Thanks for the comments! oh and Warhammer... we will never know :P So heres another chapter, hope you enjoy it. Also I do believe that time in The Grid is faster than time in the Real World. So basically, "Minutes in The Grid were hours in the real world."

Violet Yami

"SHE'S DEAD! AND WE ARE SO FUCKED! WE ARE SO FUCKING DEAD!" Griffin still circled the room his hands on his head.

"STOP!" and everyone does at Nathaniel's scream.

"She can't be dead."

"FACE THE FACTS DUDE, GIANT LIGHT+LASER+PLUS NO MORE ZED= DEAD ZED!"

Nathaniel slaps Griffin across the face, who went suddenly silent. "Get a hold of yourself, if she had been hit by a laser there'd be some sort of evidence of her destruction, hence you cannot destroy matter only change it."

Johanna finishes his explanation realizing what Nathaniel means, "So if she had been vaporized we would have smelled or felt the change in air quality or there would be some sort of bits left over of her."

"That's a disgusting thought," Joseph mutters.

"But the question is what happened to her?" Johanna asks the others.

"What on earth has happened to me?" Zed yells in desperation, panting as she stops to rest on a rock. She had been running for about 5 hours now, confused and disoriented, she had spotted a blue light in the sky that sort of reminded her of the bright light of what had hit her. And she decided that running towards bright lights got you out of stupid tunnels.

At about 2 hours of running she had left the marble like highways and hit dirt and rock like terrain. She had almost fallen to the ground to kiss it, finally something that vaguely reminded her of her normal life. This whole black, shiny world was starting to creep her out, and she was leaning towards the idea that she had time travelled to the future.

"Ah, fuck. What am I doing?" she continued to mumble to herself. This was a dumb idea; maybe she should have talked to those creepy people with the glowing suits. But they were just TOO weird for her, they all seemed robotic.

"I've died and gone to heaven which is filled with robots and the sun is blue," and the mumbling to herself continued as she started to walk again.

"Maybe we can figure what that laser does," Joseph proposes to the other three who are trying to calm down.

Despite that, Griffin is still panicky and slightly high pitch, "This is bad, still even if we figure out what it does, how are we going to bring Zed back from the dead?"

"Think Griff, we just determined that it's highly unlikely the beam disintegrated her, Johanna tells him impatiently and angrily.

Joseph waves his arm at them while interrupting, "I got something! It appears that the laser sent information from it into this huge program." He squints his eyes at the screen, "The Grid, its called. Unfortunately it won't let me open it. That's about all I can figure out."

"But wait, where does the information from the laser come from?" questioned Nathaniel.

Joseph looks at him, "That's the funny thing; it's as if it magically appears after the laser is fired."

Johanna and Nathaniel look at each other, wide eyed, "No way."

"I am so going to fucking die... in heaven... again," Zed muttered, leaning against a rock, panting, "This is all a bad dream, the flashing light surprised me and I fell on the floor. Griff is probably laughing at me now and I am going to wake up soon and bitch slap that asshole."

Three more hours had gone by, and the stupid light, wasn't getting any closer.

She collapsed against the rock; it was amazing she had been walking for almost eight hours. But now all she felt was fatigue. She was hungry, thirsty and tired. Still in denial, Zed was sure she was dreaming or hallucinating.

Then she saw a dark glint in the distance, something almost watery. She wandered towards it, mindlessly. She came to a stop in front of the massive body of water looking down at the dark calm water. On the water she saw giant towers that seemed to be almost floating on light.

"This place just keeps getting crazier and crazier."

"I don't get it," Griffin looking at the surprised three.

Joseph informed him, "What if...what if the laser, turned Zed into computer data?"

"But how is that even possible?" Johanna asked Joseph as she started to inspect the laser at the back of the room.

Joseph muttered back to her, "I have no idea, and I have no idea if that's even true. And if it is possible, how are we going to get her out?"

Griffin spoke up here, "Can we get her out from here?"

Joseph tapped away at the screen, totally engrossed, "I'm pulling up the information on that file. It appears you just can't take information out of the file, a message must come from IN the file."

"But that doesn't make sense! And what message?" asked Johanna.

Joseph pointed at the screen in front of him, "This file here, straightforwardly enough it's called "Key". Basically to retrieve information you have to activate the program in some sort of scanning device."

"I'm guessing the fact remains we can't just open the file in that folder. Someone has to bring it in," Nathaniel guessed, crossing his arms.

Joseph nods, "That is correct."

"How the hell do we know what's in there? We're just running in there blindly," Griffin adds.

Johanna answers now, "We don't know what's in there, but I just have a gut feeling Zed's alive. She's a strong tiny thing."

Joseph begins telling the group his plan, "I think we send in three people, one that knows how the program works, me. Someone able to fix, and build things in case we get stuck and need to fix a car or something, Johanna. And muscle in case we run into something in there, Griff. And we need you, Nathaniel to stay in out here and make sure we're ok."

Nathaniel argues, wanting to enter the computer also, "What happens if there's nothing there? You just turn into data for the rest of your life. And why do I have to stay here?"

"We just gotta have faith," Griffin nods, agreeing with the plan.

Joseph talks to Nathaniel, "We need someone on the outside."

Nathaniel's shoulders slump, he gives in as he always does.

Joseph turns to the computer, "Now to get everything ready and start this thing up..."

Zed looked down at the water starring at her reflection, the round face, squinty black eyes and dark shoulder length hair. God she hated the way she looked.

She felt herself slipping away slowly, the tiredness and hunger seemed to be killer her. She swore she could see things in the water, almost as if it was a TV screen. It showed her family, the one she hadn't seen for 2 years, because she had been so focussed on school. She saw all the faces of her old friends she had lost from negligence. She saw her own face, scowling a look of boredom and sarcasm in her eyes.

Now she could see a low blue light floating to the surface of water. She leaned closer trying to see the image, it almost seemed as a man made of darkness was coming towards her through the sheet of water. As the light came closer she saw it was very faded. The image seemed so realistic she reached down to touch the water.

With a splash the dark hand grabbed her arm and pulled her into the sea.