A razored-edged blade of black chrome transfixes my body, impaling me. I cry out at the terrible pain. If I were flesh and blood, the stroke would surely have killed me. As it is, I crumple to the ground in agony, fire lancing all along my nerves as I drop my shield. Liquid copper gushes from the wound, crawling along the floor to join the growing pool from which springs a small tree, a mere sapling compared to the majesty of the world-tree from my vision. These are the seeds of what I was sent to bring into the Renraku system: the virus program.