Hi. Merry Christmas!

This is one of my first 'BUGS' stories, and I hope you enjoy it!

After Cyberax.

Nick Beckett smiled at Ros. "You sure you're okay now Ros?" he asked in concern.

Ros smiled at him and Ed, rolling her eyes for the tenth time running. Ed and Nick were her best friends, and while she had thought they were deliberately hiding things from her, they were actually doing it to protect her.

Ros' smile dimmed slightly. The memories of how she had mentally linked herself to the Cyberax artificial intelligence had finally returned to her after being locked away. As a computer expert and scientist, Ros knew organic minds were a logical step up from superconducting computer systems, but she had never pictured or even imagined being linked to such a system in her lifetime. She could still remember how it had felt to guide the particle accelerator with her mind, which was a far cry from the conventional brain to keyboard style she was all-too-familiar with; a lot can happen in the seconds between processing the information and typing in the solution into the computer via the keyboard or the mouse. A direct mental link was ideal.

Ros was amazed by the science behind Cyberax's mental interlink, but she hoped she never encountered the program again though she wouldn't say no to studying the interlink. It would be beyond cutting edge if human beings used devices that linked the brain to the computer as long as there was no artificial intelligence behind it.

"I'm okay, seriously," she said as reassuringly as she could to her friends. "I'm just glad that…thing is out of my mind. I just wish that there had been clues to what was inside my head without it killing me, or putting me into a comatose state like Roland and the other Bureau staff and those others."

Nick and Ed shared a dark look with her. Although there was a friendly rivalry between them and the Bureau, Nick and Ed had both genuinely liked Roland even if there had been moments when he had been a little bit too "James Bond-ish" which his never-ending need to keep secrets even if they knew there was a good reason for it. Roland might have been a little bit pompous at times, but he hadn't deserved what had happened to him. Ros and her friends agreed with that. None of the people who'd had Cyberax shoved into their minds because of Jean-Daniels' plans did; even now Ros was unsure of just how many other people the French criminal had given the AI program loaded into special headsets had suffered, but she knew only three had managed to survive, though in a comatose state.

"How….how long are they going to stay like that?" Ed whispered, thinking about all of those people in the computer room, their minds slaved and hooked up to Cyberax like all the computers in the outside world were to the ever-growing internet, while their bodies were equally hooked up to life-support machines to keep them alive.

"Permanently. No-one knows how to bring them out of their comas," Ros said, her expression cold and closed off, though they could see the pain in her eyes at how badly this whole thing was affecting her. "And even if they can bring them out of the comas, there's no way of knowing what has been done to their minds."

Even as she said that, Ros wondered if it would be much kinder to simply euthanise all of the survivors. But she knew it would not be allowed. They had already gathered it was a military and governmental decision to keep the three surviving Bureau people under coma. Once more Ros was amazed by how stupid people could be. There was no telling what was inside their minds now, and that worried her because she had a taste of Cyberax and how dangerous it was, but those idiots didn't get the dangers. All they saw was some kind of future, a twisted future.

Mentally Ros was close to shrugging her shoulders and telling herself other could clean up the mess. But she knew it wouldn't happen like that. There was no telling if Roland and the other would even come out of it.

"Yeah, and all but three of them are still alive in the first place," Nick said, his own eyes downcast. When Cyberax had been shut down, all of the victims who'd had the AI downloaded into their brains had died. All but three. Roland and two of his Bureau staff. No-one knew for sure what was going to happen to them now. They had been placed in intensive care wards with a ton of red tape wrapped around them so then no-one learnt anything about what had happened to them.

Ros clenched her fists as her mind went to the idiots behind the whole mess. "Why is it no-one ever uses their common sense when it comes to writing programs like that?" she asked rhetorically.

They had learnt Cyberax was a top-secret project devised by the military. The plan was to develop a computer program that would grow and to survive, but like everything else devised by short-sighted idiots, no-one had bothered to look at the long-term consequences of what those two simple commands could do in the long term. Somehow, Jean-Daniel had managed to coax the AI out of whatever cage it was in, probably by offering it a new place to grow and become much larger than it could ever have done before, and it had very nearly destroyed everything.

Ros's mind went to the Terminator films; many people who watched those movies couldn't help but ask themselves if that was what would happen if an AI came about, a program which would become self-aware, and see that humans were a threat to it. The results would be death and destruction on a massive scale.

"Makes me wonder if they've got other plans like that," Nick was saying.

Ed shook his head, his mind turned back to the memories of everything they had encountered over the years; SACROS, that performance enhancer developed by Dr Hunter and coveted by a warmongering lunatic, ICARUS, and half a dozen other things. "Well, we have dealt with things like that before," he commented truthfully.

"Yeah, but if Cyberax got out that would have been it," Ros said, her mind still on where her mind had gone. "Cyberax wouldn't have been satisfied with only a handful of people; it would have sought out hundreds of people from different fields. Physics, chemistry, languages… it would have consumed all of them."

"Even Jean-Daniel," Nick said, though his tone and expression said that he would never have missed the French criminal.

Ros shook her head. "What I don't understand is how Jean-Daniel managed to find out about the program in the first place," she said, "or how the Bureau missed it. Usually, they are on top of things like that."

"They were certainly on top of things going on in places like the Hive," Nick commented, shrugging. "Who knows, maybe he met someone on the project in trouble and bribed them?"

It sounded weak even to him, but Ros shrugged. "It makes no difference now," she went on.

Eds' eyes crinkled. "Do you think Jean-Daniel is still alive?"

Oh, what a wonderful question to be asked, Ros thought to herself. Jean-Daniel had spent a whole year, manipulating a stupid prison governor into working for him to developing the prisoner, playing the role dutifully as a 'model prisoner,' gaining privileges along the way while he was using the funds he was getting from the various companies and organisations he was doing business with to be in a position to buy the prison and let himself out.

What the hell had that idiot been thinking when he had allowed Jean-Daniel all of those freedoms? Surely someone had warned him about his record, how dangerous he was? Well, it hardly mattered anymore. He was now a patient at another prison, and personally, Ros couldn't bring it within herself to truly care what had happened to him now, or what was going to happen to him later. Personally, Ros hoped he was dead and they had seen the last of him. She was surprised at her feelings, but not entirely. For a whole year, Jean-Daniel had been playing a long game behind the scenes, and now he had tried to destroy everything for his own gain.

"How can he be?" Nick's question broke through her thoughts. "He was blown up-!"

"Maybe," Ros interrupted, knowing from their story after Cyberax had nearly killed her Jean-Daniel had been in close proximity to the power room when it had exploded. As a method of destroying an AI, it was crude but simple and effective enough to work, but what worried her now was what would happen next, "but he might have survived. It's possible he could have escaped from Technopolis by now."

Ros quickly changed the subject. "Anyway, all we have to do is wait and see if Cyberax does come back," she whispered.

"But can it?" Ed asked.

"You might have destroyed the main program, but with Roland and the others in a coma, there's still a little portion of it left," Ros said. "Let's just hope we don't have to deal with it ever again."

Nick and Ed shared a meaningful look at one another, one Ros knew too well to mean they were going to sort out the mess once more, she asked, "What do you guys want to do now?"

"We take it easy," Nick said, putting special emphasis on the word 'we' while he looked at her, and Ros rolled her eyes. It amazed her that Nick Beckett could become a mother-hen so easily.

"I'm fine," she tried to say, but he interrupted.

"Oh come on, Ros," he said in exasperation, "you've been through a lot recently."

"We all have," Ed interjected but he put his hands into his pockets and didn't say another word.

"I think we should all rest," Nick went on, not bothering to comment on Ed's little remark. "Go on holiday or something-?"

Ros rolled her eyes while Nick kept speaking about the possible things they could be doing right about now. It was good to be back; after thinking that maybe he friends had betrayed her when in fact they had been trying to protect her, and saving the world and returning to life again, Ros felt fresher than she had done in ages.

And yet, deep down, she couldn't help but feel they hadn't seen the full end of Cyberax.

What did you think?