The Deep Shrine

[The Banger Grim]

"Fair 'nuff." Agreed Matthew. In his mind, he streamlined the version what he was planning to say, into the much more concise 'So in other words' version.

"About six or seven weeks ago, Shamus inexplicably arrived at my little place on Gaia. First thing he said to me was that he was done 'stretching his legs' and that he wanted to hurry and get the rest of his tests over with. He didn't seem to realize how much time has past."

"I explained that no one has seen any trace of him in years, and he was presumed dead again."

"We walked to his ZBT parked over the hill, and spent the rest of the day and most of the night running diagnostics. In the system of his F-Unit we found an extra matrix file that wasn't there before. It was named 'Shamus2.0'Shawnessy'...we brought up the source code and realized it was slowly writing itself, but the new '2.0' Gaian file was in direct conflict with the much larger, original 'Shamus' Discordian file, causing a file corruption cascade that would end with a fatal error."

"I'm pretty good with computers, but I'm not Riley, so I gave him a call at his place on the other side of the planet, but no one was home. My best idea after that, (my only idea, honestly) was to partition the two files into the databanks of the Whale, in an attempt to resolve the conflict as soon as possible."

"This move turned out to only be a stop-gap. The original matrix went completely rotten within a couple of hours and deleted itself. Shamus went offline and dropped just like he did the day he died, but this time was different. This time the thin film of energy that always surrounds him was gone, but the F-Unit was softly grinding and generating heat."

"I freaked out and picked him up, and I could feel the heat build intensity on his titanium surface. It was like he passed out with a fever or something."

"I initiated a download of every file left on the FNORD Unit into the ZBT's system, and when done, the sphere became an empty shell, and 'ol Shames regained consciousness as the ZBT transport itself."

"For hours after that, he insisted he was fine. I wasn't so sure, so I insisted he stay at my place until I believe him."

"Turns out, although somewhat stable since then, he's only conscious 12 hours a day. For the other 12 hours, he sleeps on standby, but his brain activity is equal to that of his waking state."

"Now, as for the bun issue: I wasn't there for it personally, but Riley & Daeva explained to me that Shamus seemed to have a virus, and he experienced a recurring dream where he stuffed his face every night, eating hot dogs."

"On his own, Riley found Shamus by following the signal to Pygar, and there, downloaded Daeva to help try and fix him. To their credit, they kind of succeeded. In a virtual environment that Riley was able to view onscreen inside the ZBT, Daeva purged the hot dog buns and forced Shamus back into a specifically much more stable waking state."

"I wish the pair of them were here to explain that part, because I have no idea what any of that means or why it helped, but it did help."

"I really hope you possess some knowledge, expertise, or insight that could help us all help Shames, because none of us can bear loosing him again."

Banger shrugs at Pope Skripto, unsure if he missed saying any important points along the way.