match Megabyte's viral binomes, and MB's face is on all the billboards outside. Phong's voice comes through, "what you are experiencing is a temporary distortion of reality". Cecil has a blank facescreen and an "EU 26" label. When things get back to normal, Cecil states that all of the staff and some of the food items are behind her all the way. [Binary dictionary]

Enzo comes running in, having beaten Bob at a foot race. He is all excited, but Dot is horrified that Enzo's icon is not on his baseball cap. Bob picked it up and replaces it. Dot reminds Enzo that his Personal ID codes are stored in the icon; if anyone gets ahold if them, they can make him do anything they want.

After a little more dilly-dallying, Dot gets her personal organizer and prepares herself. She taps her icon to change into her businesswoman outfit; black and white top, black skirt, gold accessories, round black eyeglasses.

She and Bob go through a dark tunnel. [MB + HEX; TicTacToe, Binomes Unite, Smash the Solid State.] Dot is nervous as they go through the final door into a vast auditorium filled with binomes. The binomes are also nervous. Megabyte owns everything around those parts; their Personal ID codes are all they have left. [Mama, Poppa, and Baby binome in audience] Dot implores them to remember the plans they have to turn the sector into an Energy Park. [Energy Park seen in Talent Night] One by one, the binomes tap their icons and allow their PID to flow into Dot's organizer. While Dot turns around to look at the Vidwindow with the message "P.I.D. File Aquisitions Completed", her organizer vanishes from the podium. One of the lead binomes has it and warns Dot to keep close track of it.

At this point, Hack and Slash show up on an Armored Binome Carrier and demand that everyone surrender. The viral binomes start shooting at everyone, Dot and Bob sneak out through a trap door with the help of Cyrus, a One with a white streak in his hair. Cyrus leads them through the sewers. While talking to Phong via Glitch, Dot refuses to active the self-destruct mechanism on her organizer. Cyrus points them to a hatchway that leads to the street, yells "Go, Dot, for freedom!", then goes back to give them time to escape.

Dot scares up an ABC and commands Bob to get in. She is on a mission. There is another temporary distortion of reality, but it is over quickly. ["Which way to the border?", "Warning: Route Deallocated"] They are soon in a heavy battle and Bob gets them out of a head-on collision by turning the ABC on its side. Dot gives him permission to use the big gun. They make it past the border to Wall Street.

Megabyte engages his plan to break Dot's spirit by activating big vidwindows throughout Mainframe and thanking her for delivering the sector's PIDs to him with such a cunning and inciteful plan. This is when Dot realizes that the PID file has been removed. Not erased, removed. Phong agrees, this is bad.

Megabyte is in possesion of the file, but not its contents. The file has been encrypted, and it will take his scientists 2000 nanoseconds to decrypt it. In the mean time, MB thanks his new Liutenant; Cyrus.

Dot has another temporary distortion of reality, where peaceful Mainframe looks like the Berlin Wall during the height of the Cold War. The incoming game does not help her mood. Bob does not like the look of it either; the game is the dreaded Fun House!

TO BE CONTINIUED

References

Did You Notice

(See also the quotes for episode 202)


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