Time passed quickly, and soon Iris was back at Wammy's House, learning half the day, and being persuaded to talk the other half. It wasn't working. The fact that they were trying to get her to talk was worse for her condition, but since she couldn't tell them that she had an extreme case of stage freight, along with other complications, they kept trying useless methods.

Another bad part was being in the same building as Matt, but being unable to see him. Iris kept asking, in her own way, if she could see him, but her doctors didn't know she was friends with him. Because they didn't know that, they were afraid that if he saw her, he would tease her for not being able to talk, or something like that. This would be the very worst thing for her condition, so she wasn't allowed outside of her room.

Her room was nice, though, with a high-tech laptop that she partly fixed up herself, a very comfy bed, three huge bookshelves (two of which were constantly being traded out for new books, and the other was full of her favorites), a desk, a reading beanbag chair, and some places for her to eat and such. Her doctors lived next door. There were only two at any given time.

One of her doctors, Dr. Harriet, was full time. She lived there constantly, helping out and trying to get Iris to speak. She was extremely nice, and fun, and if Iris did anything wrong, Dr. Harriet would just reprimand her, smile, then forgive her. While Iris enjoyed hanging out with her, she wished to see some other people too.

Her other doctors came and went. They were stricter. Their main purpose in being there was to study Iris, which she absolutely hated. They wanted her to speak, too, but for a different reason- they wanted to know how her mind worked, and couldn't figure it out unless she spoke. If Dr. Harriet weren't there, they would almost be worsening Iris's condition, but as it was, they just slowed her down. They were necessary; they were there to learn more about Iris's mental instability and hopefully come up with a way to solve it, but Iris wished they were more successful.

One day, Iris was on her computer, and a red, blinking sign came up, saying, "Virus detected!" She freaked out, typing up codes and trying to ward off the unseen threat. They must've been really good to be able to get past her firewalls, so she wondered briefly if it was Matt, but then dismissed the fact, positive that Matt could get through her defenses without being detected. She was thankful that her doctors were on lunch break; otherwise they would've seen her computer skills.

After a minute, the sign went away and her computer acted as if it warded off the threat. However, Iris knew that the hacker could've just broken in and made it look like he couldn't get in. Because of this, she did a thorough software check. After about 30 minutes, it detected something… at the same time her doctors finished lunch.

Dr. Harriet entered the room to see Iris at her computer, furiously typing away, while a little red light appeared on the screen. "What is that, Iris?"

Iris spun around, startled, before shaking her head and turning back to the screen. "Important! Need Matt here now!"

The other doctor looked flabbergasted, especially since he just arrived this morning. "Who's Matt? Why does she want to see him? I thought Iris couldn't talk!"

Dr. Harriet blinked a few times before answering. "He's a student at the school, number three, in fact, very intelligent. I can't imagine why she would want to see him, but she said it was important, so I'll go get him. Oh, and Iris can talk, just not that much. She talks more when something is urgent or important, so I would presume that this is one of those times. I'll be back in a minute, Iris." She spun around racing out the door.

The new doctor looked bewildered. "Why on Earth would Dr. Harriet answer Iris's request? That's just stupid! Iris is too fragile to meet another student, who would probably ridicule her!"

Idiot. Iris thought. Why would I ask to meet him if I thought he might be hostile? I'm not that stupid. He needs to stop treating me like I'm the idiot! Just because I can't speak…! Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to calm down and try to see who planted the virus in her computer, what it was doing, and prevent it from learning anything essential until Matt got here.

The doctor grew more irritated with every passing second. Eventually, he yelled at her. "Hey, you! What do you think you are doing? Your medical condition will only get worse, and then we'll never learn what your mind is doing! You can't just call a random stranger to come here, idiot!"

At this, Iris quit typing. She stopped moving at all, except for the tears of frustration that welled in her eyes and her clenched fists. "You can't cure me!"

A second later, Matt burst into the room, panting, and slapped the new doctor in the face. "I heard what you were yelling out in the hall, doctor. I'll have you know that I'm not a random stranger; I'm her friend. And if you keep yelling at her, you'll be the one to worsen her 'medical condition', as you call it. I just think she's afraid to talk because of what people might think of her." Matt grimaced and then ran over to Iris. "Hey, are you ok? What's up?"

To respond to this, Iris gave Matt her desk chair, so he could more easily look at the computer. "Ooooh. That's the problem. Do you want me to figure out what the virus was intended for, and whom it came from, or just get rid of it?"

"All three."

"Ok, give me a minute." Matt's fingers whirled on the keyboard, typing in codes and trying to decipher why the bug was there. Iris didn't have very many important things on her computer, except for things about her, so it had to do with the fact that it was Iris's computer.

The new doctor, still bristling at his exchange with this Matt person, glanced at the screen. "Wait a second, you're a hacker? You're hacking into Iris's computer! How dare you!"

"Idiot!" Iris yelled, fed up.

"No, doctor,I'm trying to figure out why someone else was hacking into her computer while you guys were on lunch break!"

Dr. Harriet furrowed her brow. "Why would anyone be able to get in? The computer was protected by out top systems, so…"

"Well, if it could get through Iris's firewalls, it probably could get through yours."

"Wait, Iris put up more firewalls? She can hack?" The new doctor shouted.

"Yeah, what do you think she was doing while you were running to get me? Certainly not standing idly, letting someone steal potentially very important information about her."

"But… that's just insane! Where would she learn to hack? We teach her everything, right here in this room! The only time she's left was to go see L, but he's her brother, he wouldn't teach her bad things like hacking!"

"Actually," Matt sighed, impatient. "hacking isn't bad at all. It can help prevent people from learning very bad things about you, and can help you learn useful things to help with a detective case. L actually asked me to go over there and hack for him. And, no, he didn't teach her. I did."

Dr. Harriet gaped. "How?"

"I learned of her existence when I was hacking into the system to learn what our exam scores were."

Dr. Harriet stared at him, amused. "You couldn't wait?"

"Nope. Not when your best friend will pretty much explode if he hears he came in second again, so you want to figure out if he's going to explode before he does."

"So you basically sneaked down here at night and taught her how to hack?"

"At her request, yes. Now please let me concentrate."

"Oh, Iris, you're so disobedient." She sighed. "But you know what? That's ok. It means that you're becoming independent, and that's what we want to hear."

The new doctor looked indignant. "That's ok? THAT'S OK? Seriously? It is not ok! Iris shouldn't be learning anything except what we allow her to, and she shouldn't be doing anything except trying to speak so we can figure out what her problem is!"

At this, Dr. Harriet followed Matt in slapping him. "Idiot! We are trying to cure Iris for the purpose of her being cured! She is a human, not a science experiment! Please treat her as such! If you can't, then leave!"

Iris smirked triumphantly at him. She hadn't liked this new doctor from the start. However, to her surprise, he grimaced, faced her and reluctantly said, "I'm sorry, Iris. You are a child, and I was trying to make sure you didn't do anything stupid. I guess I used the wrong reasons, like your value to science, but that isn't the only thing about you that I was trying to protect. You need to understand, though, that we are your doctors. You need to listen to us. I just don't think it would be a good idea for you to learn hacking."

Matt grimaced. "Too late. And I thought I told you to be quiet! This virus is actually pretty hard to crack."

"Sorry, Matt, we'll be quiet now." Dr. Harriet apologized.

After about 30 minutes, Matt stopped typing. "The virus is gone, and I know that it was trying to learn information about you, Iris, and L. Fortunately, it didn't learn much before I stopped it. Your firewalls helped with that. Unfortunately, I couldn't learn where the virus was coming from. That part was very securely guarded. I almost did, but the virus basically self-destructed before I could learn anything. Sorry 'bout that."

"It's… ok…" Iris sighed, disappointed. She really wanted to go pursue whoever did this.

The new doctor sighed with relief. "Good. I'm glad you didn't learn anything like that."

They all stared at him, incredulous. "What? If Iris learned anything like that, then she would go off on a wild goose chase trying to find them! She needs to stay in a comfortable environment and heal."

Dr. Harriet rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Matt? Can you set up more firewalls around Iris's computer and the Wammy's House system?"

Matt grinned. "I set up more for Wammy's House about two years ago, when I found I could hack in so easily, and I set up more firewalls for Iris's computer about two minutes ago, while I still had the computer, just in case you wouldn't let me."

Dr. Harriet looked taken aback. "O-Oh. Ok. Well then. Thank you, I guess."

"Sure thing."

Iris furrowed her brow, still frustrated that the virus and whoever sent it had gotten away. Then, her face brightened as an idea entered her mind. "Matt! Firewall 13!"

Matt blinked. "Why 13?"

"You know."

"I know the purpose of 13. Do you really want to use that?"

The new doctor interrupted. "What is firewall 13?"

Iris glared at Matt, praying he wouldn't tell the truth. "Oh, it's just really, really advanced, so I don't really see the purpose of putting it up. Sometimes, it prevents you from entering your own computer… but I'm sure Iris is smart enough to get around that."

She sighed with relief. He did lie. Good. Matt and Iris's hacking codes were still their own. She then looked at Matt to answer his question. "Yes."

Dr. Harriet smiled reassuringly at Iris. "It's ok. No one will hack into your computer again. You don't have to do that."

"Matt. Firewall 13."

He pursed his lips, thinking. "Fine, but let me save all of your stuff to a drive first. That way, if it blocks you, you won't have lost everything."

Iris smiled. "Ok."


Mwhahaha! Cliffhanger! ;)