Dionysus walked into Special Ops, ignoring the glare Bob gave him as he sat down in the empty seat to the right of Celly's chair in the center of the room. Kuso, he doesn't need to look at me like that, he thought to himself. This *is* my chair, after all. Dionysus merely opted to frown at the major domo. "Bob, give me a status update."

Bob huffed and came forward, files in his hands. "You know that you're not getting all of the information, right?" he said smugly. "Only Mistress Celeste has full access to all the information in Castle Anthrax and the SERA systems." He shoved the folders towards Dionysus.

Dionysus scowled but took the proferred files. "I know where my status in Castle Anthrax is, Bob. You needn't remind me. But Celly is out of the Game at the moment and you know standard operational procedure means I am the next in command."

Bob huffed again and turned away, stalking back to his station at Ops. When Dionysus had carried Mistress Celeste, unconscious, back to Castle Anthrax, Bob had been scared out of his mind. Mistress Celeste was finally back, she could stop Lambda Project from destroying Bishounen World... but she couldn't do that in her present state. Hell, Mistress Celeste at full power just barely controlled Lambda Project. It would just have to wait until she got better. If it didn't blow up first, that is. And Dinoysus... Bob scowled again as he saw the silver-haired man sit back in the coveted "Number One" seat next to Mistress Celeste's empty one. He doesn't even deserve to be here, Bob thought angrily. He's a betrayer... if Celeste-sama knew what he was doing behind her back, she would have his hide. But knowing the truth would shatter the ebony-haired woman even more. Bob fretted and bit his lip. Kami-sama... if anything happens to her...

Dionysus rustled some of the files. Bob frowned. Eeh, I might as well have fun with Dionysus. What's he gonna do, kill me?

"Do you know that the operating computers have been modified, Dionysus?" Bob asked in a casual tone.

"Hmm..." Dionysus said neligently, then his head snapped up. He swiveled around to stare at Bob. "What do you mean SERA's been modified? Is that even possible with this system?"

"Oh, well the basic operations are the same. Three separate computers, capable of working independently, but configured to work together. Each computer modified to mimic three different aspects of Celeste-sama's personality. Celeste, Terra, and Celly."

"Hai, I know this, Bob. Celeste, Terra and Celly all work together to operate all of Castle Anthrax. Impossible to hack into, nearly perfect artificial intelligence. Didn't she get the idea from watching Neon Genesis Evangelion?"

"Yes, it's based on the MAGI system. But the upgrade..."

"That's what I want to know about."

"To access SERA, you have to go into VR."

"NANI!?!" Dionysus said, shocked.

"Yup, virtual reality. Once you get into SERA, you don't even know that you've entered the VR world. Like those Holodeck things in Star Trek. Three totally different settings, all connected to the aspects of Celeste-sama's personality. The only exceptions are these terminals here in Special Ops. But, to get to the heart of Castle Anthrax, a hacker would have to fight through all the Unnamed Otaku, me, you, *and* Mistress Celeste. Plus have all the passwords to break through the triple-encoded systems... and that's just to change the screensaver!" Bob motioned to the toasters flying across the viewscreen.

"Demo... VR... on SERA... that would mean..."

"Correct," Bob nodded smugly. "To access all important files in SERA, the hacker will have to enter VR and face the three aspects of Celeste-sama's personality. Hacking and removing any important files becomes a total impossibility because--"

"Because the hacker would have to enter Ce-ko's mind... and no one in the world would be able to do that without going insane."

TBC...

(boy, is Susanne in for it now... she's already in SERA and she doesn;t even know it!)

:::maniacal laughter:::