1x04 - Medusa Bug

Written by: Lane Raichert
Story by: Lane Raichert, Ian Pearson, Phil Mitchell, Gavin Blair

Synopsis
Hexadecimal created a powerful weapon called the Medusa, but Megabyte has stolen it. The Medusa turns Megabyte to stone, then starts affecting all of Mainframe. Can the city survive? Is Bob immune to it?

Story
Enzo drags Dot away from her business for a breather. (She had been too deep in taking calls, looking after the Mitchell account, etc.) She is amazed to see that Bob has gotten his old car running.

Megabyte's armored stretch limo is seen coming out of Lost Angles. He stops to show Hack and Slash his latest acquisition; a box with the Medusa inside. Hexadecimal discovers that her secret weapon is gone, and starts after MB. She unleashes a crimson hoard of nulls. Hack and Slash, whom everyone agrees are not kept around for their brains, have to stop this threat. This time they actually do something intelligent - they lift up a section of the bridge until is breaks off and falls into the ocean. MB tells H+S to show her some of their toys as he heads back to the Tor. MB's minions bring up six armored tanks, with enough rockets and cannons to lay waste to an entire city, but all the projectiles bounce off Hexadecimal's force field.

Megabyte is proud of having stolen the Medusa, but has not determined what its power is. He presses the hexagon on the top, and the device activates. Too late MB realizes it is a viral bug. The bug turns MB arm to stone, then his whole body, and, with increasing speed, takes over the entire Tor and surrounding area. Hexadecimal is not sure she has done the right thing, infecting all of Mainframe with an unstoppable bug, but she cackles evilly anyway.

Meanwhile, back at the park, our heros are having a picnic. Unfortunately, it is in median of a freeway, only a block from the Diner. (Bob's car had broken down.) Enzo notices the nasty thing chasing after Frisket. Although the viral bug appears to be frightened by Frisket for a while, the dog soon turns to stone. With a well placed smack, Enzo helps get the car running. The immediately head to Phong for advice.

Phong states that the bug will affect everything it touches, but Bob may be immune, since he is a Guardian. The attack is not Megabyte's style; it is too chaotic, like Hexadecimal. And the longer an object remains infected, the more it begins to decay. Low energy (like signs) go first then high energy. (Phong shows a diagram with a Null, a Zero, a One, a Five, Water Cooler Head, and last a sprite like Dot.)

When Phong lets Bob look at the drawers in the system Vid Window, he asks for a Level 8 Desktop Rebuilder, but Phong merely goes blink, blink. All Mainframe has is a viral erase command (in the shape of a pink eraser). Bob tries an add-on to boost its power, but the eraser reverses the bug only temporarily.

Phong isolates the Center from the rest of Mainframe. All the links are taken down, firewalls cover the gateways, the ball on top retreats, and an impenetrable shield goes up. But the bug breaks through; everyone is turned to gray marble.

Bob breaks out of his shell and goes after Hexadecimal. She is surrounded by stone people, including Scuzzy. Bob tries physical fighting, and when that fails, switches to a logical battle. Now that everything is cast in stone, Mainframe is very predictable and quiet. No more random occurances. No fights with Megabyte. This is too much for Hex, who craves chaos. She counteracts Medusa with a snap of her fingers.

Everything is back to normal; Frisket is playing with Enzo, Dot is on the picnic blanket, and Bob says he'd rather take a long nap.
Alternate endings
YTV showed the primary ending. It was shown on ABC when "Medusa Bug" was repeated on 15-Apr-95. This ending is on the video tape.

ABC used the secondary ending on the first showing, 8-Oct-94. At that time, no further episodes were ready. Later on, ABC showed the primary ending, but Claster has been showing the secondary ending.

Primary ending: Game Cube
After Bob's last line, a game cube appears. The heroes snap to attention and look directly at the camera with shocked looks on their faces. (This ties in nicely with Bob's line "Where's a game cube when you really one?" about halfway through the episode.)

Secondary ending: Disaster continues next week
One of the trees in the park turns to stone. Bob yells "Oh, no, not again!" and the camera zooms to an extremely distorted closeup on Bob's face. Fade to credits being turned to stone.
Teaster clips
ReBoot was not shown for the next six Saturdays. On October 15th, 22nd, 29th and November 5th, 12th and 19th, ABC showed short teaser clips to keep the interest up.

References
* Medusa Bug - The movie "The Satan Bug" is about a virus that can wipe out all of Los Angeles. From mythology, anyone who even looks at Medusa (an woman with snakes in her hair) will turn to stone.
* Desktop Rebuilder - When a Macintosh computer gets confused as to what is where on its disk, it is time to "rebuild the desktop".
* links, firewalls, gateways - when a business on the Internet is being attacked, some of the defences are: take down the links that connect the company to the outside world, beef up the gateway routers, and use firewalls to keep intruders out. Note that Phong down the links (bridges), and brought down firewalls outside of each gateway.

Did You Notice
* Sounds of the original Star Trek transporters are heard when the city is being evacuated.
* "You Could Be Zipping" on the side of a bus.
* The baby binome's "teddy bear" is a doll dressed up just like Bob.
* Baby Binome is peacefully sucking away at its pacifier when Poppa Binome shows it a Hexadecimal mask. Baby Binome is so scared that it
takes a dump in its diaper.
* In addition to the "statue" of Dot, there are three other female Data Sprites that are her size (each one with a different hair style); one
almost falling over backwards in Phong's shelter, two in Hex's garden.