When he awoke, he knew instantly something was different. He hadn't even opened his eyes, but he knew. He was still in the world of users, but he wasn't being overwhelmed. He lay for a moment, eyes still closed, as he comprehended that. He could feel something beating in his chest, pulsing throughout his body. Strange... He tried to make sense of the pulses, but all he could tell was whatever was in his chest was pumping energy to his limbs.

He was generating energy?

He knew the users did. That was how they could create the pulses of energy, how they could heal, how they could write programs into being... they produced energy. Programs simply acquired it from Cyberspace.

So how was he producing energy?

He knew he was. It was just something he knew. He wasn't even sure he understood how he knew, but it was as though he had some programming embedded deep within his mind that told him he was producing energy.

He could feel the ground. It wasn't like when he felt it in his world... he didn't even feel more texture -he was still wearing his outfit, which kept any skin from being exposed- but he could feel it in a way he couldn't describe. Faster? No. More... reminiscent? No. More... it was just a 'more' feeling he simply could not describe. Was that some property of the user world? Was it that the ground was more complex than in his world? Was he feeling the complex nature of the ground?

He dismissed the thought, having no answer as of yet, and turned to sound. He could hear things... he could hear a lot of things. A lot more than in Cyberspace. The world of users was noisy. Not that Cyberspace was quiet, but there were less sounds to sift through. It was clearer. There was a lot of white noise in the user world.

He switched to smell and taste. He usually only smelled and tasted in places that served food or drink, but here, he could smell pungent smells, and could taste a liquid slowly filling his mouth. He frowned. There wasn't anything entering... his mouth was generating a liquid? He swallowed, but it came back. He dismissed it. It wasn't filling past a tolerable point, so he didn't consider it. Scent... the smell of the room was pungent. It was... he had no point of reference for it, so once again, he had no way to describe it, and dismissed it as well.

Finally, he opened his eyes, slowly. The world was in its many colors, but this time, it didn't overwhelm him with the sight. It was weird to see the world this way, but it was no longer that twisting, horrible wrong feeling that assaulted him.

It was curiosity.

He was in a room without furniture, but it had four walls and a door. He looked up. The whole room looked rather worn down, but the ceiling looked the worst. He began to move and realized that his hands were restrained behind his back. It felt as though they were tied together by something thin. He pulled experimentally, then harder until it began to give. He relaxed, then yanked hard, snapping the restraints, and slowly pushed to his hands and knees. The restraints were in the form of a long line of something thin, like hair... string. No, it wasn't string, it was much stiffer and stronger.

He looked around again and got to his feet, seeing no enemies. He moved to the door, where he paused. It hadn't opened... had they locked him in? He tested it, pushing against it, and felt it moving back and forth, as though it was supposed to swing. He took a step back and regarded the door again. It was of a strange design, completely flat, with many intricate lines on the surface. A round object -a knob- was built into the center, on the left side. He reached for it, fingering it, and seized it. He squeezed it, massaged it, pressed it, but the door remained shut.

He twisted it, and heard a sliding sound. Instantly he stayed completely silent, listening, but there was no further sound. Slowly, he released the knob, and heard it as he did. He stopped halfway, and the noise stopped.

The knob? He looked down at the knob and twisted it again, and heard the sound of something sliding. Slowly, he pulled, and the door came open. He stared at it, and released the knob. A bolt of metal appeared, and he frowned. After a moment, he seized the knob again and twisted it, and the bolt retreated into the door. He played with this for a moment, allowing himself a smile of curiosity. How... fascinating.

He moved silently out into the hall, his eyes scanning his immediate surroundings. He stood still for a moment, listening, and tried to shut out the white noise. He could hear voices... distantly. He turned towards them and moved away, remaining silent.

After a moment, he came to another door, but this one was slightly open already, and he could see a sliver of the room. He approached it and stopped, listening again.

"...possible explanation."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. You saw it. And since we haven't heard about it like we heard about the other one, I'm guessing they have secrets to hide. Pretty important ones, or we would have had a whiff of this sooner."

"Then let's use him as ransom. If he's valuable enough, they'll give up their secret. It's not like they can trace us."

"Right. Okay... okay. Let's go ahead and call, and try to find some way to reprogram him in the meantime."

"Didn't you already try?"

"Yeah, but if I try again, I think I can at least alter the way he thinks so he can't trust them either."

There was a pause, then, "All right. You call. You're the better speaker."

"Heh, ok."

Oban heard a few beeps, then a ringing sound, and sensed a signal broadcasting. His eyes narrowed, and he accessed it. It was encrypted and cloaked, but after a short second he was in, listening.

"...ynn here."

"Flynn."

A pause. "Who is this?"

"No one important. Do you recall a certain security program you sent chasing after a rogue user not to long ago? One that escaped?"

"You're the one who escaped?"

"No, he's my friend. But we have your program."

"What? He's... he's alive?" Oban sensed a large amount of surprise in the user's voice. He did not recognize the voice, but then again, he had never met Flynn before.

"Yeah. He's our prisoner. Oh... and we're onto you. We know what he is."

Instead of surprise, there was more of a blank pause. "What? What are you talking about?"

"Don't play innocent. If you want us to keep quiet, you'd better tell us how to rig your little Digitizing Ray so it downloads us into our computers, instead of your little playground."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

An angry growl. "You can't hide it. We know what he is. Very clever, putting one of them on the team."

"I don't... look, what do you mean, you know what he is? He's an advanced security program, and I'm pretty sure that's common knowledge."

"Fine. You don't want to play, we won't play either. He's dead. ...Unless you tell us how to rewrite the Digitizing Ray to open a portal into our computer."

Oban had heard enough. Whatever they thought he was didn't matter. If Flynn wanted to keep him safe, he'd compromise their entire mission. Knowing how strange users' logic could be, he thrust the door open, racing towards the one holding the source of the signal, whom he tackled. He whipped up his disc and thrust it deep into the man's chest.

Something different happened. The man was bleeding onto the floor, but he wasn't disintegrating. Even users, who had blood and bled before death, vanished in his world. Instead, Oban watched the man's face contort in pain before relaxing into death. He felt an odd sensation in the pit of his stomach, but before he could think about it, the other two had gotten up and were attempting to seize him.

"What's going on? Are you there?"

He surged to his feet, his other disc in hand as he lifted a now-bloody disc from the first man's chest. He let the bloody one fly, and it pierced the second man's chest, dropping him. He turned to the third one, who had seized his arm.

"Oban? Are you there?"

He paused at the sound of his name, then accessed the signal more fully. "I am here. Identify."

"This is Sam Flynn. We've never met, but I helped write you. What's going on? Where is the other one, the one who called me?"

"Terminated."

"T... you killed him?" He sounded more horrified than Oban had expected. "Oban... was there anyone else with him?"

Speaking of which, the third man was moving slowly to a desk... Oban stepped forward, lifting his disc. "Don't move."

"Oban, don't kill them! This world isn't like yours! The rules are different here, and no matter what you were written for in your world, you can't just take their lives!"

"There's only one left." Oban lifted the disc. "The rogue user we were chasing."

He lifted his hand, reaching slowly towards the desk, and Oban stiffened. "Don't move, or I'll kill you."

"Oban, don't! They're not- you can't do that here!"

The rogue user hesitated, then made a dive, and Oban's disc went flying, knocking him off course. Oban instantly hurled his second one, which pinned the man's arm to the wall. He raced across the room and took back his first one, which he placed against the user's neck.

"Game over, program!" The user laughed, lifting his arm, and Oban frowned at it. It looked like a remote of some sort, and a whirring sound responded. Instantly, he yanked out his other disc and thrust the man to the ground, burying both discs in the man's chest.

"Oban? You still there? What's going on?"

The whirring sound continued, and Oban dropped, rolling away from the user and looked up. A laser was aimed where he had been previously. It was charging, and he knew - in a moment, it would fire. He hurled a disc, and it went right through the laser. Immediately, the whirring sound stopped.

"Oban?"

In the silence, Oban got slowly to his feet. "I failed to follow instructions, user Flynn. All three are dead."

"What? Why?! I told you not to!"

"He attempted to kill us both with some sort of laser. I preferred to survive, and killed him."

"A laser? Oban, that was their way of getting into your world. That's our portal." After a moment, he sighed. "Okay. You killed them, and at least we stopped that threat. But now, we have no way of figuring out where you are. The phone they have is a secure number, and our satellites are having a hard time triangulating on it."

"The signal is cloaked." Oban paused. "I can remove the cloak. Will that help?"

"You can remove...? Oban, what's going on?"

"What do you mean?"

"Aren't you using the phone? How can you decloak it? You don't even know how phones operate."

"Is the phone a... communications device?" He asked, looking back at the first user, who was holding a small object in his hand; the source of the signal.

Another pause. "You know what, we'll ask questions later. If you can remove the cloak, please do. Once we have your location, we'll be there in minutes."