Author's note: Thanks for the chapter 5 reviews. Enjoy this next part!
Chapter 6
"Okay, um," the man on the intercom began, "we're locked out of the system—"
…more screams…
"—so if there are any experienced netbattlers in the passenger area, or even anyone with a navi…"
Adam and Robert turned toward each other. Adam had a look on his face as if to say, "Oh no, not again." Robert, on the other hand, looked excited, which unsettled Adam a bit more than he already was.
"…please speak up now…"
Robert immediately stood up. "My friend and I are!"
"Really! Oh good, please come to the front of the tram!"
Adam put his face into his palms, looking up just as Robert grabbed Adam's arm and pulled him up and along with him to the front, tripping over various feet and legs in the near-darkness.
At the front wall of the tram there was a small control panel with a few white buttons and one large blue one. "To the netbattlers: Please press the blue button on the intercom on the wall to switch me to local audio…"
Adam pressed the button as he was told. The next words from the control center man came from the panel.
"Okay, great. To the right of the panel is a jack-in port. I disabled the security…though chances are whoever screwed this up got rid of it already. You're gonna have to jack into that port and…I dunno, fix whatever's going on…"
"Okay, will do!" Robert said. Adam resented him a bit for dragging him along into another mess, though he realized that both messes had seemed to have found them first. "Let's go Adam!"
Both friends did just as they had done behind the police building. "Jack in,"
"DeeJay!"
"Severman!"
"EXECUTE!"
(Adam once again wondered why net-ops seemed to always compulsively yell this when jacking in)
They pointed their PETs at the jack-in port, and watched as their navis left the screen. The screen changed to show the new area.
DeeJay felt his body dematerialize into a beam of bits and soar upward, followed by a sensation of falling and finally a light plop as his feet hit the floor of whatever happened to be his new surroundings. As before, his vision was too blurry to see anything for the first few seconds after landing, but it quickly cleared up.
Unfortunately, he still couldn't see much of anything. He was in an incredibly dark area, lit up for a split second as he watched the semi-bright beam that materialized into Severman. From what he could see, he was standing on a platform made of familiar square-patterned tiles, but he couldn't make out the size of the platform.
The portal the two navis were standing on generated a small amount of light, but more significantly, in the distance in front of him there was a yellow-glowing sphere floating above a slightly raised gray platform.
DeeJay turned towards Severman. "Do you know what that thing is?"
"Nope. Maybe it's used to control the tram."
"It's the only thing I can see. We should check it out."
"Right."
They walked slowly toward the glowing ball of light, stepping lightly before putting their full weight down in case what looked like a tile in the dim light was actually a pit. A minute went by and DeeJay only estimated they had made it half way to the sphere.
"I have an idea," said Robert. He searched his pockets for a moment, and then pulled out a battle chip. "Thunder, slot in!"
DeeJay turned to Severman to see what would happen. He raised his machete in the air, which began glowing a moderately bright yellow. After about a second, sparks began to surround the machete, until Severman finally brought it to his left side and swung it outward. A bright ball of golden electricity was emitted from the sword as it swung. It moved slowly, but faster than DeeJay and Robert had been walking, and they were able to use its light to confidently make their way to the golden sphere. As they did, DeeJay noticed there were no pits between the portal and the sphere, and from what he could see with the light, the platform seemed to be a normal square area.
Adam let out a small sigh. "I'm starting to wish I could use battle chips even more," he thought to himself.
The two navis finally made it to the yellow sphere. Before the thunder ball could reach the sphere, Severman swung out with his machete through the thunder and it dissipated with a few moderately-loud sparks.
The sphere was about four times the size of DeeJay's head, and floated with its center just at DeeJay's eye-level. The sphere itself was actually a smooth, polished, reflective silver, but somehow gave off a yellow ambience. As DeeJay approached, he noticed the silver reflective surface turn clear. In the center of the sphere, there were now the words…
ACCELERATION PROGRAM DAMAGED
BRAKE PROGRAM DAMAGED
EMERGENCY LOCKDOWN INITIATED
…floating as red text.
"This does look like some sort of control unit. Severman, can you manipulate this like you did the control panel in the EvidenceComp?"
"I can sure try."
DeeJay stepped aside as Severman stepped up. He reached out to the sphere with his right hand, and put it inside the sphere. Shortly after, he reached his left hand in. DeeJay noticed the red text inside the sphere change a few times, until it finally turned white:
REBOOT COMPLETED.
ALL SYSTEMS ONLINE.
A second later, Adam, Robert, and all the rest of the passengers flew a few feet forward as the tram began slowing down from it's ridiculously high speed. The tram's interior began to light up, as did the area in which the two navis were standing.
DeeJay turned to Severman. "Nice work, once again." But Severman didn't respond, until a moment later.
"Crap."
"…what?"
"…it was too easy."
"Too easy? So what?"
"Come on. Why isn't there any other navi around here guarding the control unit? If he was going to make it so easy, why did that guy even bother to do this? He must have known it was likely there would be at least someone with a navi that would be able to take care of this…there are like, fifty people on this thing."
DeeJay thought for a second. "Perhaps he just wanted to get away. Maybe he was running from someone."
"So why break the acceleration system and put everyone here in danger? I'm telling you, there's something more to this that we're not-"
Before Severman could finish, an error-like sound came from the sphere. They both turned to look. The sphere had gone back to the old red error text, and Adam could feel the tram start speeding up again.
"Now…" DeeJay heard someone say in a deep but smooth voice as he was staring at the sphere.
"Damn!" DeeJay turned around 180 degrees to see a heel navi that just appeared about four tiles in front of them.
But he wasn't alone. More heel navis began to appear all around DeeJay and Severman; they continued forming a circle encompassing them both as well as the control unit. Once the circle had completed, DeeJay was facing the first one again, and dove forward as he heard and felt a huge explosion from behind him. He noticed Severman do the same.
As he got up, his digital heart pounding, he turned back towards the sphere, where the explosion had come from. Instead of the sphere floating where it should have been, though, it was in two horribly cracked halves on either side of the pedestal, and in its original place stood a 7-foot tall navi in brilliant knight-like golden armor that encased him from head to toe, except for his green eyes. He had a relatively small yet majestic red diamond pointing out of the back of the top of his knight-like helmet, silver spikes protruding from his shoulders, and a small red and silver symbol on his chest. In his hands was a very long axe with a blue handle, a green stem and a large, white blade. The axe's blade was currently stuck partway into the pedestal, and it was the obvious cause of the control unit's destruction.
"What the…" was all Adam heard Robert say.
The navi pulled for a moment, freed the axe from the pedestal, and then rose it up above his head. The axe glowed a bright light that shone the same color as his golden armor, and DeeJay watched as the sword dissipated into bits which flew around somewhat and came back together in the form of a large sword with a blue handle and a black blade. When the sword fully materialized, the light subsided, but there was still a yellow aura surrounding the black blade, albeit at a much lower intensity. The navi lowered the sword and pointed it at DeeJay and Severman.
"You're clever. Indeed, you have walked right into a trap."
Adam wanted to jack DeeJay out, but remembered that when in the middle of something important like a battle, it was impossible because of too much data activity. They would have to defeat everyone there, or else make it back to the portal they arrived on.
"My name is Warponman-exe. I'll be deleting you today."
As he said this, he grabbed his sword in both arms, lifted it above his head, and started running rather slowly towards DeeJay. DeeJay looked back and saw there was no way to escape, as the heel-navi-circle was too tight. He turned back towards the impending doom in the form of a giant sword finally swinging down upon him. He put his arms across his face, turned his head away, and closed his eyes…
But the sword didn't connect. He felt the sword whoosh over his head, and a yell from beside him. He looked up and saw Warponman standing, still holding his sword, but off to DeeJay's right. He turned and saw Severman, with the most horribly shocked look on his face, and the side of Warponman's blade stuck almost all the way into his side. Bits of data flew out from the wound, and Severman collapsed sideways onto the floor.
"N-no!" Robert said, his eyes open as wide as Severman's were.
Warponman pulled his sword out of Severman's side, and took a few steps back. DeeJay bent down over Severman.
"Severman…are you alright?"
Severman just gave him an extremely pained yet irritated look, as if to say, "what the hell does it look like?"
"Oh, apologies—when I said 'I'll be deleting you,' I just meant him. By the way, he's done for."
Robert's hand shot into his pocket faster than Adam had ever seen. He pulled out yet another battle chip and slammed it into his PET. "RECOVERY 100!"
DeeJay saw a few sparkles come from Severman's wound, and the bits slowed down so that they didn't come out as much, but overall there was not much change.
"Operator, you can try to save him with more healing chips, but it will only prolong the inevitable. He is too badly damaged. Unfortunately, he will continue to lose data until he is gone completely.
He turned to DeeJay.
"It was unfortunate that I had to do that to you little friend. I do sincerely apologize. But I just couldn't have him getting in the way."
DeeJay started to feel a very small bit of anger. He stopped for a moment, and told himself to stay cool.
"What is your objective here?"
"Hmhmhmhmhmm…YOU."
DeeJay's mouth opened slightly. "Me? Why?"
"I suppose he really isn't aware," Warponman said with a hint of surprise. "No matter. It is time to get down to business."
The circle of heel navis closed in more, and more, until the circle became too small and some of them crowded behind the others. Once there was only a few feet between DeeJay and Warponman, with very little space between them and the heels surrounding them, they stopped. "Okay, you two," Warponman said, pointing in succession to two different heals on either side of DeeJay, "time to execute your commands."
The two heel navis raised their arms. The one on DeeJay's left pointed its arm at the ground underneath DeeJay, while the other on his right pointed it straight at DeeJay. He thought about attacking, but there was no use at this point. There were just too many heel navis-nothing he could realistically do would ultimately save him.
The heel on the left shot out a single, light blue, capsule-like object that flew straight towards the ground. When this happened, the floor underneath DeeJay where the capsule had hit instantly froze, and his feet started to slip a bit. DeeJay then turned his head to look at the heel on his right, and just as he turned he saw a gush of blue liquid coming straight towards him…
And then he couldn't move. His entire body was cold for a moment and then went totally numb. All he could see was the color light blue, and some vague silhouettes.
Adam watched as all the heel navis closed in further on the now-frozen DeeJay. From the PET, he heard yet another, previously unheard voice, very similar to Warponman's yet much less smooth, say, "Two birds with one stone. Very nice."
Warponman looked upward, as Adam has seen navis do in the past when talking to their ops. "One bird being in the cyber world, one being in the real world. I think that should count for extra, Raul."
"Don't get too cocky. The boss planned all this, not you and I. You can go ahead and jack out now."
"But, what if they manage to fix the tram? If it doesn't crash, the CD those two got will not be destroyed."
Adam and Robert looked at each other, both with desperate expressions. "The CD? How does he know about it?" Adam asked. They looked back at their PET screens.
"You destroyed the control unit. For goodness sake, there's no stopping that tram now. The quicker we leave, the less likely we are to be followed. Also," the voice continued, "…to the two ops who are probably eavesdropping, yes, I was the one who damaged the tram's control system. Sadly, our plan includes you two dying, as well as everyone else on the tram. All we really needed was this navi and for the CD to be destroyed, but it's not as if you were just going to hand it over, now were you? The next best thing was to just demolish the whole tram."
Adam's jaw dropped. He couldn't believe that he was in the middle of a reason someone would plot to kill so many people in cold blood. And only a day after getting his navi. He realized that if he got out of this alive, he would need to go back to NIRD and demand that Dr. Ito tell him exactly what the hell was going on.
"Anyway, Warponman, jack out please."
"Yes, sir. Alright, everyone, time to jack out. Make sure you don't let go of the target when you leave."
Out of the corner of his eye, Adam saw Robert pull yet another chip out of his pocket and slowly slip it into his PET. Robert turned to him and put his finger in front of his lips in the "shh" gesture.
Adam saw Warponman jack out, disappearing into an upwards beam of light. The rest of the heel navis closed in further until there was no room at all between them and the frozen DeeJay. The outer ring of heel navis began doing the same. Just before the inner ring disappeared, at which point Adam feared they would be taking DeeJay with them, he noticed a very large, iron-looking weight with square eyes, a square mouth, and arms, appear above the block of ice in which DeeJay was trapped. The weight raised its arms, and pounded downward just as the first inner-most heel navi disappeared, striking right down on the block of ice. Adam watched the weight shatter the ice and flatten DeeJay just as the remaining heels disappeared all seemingly at the same time.
Adam had no idea what to think about what had just happened. "Was that quake chip from you? Why would you do that?"
"I hope this worked…"
"Hope WHAT worked?"
Adam watched the anvil disappear. Underneath he saw…DeeJay! He was flat on the floor, and looked extremely-badly damaged, but he was still there.
"I figured they wouldn't be able take him with them if I moved him somehow, and that chip was the first thing I thought of. Now QUICK! Jack out, before they come back!" Robert said to Adam.
"Wha—DeeJay, jack out now!"
DeeJay, not in pain due to still being totally numb from the ice, managed to turn his head to the right to see Severman standing up, though he had holes in his body that went through to the other side of him. The wound in his side was still there as well, and seemed to be bigger. His expression quickly turned blank, and he collapsed forward, falling flat on his face.
"Urgh…" The feeling in DeeJay's body started to come back, but the growing pain subsided as he felt his body once again become a stream of bits and shoot upward. Adam watched as the damaged DeeJay reappeared on his screen, totally healed, as navis always did when returning to a PET. When Adam turned to Robert with a relieved look on his face, he noticed Robert's expression was still of distress. He craned his neck to look at Robert's PET screen, and saw what kept Robert from relief: Severman had reappeared on his PET as well, but was not healed. Instead, though his eyes were open, he seemed to be unconscious, still with holes in his body, looking like just a shell of a navi that was too badly damaged to function.
"Robert, I'm…sorry…"
His face faded. "Nevermind that…we…we still have a tram to stop…" he said, without looking away from his PET.
Adam looked around and realized that the tram was still going as fast as it had before they first jacked in. He wondered just where they had all traveled to by this point (likely a couple of times around the entire underground metro loop) and thought about what options were left.
"The control system is destroyed…what other way do we have to fix this?"
And he kept thinking, listening to the roar of the runaway tram that represented the progress toward their devastation.