ALTERNATE MACHINOS
CHAPTER II: Newcomers in an alternate universe
The kids felt themselves hit the ground. Their eyes popped open as they rolled across some dusty rocks, then landed front-first in the dust and dirt. Jackie groaned, then slowly turned her head towards her arm. It had returned to its normal color and was no longer warped. As the pain from landing hard left her, she slowly turned over on her side, and saw that they had fallen into a large pit of some sort. She could see the walls.
Inez sighed and said, steadying herself as she pulled herself up, "I wonder where that portal took us?"
"Ah, my arm," Matt said, getting up and rubbing the sore area near his shoulder. He looked around. "Well, I know we're not at Control Central, that's for one thing."
"Aw, man!" Jackie said, looking down at her shirt for the first time since they had landed. "I got dust on my clothes again!"
Digit got up last. The device was no longer in his wings, his cap was off, and his beak was scrunched up. He tugged on it until it came back into place, then got down on his knees and started searching the ground for his hat. Matt looked at him, then said, "Do you have any idea where we are, Digit?"
"No," Digit said, pausing to look up at Matt. "As a matter of fact, I don't think I've ever been here before."
"Oh, great!" Jackie said. "Now how are we supposed to get out of here!"
"Well…I have an idea," Inez said. "Matt, do you have your Squawk Pad with you still?"
"Yeah," Matt said. "I stuck it in my backpack before I made the mistake of entering that portal."
"Good. Hand it to me."
Matt took the Squawk Pad out of his backpack and handed it to Inez. She took it, then pressed a few buttons and said into it, "Motherboard. Can you hear me? We're stuck in a weird place and—"
There was no response, only a lot of static. Inez sighed, then shut it off and handed it back to Matt. "I can't reach her," she told him. "There's something wrong with the reception, I think."
"Well, we'd better get out of this pit before we do anything else," Matt said, looking around him. He walked towards the wall of the pit and started climbing up it. Halfway he turned around and called, "C'mon, Jacks! C'mon, Nezzie!"
"We're coming, and DON'T CALL ME NEZZIE!" Inez snapped.
"Sorry, Ne—I mean, Inez," Matt said, stopping himself before he could say it again.
The two girls came over and started up the side of the pit along with Matt. Digit flew up after them, then landed on the edge of the pit as the kids grasped the edge with their hands, then lifted themselves up. They stopped for a moment, to catch their breath.
Jackie was the first one to look over at the horizon. As soon as she got a good glimpse, she gasped and put her hands to her mouth. "Oh, my—" she said, her eyes wide. Matt and Inez looked at her, then looked out at the landscape as well. They too, gasped with fright and astonishment.
"Oh, wow!"
"Oh, heaven…"
The landscape looked like it hadn't been lived on for at least 500 years. It was old, dusty, and dark, and—besides the kids—completely uninhabited. The sky was a hazy pink color, with blood red clouds to match, and the mountains near it were brown, dark purple, and black.
But that wasn't what caused them to gasp. It was what was scattered all over the landscape that did the trick for that. For ruins of buildings, statues, and temples were scattered across the ground; the dust was starting to settle on them as well. The wind blew the worn fabric flaps of a crushed Old World stand; and dried blood and bones were everywhere. It was a horrifying sight.
"What—what happened?" Jackie said, trying to steady herself.
"I don't know," Inez said, getting up, "but if we want to know who did this and how it happened, we need to go down there."
"I'm not going down there!" Digit said, shaking with fright. "No way!"
"You have to, Didge," Matt told him. "You can't stay here alone."
"I'm not alone!" Digit objected. "There's still the—" he started to trail off as he looked around, then sighed and said, "Okay."
"Great. Now come on."
The kids slid down the edge of the hill that they were standing on, then got up and walked into the ruined cybersite. They walked down the path slowly, looking at what great damage was done here. Finally Jackie managed to say, "what cybersite was this anyway?"
"It looks like—" Matt glanced around for a second, as he had not completely found his answer yet, then after a while gulped and said, "Mt. Olympus."
"Mt. Olympus!" Inez repeated, both shocked and horrified at the same time. "B-but we were only gone for a few seconds! How could Hacker have—"
"I don't think it was Hacker," Digit said, staring at the wall of a large, fallen temple, "unless Hacker's name begins with an 'M'."
"What do you mean by that, Didge?" Matt asked.
"Come over here," Digit ordered him.
Matt looked at him for a moment, then walked over to where Digit was. As soon as he was next to him, Digit pointed at the wall and said, "look!"
Matt looked up, then nearly jumped backward. A large "M"—at least ten feet in height—was engraved onto the side of the temple. It wasn't there before either; Matt could tell that it was done with a sword and not a carving tool.
He ran his fingers over it, then shuddered. What kind of villain would destroy an entire cybersite without them or Motherboard knowing, let alone have his or her name start with an "M"? Hacker was the only villain around cyberspace who even dared attack a cybersite, but if it wasn't Hacker, then who—?
"Matt!" Inez called.
Matt snapped back into reality. He turned his gaze away from the giant "M" and looked towards where Inez was standing. She motioned him towards her, and he tilted his head in confusion, then walked over towards that spot.
"What?" he asked as she picked something up from the ground.
"Look at this," she said, in a horrified tone. "I just found it under part of a statue."
She then held up the charred remains of a hand. Matt drew back as she thrust it upward, then shook it off and looked at the severed piece. Through the burnt flakes that stuck to it Matt could make out slight hints of a bright yellow-gold color. He stepped a bit closer to it, but then Inez drew it back and said, in the same shaky tone, "I-it's Delete's."
"No way!" Matt said.
"Way," Inez said. "People's hands aren't this color. Also, it looks like it came from a robot; it's made of steel."
"But how can you be sure it's Delete's?"
"I don't know…" Inez trailed off, then she looked up towards the blood red clouds in the sky. Matt looked at her, then shook his head to get himself out of the same trance. He was starting to turn around when Jackie called, "Matt!"
"Not again," Matt muttered as he walked over to where Jackie was standing. "What is it?"
"Look at this, Matt," Jackie said. She got down on her knees in a pile of charred wood, then felt around. "I knew it was here somewhere…ah!" She then reached her hand down into the wood and pulled out what looked like part of a sword. She handed it to him, then said, "Kind of cool, huh?"
"Cool," Matt agreed, feeling the edges of the blade, "but kind of weird. I didn't know Mt. Olympus had swords."
"Neither did I…" Jackie stared at the sword, then said suddenly, "wait a second!"
"What?" Matt asked.
Jackie took the blade from him and felt it over. She finally came across what she was looking for and held it up for him to see. "Look!"
Matt looked at the blade. At first he couldn't see what it was that Jackie wanted him to, but after a while he could see some small writing on the edge of the blade. He drew closer to it, then saw, written in perfect handwriting:
Eteled Tekcubecnud.
"Eteled Tekcubecnud," he muttered out loud. Jackie looked at him weirdly. "It's what it says on the sword blade," he informed her.
"What does it mean?" Jackie asked. "It sounds like someone's name."
"It probably is," Matt said, nodding.
"There's something familiar about that name…" Jackie looked down at the ground as she pondered, "but I can't think just what…"
"It sounds familiar to me, too," Matt agreed. "But I've never heard it before in my life! What makes it so familiar?"
Inez and Digit came running over. "What did you find?" she asked, looking at the sword blade.
"Part of a sword," Jackie said. "I found it buried in the wood over there." She pointed at the pile of charcoal that she was digging through earlier.
"Keep that one piece," Inez told them. "It might give us a clue to what happened here later."
"The cybersite was destroyed, and by the looks of it everyone died. What's there more to tell?" Digit asked. He then shuddered at what he just said.
"We know it was destroyed, but we don't know who destroyed it," Jackie pointed out. "That's an important part of figuring things out."
"I knew that; I was just testing you!"
"Right."
"While you guys are standing here analyzing, I'm going to go find someone who can help us," Matt told the girls and Digit. "We look like we're in the middle of nowhere."
"But how are you going to find someone in a place like this?" Digit asked. "There isn't another cybersite here for miles!"
"We're near a cybersite. There has to be someone here."
"Everyone's dead, Matt!" Inez said. "Or didn't you notice?"
"There have to be some survivors; there's always some survivors!" Matt objected. He turned around and started to walk down the path of destruction, out of the cybersite. The girls looked at each other, sighed, then got up and followed.
"Hey, wait for me!" called Digit, flying after them.
The kids walked across the dusty landscape for what seemed like hours. Finally Inez stopped, the wind starting to blow her hair, and said to Matt, "Matt, this is ridiculous! We've been walking forever!"
"There has to be someone here," Matt said stubbornly. "I just know it."
He then looked up towards the mountains. He was about to look back down when his gaze fell upon something at the top of the hill, about a mile away from them. The object—or possibly objects, as it seemed like there were more than one—up there, whatever it was, was standing completely still. At first Matt thought it was just a mirage, but he noticed that one of the objects was moving.
"Guys!" he said to Jackie, Inez, and Digit. "There's someone or something up there! It might help us!" He cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted to the figures, "Hey! We're down here! We need help!"
"Matt! Stop it!" Jackie said, staring up at the figures. There was something about them…something she didn't trust…and she didn't want to take any chances.
Matt ignored her and continued to shout, waving his hands, "Hey! Down here!"
The figures at the top of the hill seemed to shift, then the front one reared up and started to charge down the hill. There were two others with it; they followed suite after the first one. The kids waited, then Digit said, sounding nervous, "Guys, I don't like this."
"Why?" Matt said. "They're just—"
He was cut short by a large, iron gray horse jumping out of the sky and landing on the ground in front of them. The kids jumped, then, as soon as they had come to their senses, slowly looked up at it.
The horse was a tall, slim type, its face bearing a similar resemblance to the ones that they rode so often in Sensible Flats, but it was taller—much taller, and looked very much like an earth horse, only it was made entirely out of metal—very dark metal—and its eyes were a blazing emerald. Atom bands were looped around each of its legs.
Their gaze traveled up to meet the rider. They gasped, in a short state of shock, for the rider's head looked exactly like that of Delete's. As a matter of fact, the entire rider looked like Delete, only it was entirely jet-black, like a shadow; except for its eyes, which were entirely white. They didn't even have pupils. You couldn't even tell which way that they were looking…they seemed cold and lifeless, like the eyes of a corpse.
The second and third riders—on their horses, identical to the first one—landed behind the first rider. They looked exactly alike; it was impossible to tell them apart.
The kids backed up against each other, as the riders on their horses arranged themselves to make a ring around them. The riders looked directly at them, their lifeless eyes narrowed in a death-like glare. Their horses whinnied and snorted every now and then, but other then that the landscape was completely silent.
After a while Inez gulped and said nervously, waving, "Uh, hello. We're from the real world; Motherboard sent us here…I think."
The riders looked at one another, then turned their heads back towards the 9-year-old girl. Inez continued, starting to sweat, "um…we're sort of lost. Someone destroyed this cybersite, and we need to report back to Motherboard immediately. Could you…give us a ride?"
The three riders looked at one another again, confused, then their eyes narrowed. They turned their gaze back to the three kids and the robotic bird as they reached near their sides. Jackie glanced over at one of the riders and saw it pulling out a sharp, gleaming sword. She gasped, then said, "Guys…"
"We know," Inez said, staring at the swords. "And it's not good. Not good at all."
The first rider had raised his sword and was about to slash at her when all of a sudden a speeding object came shooting through the sky and knocked the sword out of the rider's hand. The sword clattered to the ground, and when the kids looked down they saw that it was an arrow, hand-made by the looks of it and now stuck deep into the dust. They looked up in the direction that it came from, but they couldn't see anything.
The rider was still looking around when a blurred figure shot by from above and kicked him in the back, knocking him off his horse. He fell to the ground beside the sword, and the kids saw the figure as it hit the ground after him, then gracefully rolled across and got up.
Jackie was the only one to gasp at this time. The figure, now seen in full view, looked exactly like her, except that this other girl's hair was down to her shoulders, and was wild and matted. She had an eyepatch over her left eye, and a leather band tied around her head. She was wearing a skirt and top, very ragged and made from what looked like animal skins, but Jackie wasn't sure of that yet.
The girl growled and leapt at the rider again, tackling him to the ground. The rider reached for his sword, but before he could get a good grip on it the girl had given him a blow upside the head, causing him to flinch, and snapping his head backwards. The girl then grabbed the sword and threw it. It flipped through the air and landed point first into the dirt about five yards away from them.
"Not so tough now without your sword, are ya?" the girl snarled at the rider, turning her head back towards him.
Jackie blinked. Not only did the girl almost look like her, the girl also sounded exactly like her as well. In voice, not by speech, anyway. She watched as the girl gave him another blow to the head, then grabbed the reins of his horse and tied them around his body. She then threw him up onto the horse and was about to slap it on the backside when another voice called out, "No, Jacqueline! That's not how you do it!"
The voice sounded like Matt's. The kids turned around in time to see another figure standing near them. He looked exactly like Matt, except that his skin was slightly more tanned and his hair was messier. He wore the same clothes as Jacqueline, or so the girl's name was, except that he wore tattered pants, not a skirt, and around his neck was a thick string with sharp, glinting teeth tied to it.
He ran right past them and leapt up in the air, then did a perfect flying sidekick, hitting the second rider and knocking him off of his horse as well. The rider fell to the ground headfirst, then the Matt look-alike landed on the ground next to him, gave him a few whacks to the body, then picked up the reins and tied the rider to his horse neatly. He then turned to Jacqueline and said, "see? That's how you tie them up! Do it right next time!"
"Why don't you just stick to your orders and I'll stick to mine!" Jacqueline snapped back at him. She yanked on the horse's reins impatiently, then said, crossing her arms, "and where's Zeny?"
"She's coming," the Matt look-alike replied. "And don't yank on the reins! You'll spook the horse!"
"Pfft! Yeah right," Jacqueline said under her breath.
Inez couldn't help but stare at the two look-alikes. It was odd…she never remembered seeing them around Mt. Olympus before. Or had she and didn't know it? There were so many citizens at Mt. Olympus…at least, there used to be…
Suddenly an ear piercing "Hee-YAH!" shattered the silence in the air. She whipped around just in time to see a small, tan-colored girl leap out of the air and kick the third rider off of his horse. The girl then landed on the ground, flipped, then rebounded back and kicked the rider in the back, causing him to land on his horse. She then picked up the reins and tied the rider down, then turned to the Matt look-alike and said eagerly, "How was that, Matthew?"
"Great," the Matt look-alike (Matthew) replied. He tapped on the reins, then gave her the thumbs up and said, "Great work, Nezzie!"
Inez was shocked. Matthew—or so he was called—had used on the girl the same nickname that she so detested! She shook her head, then glanced at the girl.
The girl indeed looked like her, only her hair was messier, she wore the same clothes that Jacqueline wore, and her glasses were perched on top of her head, making her look like a wind rider.
Matthew then told the two girls, "okay, you may do the honors."
Zeny and Jacqueline grinned, then smacked the three horses' rears. The horses whinnied, reared up, then charged off with the three riders still tied to them. Matthew smiled, then called after the riders, "AND DON'T COME BACK!"
He then dusted off his hands and had started to turn back when he finally got a good look at whom they had saved. He blinked, then looked down at himself, then to Jacqueline, then to Zeny, then at Digit, then at Matt. Finally he pointed at the kids and said, "Alright, who are you? And what are you doing with Codebird?"
"I don't believe it," Jacqueline said, astounded. "They look almost exactly like us!"
"And they saved Codebird! And groomed him over too!" Zeny squealed.
"Codebird?" Digit asked, looking confused. "Is that me?"
The three kids looked at each other, then Matt said, kind of going off subject for the matters of it, "Um, we entered here through a portal and we're kind of lost. Can you give us the directions to Control Central? We need to—"
He stopped in shock when he realized that the three look-alikes were laughing at him. "What's so funny?" he asked angrily, putting his hands on his hips. "I'm serious, guys!"
Matthew stopped laughing and said, "there hasn't been a portal around here for eons. You might as well quit looking for one while you're ahead."
"And Control Central was destroyed a long time ago," Jacqueline added.
"What do you mean?" Jackie asked, afraid.
"Well, you see," Matthew said, running his hand through his messy red hair, "Control Central used to be run a long time ago by a brilliant supercomputer entitled 'Fatherboard'. He kept the cybersites at peace and in perfect harmony—at least until the dawn of the cyberspace Dark Age began."
"Dark Age?" Inez repeated. "You mean like the time of the Vikings?"
Matthew nodded. "Yes, only it was much more violent and much more intense. You see, after a while a horrible criminal and his army unexpectedly attacked Fatherboard. He could do nothing to stop them, and his entire army was slaughtered by the raging Dark Riders."
"The who?" Jackie asked, cocking her eyebrow.
"The what?" Matt added, just as confused.
Matthew sighed, then put his hand to his head and slowly shook it. "You guys have never been here in your lives, have you?"
"Everyone knows about the fall of the Fatherboard army!" Zeny added. "Why don't you?"
Matt started to explain, but then trailed off and said, as if in a trance, "I…don't know…"
Inez and Jackie looked at each other, then stopped as Jacqueline stepped forward towards them. Her gaze was focused on Digit, who had his wings wrapped around Jackie's leg, trying to hide himself. She bent down, then looked up at the kids and said, "don't be alarmed. We're just taking Codebird with us."
"Codebird? You mean Digit?" Matt asked.
"Digit? That's a funny name for our mascot," Jacqueline said. She slowly reached out towards Digit, who tried to back up, but the wild-looking girl wouldn't take this for an answer. She thrust out and grabbed the bird tightly by the wing, then tugged him off of Jackie's leg. She then started feeling around his side, near his tail, as if looking for something.
Finally, she set the bird down and, getting up and turning towards Matthew and Zeny, said, "this isn't Codebird. It doesn't have the 'M' mark on its side."
"WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!" Inez shouted, not able to bear the confusion any longer. She calmed down after a while, then, noticing that everyone was looking at her, said, "sorry. I got a little carried away. Okay, I just want to ask you three…who are you and how did you get here?"
"We already know your names," Matt told them, "so you don't need to tell us that piece of it."
"Okay, let's see…where to begin…you see, we're a group of kids sent from the real world to protect cyberspace," Matthew informed them. "It used to be fun, but after the defeat of the Fatherboard army we could never return to the real world again. We were trapped forever in cyberspace…"
"Hey, that's just like what happens with us!" Jackie said, starting to trust the three. "Only we weren't stuck in cyberspace forever and—well—the person—or, as I should say, supercomputer we protect hasn't been defeated." She turned her gaze to the side as she thought, a surge of fear rushing through her, at least not yet…if we can't contact Motherboard in time who knows what Hacker will do.
"Very queer," Matthew said, his chin in his hand, as if in deep thought. "Fatherboard was defeated eons ago, so he can't possibly still be up and running now. It's almost like you came from a different time…" He stopped, then said, starting to come on to something, "or a different place…"
"That's it!" Inez said, finally piecing it all together. "When we entered that portal, it must've warped us to a whole new world!"
"How do you know it's a place and not a time?" Matt asked her.
"Because if it was a different time, Motherboard would still be called 'Motherboard' and not 'Fatherboard', like earlier. Names never change unless someone makes them, and Motherboard would certainly not give herself a male name."
Jacqueline raised an eyebrow, smirking. "The girl's a good listener."
"You know it!" Digit agreed, nodding.
"So if we're in another world…it usually means we're in an alternate dimension," Jackie added to Inez's theory. She looked at the three rough looking kids standing in front of them. "So…you three must be our alternates!"
Zeny blinked. "Alternates? No way!"
"Way," Matthew said. "Remember the Portal of Forty?"
Zeny then turned her gaze up towards the sky, muttering under her breath, "oh, yeah."
"Alternates?" Jackie said. She glanced at Jacqueline, then said, shaking her hand in disgust, "NO alternate of mine would be caught wearing something like that."
Jacqueline, looking offended, narrowed her eyes and said, putting her hands on her hips, "is there a problem with my clothing, prissy?"
"What did you just call me!" Jackie said, shocked and a bit angry.
"You heard me."
Jackie made an angered noise, then clenched her hand into a fist. Jacqueline did the same, but Zeny said, "no, Jacqueline! You can't fight your own alternate!"
"Just try and stop me!" Jacqueline growled back at her.
"No, Jacqueline!" Matthew said sternly. "Don't hurt her. You probably wouldn't do it right anyway."
"I'm not that bossy!" Matt said.
"Why'd you call my alternate the nickname I dislike to no extent?" Inez asked.
They then started arguing. Digit watched as they quarreled amongst each other, then finally sighed and declared that they had been standing here much too long. There might be other riders like the ones they encountered heading this way as they spoke.
"Stop it, guys! Can't we all just get along?" Digit shouted. Everyone stopped snapping at each other and turned to look at him. He stared back, feeling helpless, but continued, "shouldn't we be heading somewhere else now, I mean?"
"Good idea," Inez said, nodding.
"We can't walk," Matthew told the three kids. "There isn't another cybersite around here for at least ten miles. But I have another solution."
He then put his fingers to his mouth and whistled. The kids waited for a while, wondering what that was about, but their question was answered when a large horse came running across the horizon and stopped in front of them. It looked like the horses that the riders had been on earlier, but it was a lighter silver and its eyes were a light red. It whinnied, then stomped its hoof.
"This is Skyrider," Matthew informed the kids, mounting the large horse. "She'll take us to a nearby town formed by the survivors. But you're going to have to stay quiet; the Portal of Forty is considered to be a fantasy."
"Yeah, what's with this 'Portal of Forty'?" Jackie asked, mounting the horse after Jacqueline and Zeny had got on. Digit up after her, followed Matt and Inez.
"Well, let's just head out towards that area," Matthew said. He snapped the horses' reins, and she started trotting west. "I'll explain everything along the way."