INCOMING SHIP! ALERT, INCOMING SHIP! ALERT, INCOMING SH-
"Finally, eh, Earthlies?" drawled Digit.
"You said it, Digit. Who knew Motherboard's speakers could get so loud?" said Matt.
"Matt, are you serious? The question you should be asking is: Whose ship is coming? You know Motherboard's sensors don't go off for friendly ships." asked Jackie.
"Well, in my defence, those alarms were so loud that my brain is still rattling."
"Guys, be quiet. I'm trying to think, here. Matt, can you pull up the sensors and see if we can find out if the ship is friendly or not?" Inez said calmly.
"You got it, Nezzie." said Matt.
Matt flinched visibly: he knew what was coming his way, now. Inez's Death Stare.
Inez sighed, "I won't deal with that right now; just give him a look... There, he flinched. That'll be good for now."
He gave it a name for 2 reasons: One, it was kind of like the Death Star in Star Wars (his favorite movie series); and two, it made him feel him like he wanted to kill himself. There, he knew it, Inez gave him the Death Stare.
Jackie whipped her head around in time to see his involuntary reaction. She gave him a knowing look, but Matt had his eyes focused on the screen.
"Is that actually Ledge's ship; is he daring to come near us after he betrayed us?!"
Jackie, distracted by Matt's yell, looked at the screen. She immediately yelled out, "We've got to stop him! Come on! Let's get the cybercoup."
"Ahem, if you'll allow me to stop your panicking to remind you of some more bad news, I would like to remind you that our weapons were disabled on the last mission. Don't you remember that? We've got no choice but to let him land!" reminded Digit.
Inez's thoughts ran along the lines of, "Matt sounds so cute when he's angry. Like right now, when he was ranting about Ledge. He always sounds so bold when he... Wait, NO WEAPONS?!"
"This is not good, this is not good at all!" said Inez. She automatically turned to Matt to see his reaction. He seemed to be... out of it somehow. "He's just staring at me kind of strangely; I wonder why?"
Matt couldn't worry about anything right now. Inez was just so cute when she said that. Sometimes, she even bit her-
"Hello, Cyberspace to Matt, Cyberspace to Matt. Can you hear us?!" yelled out Digit sarcastically. "You got a plan to save us?"
"Uh... Well... Doesn't Motherboard have some defence systems?"
"You're as bad as Jackie, Matt." said Digit, still with an edge in his voice. "Motherboard's primary AND secondary defences were temporarily disabled because of Hacker's magnetite attack."
"So we've been defenceless this entire time?" asked Matt, wide-eyed.
"Hello, why do you think I'm worried? The only reason that the weapons haven't been our priority is that Hacker hasn't moved for a little while. We thought we had more time."
"Yeah, well, we clearly don't."
"Okay calm down, guys. We've already scanned Ledge's ship, and it has no weapons or explosives." Inez spat out the name as if it were poison. "So, we seem to be pretty safe, at least for now."
"Besides, with all 4 of us here, we can probably take care of him really easily." said Jackie with a confidence that she didn't feel.
"Well, just let him in. There's nothing we can do now." said Inez. She felt almost sick when she said that.
"He even has a tractor beam on the door so that we can't close it on him. He thought of everything. He has the perfect plan!" said Matt with a voice of pure frustration and anger. "Why does he have to be so smart?! He's worse than Hacker. Hacker is pure evil, but at least most of his plans are stupid, or not thought out well. Ledge got us all with that Hackerizing machine." said Matt angrily. "Except you, Inez. You were smarter than him." Matt's voice softened as he reached Inez's name.
Inez felt her face getting hot as she heard Matt's voice change suddenly. "I... I" her mind whirled in a hundred different directions. "He sounded like he was trying to be gentle! He's never..."
Jackie also noticed the subtle change in Matt's voice. The meaning of Matt's and Inez's slow response times while looking at each other wasn't lost on her, either. Besides, she was afraid (and wanted to try something out); so she said, "Hey, guys, I have an idea. Can we get Motherboard to open up a portal so tha-"
"I already thought of that, Jackie. The problem is that Ledge has a force field around his ship, so we can't teleport him somewhere else. And no, we can't teleport anything out, either, he's got that covered." said Digit, as if he were struggling to keep his patience in check.
"-Ahem, if you will allow me to give you some news, I would like to tell you that that is not my plan." said Jackie, clearly mimicking Digit for his earlier snide comments. "We can't get anything out, right?"
"Right," said Digit. "Just like I told yo-"
"Right, so, that means that we can get something or someone in, right?"
"Right." said Digit in a curt monotone.
"So, we get Slider to come here and help us."
Matt immediately looked at Inez to see her reaction. He hated that she looked happy and excited. "I wish that she looked like that when I'm here-I CAN'T THINK ABOUT HER LIKE THAT, SHE'S MY FRIEND!" he thought.
Inez's head was spinning; but something suddenly cleared her head, "Slider?!" Matt was confusing: he made her feel tingly, and filled and empty and everything at the same time. Slider was easy. He was simple. He was awesome, and good-looking, too. She almost jumped with happiness and excitement. "That's a great idea!"
Inez suddenly felt a stab of guilt and empathy. All she had done was look at Matt, but... she thought she saw a flash of anger and... something else ripple across his face as he saw her reaction.
Inez's only thought was, "Oh, MATT! Don't look like that. You need to have that amazing smile you alwa-ACK! NO WAY, HE'S MY FRIEND! HE'S MY FRIEND! Don't think about him like that! HE'S MY FRIEND!
