Hey, sorry bout the wait. I had writer's block…heh, and you'll probably be able to tell where…yeah, anyway, sorry about that.

And sorry for the abrupt ending in the last chapter. I could have kept on going, but I wanted to put out a chapter, so I decided to end it there. Just treat 3 and 4 as one long chapter please.

Ok, one more—please remember that all thoughts are in italics. Gracias!

Inez started up at the bluish-grey ceiling in boredom, tracking shadows of cats and dragons and houses in its reflective pattern with her eyes. It was sad. She, Slider, and Digit were all sitting in a cell while Hacker was off trampling clovers and concocting some horrible magnetite-related scheme that might very well end Cyberspace as they knew it, and yet the only thing on Inez's mind was how impossibly bored she was. Of course, it wasn't as if she had other means to occupy her mind by; the chains repressing her movement had turned her mind stagnant.

Shaking her head stubbornly to clear away the fuzz of lethargy, the bespectacled girl struggled to her feet and began to pace. Usually that was Jackie's signature thinking method, but as Inez was, the headstand remained an impossible phenomena; and she could use any means by which to remain awake. Slider was already up, leaning thoughtfully against the cold, heartless barricade with one leg resting atop the other gingerly, while Digit sat sprawled over the only bench, which was suspended from the wall by two chains protruding from the slab of metal panel behind it. And it seemed to Inez that they were having a similar difficulty in fabricating an escape route.

How could they get out, how could they get out…One thing was certain, the answer wasn't going to just fall into their laps. There didn't seem to be any trick missing in escaping this room (like an absent door handle), and the only window was barred and three times too small. There was a vent, but none of the captives could work it loose with their hands/wings clamped together behind their backs. Nor did they have the luxury of bouncing ideas off one another, with the duct tape still in place. Digit had tried to scrape his off on the bench's edge, but it had been wrapped around his beak as if it were a lobster claw and the tape itself refused to peel, much less unravel.

Slider groaned, his forehead knit tightly together in thought and pain. Earlier, when he had been working to rise to his feet, Inez had noticed that the Radster had purposely kept his weight off his left leg. She glanced worriedly at him. Did he hit his ankle when he fell from the wheelbarrow? Was it the same ankle he had twisted on Solaria?

He was so cool, suffering through the agony like that, but now wasn't the time to be a hero. He should sit down, before he worsened his wound. Inez interrupted her pacing and approached the orange-sweatered child slowly, intent on forcing him onto his butt whether he liked it or not. However a deep-seated, irritated growl erupted from the throat of the boy, causing Inez to pause. Poor Slider. The wound must be worse than she had estimated.

But that thought dissolved from her mind the instant Slider pushed himself away from the wall and backed up a few steps, facing his former support. He dipped each time he used his left leg, but bore it steadily. What is he…?

The teenager positioned himself and sprung towards their confinement, dashing at the layered panels and screaming through the sharp throbbing. He threw his body to the hard sheets of metal and landed heavily on them, the wind jolted from his lungs therefore silencing the shouting. A giant metallic boom echoed in the small cube, followed by a universal stillness.

"What was that?" Hacker snapped, looking around suspiciously, his green chin whistling as it sliced the air. He leaned over his concoction protectively, searching for the source of the sound.

"What was what boss?" chirped Delete innocently.

"I thought I heard something…," the cyborg muttered.

"I didn't hear anything," offered Buzz, to which Delete added, "Yah, me neither."

"Hmm…"

Slider moaned and gasped through the tape, trying to regain his breath on the cool surface. Inez stared at him in confused horror. What was he doing? Had he gone mad? She gazed into his bleary eyes uncertainly. ...No—not Slider. But what was he thinking?

Slider broke eye contact after a few minutes and slowly backed away from the wall in a slow, torturous gait, as if drunk with exhaustion.

"I-uh…," (Slider…) mumbled Inez from inside her throat. She sighed in relief. He was heading toward the Digit, towards the bench, to rest. Perhaps the outburst had been just that—a desperate act of frustration.

They were utterly hopeless after all. No way to get out, no way to stop Hacker, no way to save Motherboard. This had never really happened before; sure, they've had their share of difficult situations, and yet there was always an escape. They just had to try for it; use a little brain power and they were free. But now each Cybersquad member was isolated just as Hacker had wanted, unable to work together in their scarce cocoons of tape and handcuffs. That which had always been their strongpoint, teamwork, had been stolen from them—completely paralyzing the entire group.

That was her first priority, to find a way to remove the handcuffs. After all, if that was the cause of the problem, then there had to be a way to solve it. There always was. If she just calmed down and thought rationally about it, she could overcome this burden of steel swallowing her wrists.

Slider, though, seemed to disagree. To Inez's shock, the boy spun around to face the wall once he had reached the midpoint of the room. With great celerity and a muffled, rallying shout, he charged the wall again, rebounding his body from the panels with much greater intensity. And no sooner had his sneakers tapped the blued, tiled floor than he was throwing his body back at the barricade, a sickening "whap" confirming his determination for each repeated motion.

Digit immediately leapt to his feet in surprise, while Inez tried to stop the rampaging cyborg, but the duct tape made it impossible for him to understand their words. Physically restraint was also out of the range of possibilities due to their shackles and the fact that neither were willing to sacrifice their bodies as pillows despite their love for the brown-haired child. So they just stood idly by, confused and worried, as Slider bruised his body against the chilling, unrelenting steel plating.

-Wham-

-Wham-

"Matt," ordered Jackie, ignoring the corner she had been assigned to investigate. "Stop daydreaming! We've got to hurry and get out of here!"

"Ok ok," muttered Matt, diverting his gaze from the dented wall. It seemed those bangs were making them both jittery. What was happening over there?

"I knew I heard something," grinned Hacker triumphantly. Spinning to his lacquers, he commanded, "Buzz, Delete, go find out what's making that miserable banging noise and report back to me immediately."

"But boss," whined Delete. Hacker, however, was too absorbed in his diabolic genius to exercise patience with the robot birdbrain.

"What is it?" he hissed.

"You never told us what that potion thingy does," complained the taller robot, pointing sadly to the glass beaker in demonstration.

"You, you want to know what it does?" questioned Hacker, his voice octaves higher and his hands clasped over his puffed chest in mock sympathy. Delete bought into the charade as usual, nodding enthusiastically with Buzz.

"Well then, I'll tell you… after you go and take care of that racket!" the villain screeched angrily, watching the bots scramble hastily towards the door.

Once the two eyesores had fled his sight, he turned his undivided attention back to the bubbling creation and, purring to it, inserted a wooden spoon and began to stir. The magnetite that had accumulated in chunky, glowing hunks at the bottom were swept up by the implement and assimilated into the rest of the clear liquid. And as he swirled the utensil around, the criminal began to hum happily.

"'Go take care of that racket' he says," mimicked Delete begrudgingly, trudging down the hall with his best friend at his side.

"Huh, easy for him to say," protested Buzz. "How are we supposed to find one itsy bitsy sound? This place is full of 'em!"

"It could be coming from anywhere!" despaired the other, his combs raking the air in aggravation. "At this rate we'll never find out what the Boss wants that potion for!"

"Well, we gotta start somewhere," sighed the elder as he waddled across the tiled floor to open a door for his metallic friend. "Let's check in this room first."

But Delete refused to force optimism into his depressed mindset and continued through the entrance, dragging his painted boots and drooping his antenna and shoulders. "Ok," he sighed, his voice highly pitched with the disappointment.

-Wham-

"Matt!" shouted Jackie, irritably glaring at him from her position on the bench.

"What?" The boy turned around, distracted from his task by the potent mother-figure.

"Stop!" the black-haired girl shrieked. "It's driving me insane!"

"But what if they're trying to contact us?" complained the boy, resuming his task.

"And who would try to communicate by slamming their body against a wall?"

"Inez, Digit and Slider, that's who," explained Matt nonchalantly, pausing in his wall banging to respond. "Besides, it's louder this way."

Jackie sighed and crossed her arms in annoyance. The backpacked boy took one glance at her posture and groaned inwardly.

She glowered at him, demanding, "And what makes you think that they're the ones slamming themselves into the wall?"

"Well, think about it Jacks. Buzz and Delete put them into the cell next to this one, so there's no one else it could be."

"Hmf." The girl swung her head away in denial, causing Matt to frown. What was her problem? His answer was logical enough.

"There's no way Slider would be that stupid," she stated spitefully.

The prisoner gritted his teeth. Not again. Oh dear lord, not again! What was the problem with these lovesick preteen girls? Just how perfect was this glorified image of Slider that only they could see? How could they just blindly be led around by the nose for that jerk? It was moronic, sickening in fact.

Slowly, the backpacked boy shuffled over to sit by Jackie on the frozen bench, thoughts buzzing around his head in an angry torrent. She watched him with mild interest until the child had seated himself, at which both turned to face the now concave wall.

As long as Matt wasn't up there throwing his body against the wall; as long as he was quiet, she was appeased.

And so silence ensued.

"Buzzy, where are you?" The whiny voice of Delete struck up from the darkness and crept sharply to Buzz's antenna.

"Flip the switch stupid!" came the reply, followed by a boisterous clanging.

Delete nodded and felt around blindly, panicked. Three. He felt three knobs beneath his combs; which one was it? "T-this one?" he questioned, flipping without an answer.

The fanatical scream that trailed his decision had Delete raking his "hands" against every object protruding from the wall as if Death were lurking in the blackness beside him. When he finally snapped the correct switch into place, in his friend's last known position lay a gigantic trap door, its jaws agape in anticipation for more victims.

"Oops," chuckled Delete nervously, journeying to the edge of the mouth to locate his companion heaped onto the floor below like a pile of scrap metal. "Sorry."

Buzz just glared at his partner. Maybe he should simply search the rooms himself—that way he might emerge from this exertion unscathed. Then again, two is always better than one.

"Get down here," he growled, causing the taller robot to hop through the door down to Buzz's level. Well, almost.*

"Hey, Buzzy," murmured the younger companion, after standing a minute in astute attention.

"Hmm?"

"Don't you think that the sound has gotten… louder?" Delete glanced down at the other for confirmation.

"Hey, now that you mention it…" The two borgs began to wander toward the banging, speeding up their pace in excitement as they reached the source. It wasn't long until they were booking it down the large, empty halls of the Grim Reeker. Louder, louder, louder still—they were getting close.

"What's so great about Slider?"

"Huh?" Jackie wheeled around to face Matt in surprise. How could he ask such a thing? Matt sighed and decided to rephrase his question so that he may elicit his due response. It wasn't that he wanted it, but he was tired of pondering the issue. Nervously, the boy rubbed the back of his neck as he questioned away.

"I mean, whenever he's around, you and Inez always make such a big fuss over him. Why do you like him so much?" Matt glanced away, a certain, mysterious embarrassment invading him, adding to the sense of self-deficiency he had previously.

The woman, as empathetic as ever, ignored the implication of Slider versus Matt and began to blush, gazing at the floor. The toe of her shoe traced eccentric squiggles on the echoing floor.

"Slider's…you know…w-well he's handsome, a-and kind, and—," she began, growing redder the more she continued.

Matt almost scoffed. Kind? Handsome? Well, it was true that he could be useful at times, but his treatment of the girls didn't differ from Matt's method. The only difference was that Inez and Jackie would let Slider get away with more than Matt was allowed. And handsome? Sure, his appearance held a more "mature" air, but that could be accredited to his two years seniority to the pair of eleven-year-olds—four years in Inez's case. Wait, was that it? That two year difference between him and the Radster, was that the impurity that stunted him in comparison to Slider in the eyes of his friends? Was that really the reason the girls favored the brown-haired boy? Just because he was older?

"—always helped out when we needed it and…Matt?" The boy glanced up quickly, embarrassed to be caught spacing out. But almost instantaneously another emotion welled up in his mind and flooded his thoughts. Anger; dejection. He would never catch up. Even if all that separated him and Slider were a few years, as long as he lived the cyborg would always be better than him. Matt couldn't catch up no matter what he did. He was doomed to be the third wheel…well, technically the fourth, but it's the same general concept.

Heatedly he rose from his seat and stalked back to his post, muttering "Nevermind. Sorry I asked" under his breath. Jackie remained seated, confused, until Matt began ramming his body into the caving wall again. What was wrong with him? Why was he acting so weird? And why…why did he look like he was about to cry?

Yeah, ok, crappy emotional ending. Crappy short update too. sorry. Hopefully the next update'll be faster, ok? Again, sorry. (I feel really bad about it)

Oh, thanks for comments by the way! I got lots this time! You guys are awesome.

* (for those of you who didn't get it, think differences in height)