V.
"Fine!" Hacker snapped, snatching the hunk of metal from the ginger earth brat's hands and tucking it under his arm. "Do I get a computer, or do you expect me to just wave my hands over him?" When he got back to the Northern Frontier, his first order of business would be to find a way to disable portals, especially ones that directed straight into his bedroom.
"Right there." The tiny tot pointed to a two monitor set up behind him.
Hacker growled. Their preparedness just served to make the whole situation that much more unbearable. The indignity of it made him grind his teeth. Aside from the principle of having to lose sleep for a couple of earth brats and their cyberturkey, the recollection that he had an impeding date with Wicked, which he was sure to have to spend half charged and disoriented, filled him with a different kind of apprehension.
He took a seat, not without reluctance and started looking the tin turkey over, running his hand over the top until he found the hidden USB port. The whole set up was rather outdated, which wasn't surprising since Marbles wasn't there to sign for new tech. Hacker had spent the last several months trying to track his location, unfortunately without much success. It seemed like Motherboard hadn't been able to contact him either, or else she wouldn't have resorted to calling for him.
As the system booted up with a whirl, he became aware of earth brats looming over his shoulder and grimaced. "Don't I get any privacy, you intrusive ingrates?"
"Not a chance," they all replied in unison.
"Do I at least get a cup of coffee?"
"Fine," the taller girl muttered as she headed towards the kitchen. The others stood their ground and continued to watch him with crossed arms.
The villain shifted his eyes towards the doors. They were activated through facial recognition last time he checked. Even if he did make it past, they had probably shut down the entire wing. He made a low growl from deep in his throat and looked back at the monitors. Maybe he was trapped here for the time being, but as sure as he was the King of Chaos, future ruler of Cyberspace, he would find a way to turn this into an opportunity.
"This chair isn't very comfortable."
"Too bad!" the remaining kids said together.
"Tch! And they called me the bad guy." He opened up Digit's data folders and grumbled something offensive under his breath as one of the memory files erased itself before his eyes.
"Hurry!" the ginger hollered in his ear.
"Relax!" the cyborg snapped back. "This isn't a simple fix. That's why you needed the Hacker's help."
The bespectacled kid set a mini floppy on the desk beside him. "Coop said he made a backup of Digit's recent memories. He knew they would be erased first."
Hacker eyed the disk with some contempt. The last thing he needed was to be taking freebies from his old colleague. "Coop? That mediocre mechanic? What does he know?" He snatched the disk from her fingers and flung it across the room. The girl dove for the floppy like it was a piece of fine china and scowled at him as she shoved it back in his face.
"Just use it!"
After a few grumbles of protest, he took the disk again and this time stick it into the desktop to read. It didn't take too long before the earth brat with the puffy hair returned with his cup. She held his drink in two fingers and pulled her hand away as soon as he touched the cup.
"Did you add milk?"
"Yes," she replied in an irritated deadpan.
"No sugar?"
"One sugar."
"I'm on a diet." He pushed the cup aside, prompting the puffy haired brat to let out a noise similar to an elephant who'd just had a stick shoved up its nose.
"Can. You. Fix. Him?" she said through gritted teeth.
"Of course I can," he boasted. Satisfied to have caused a momentary inconvenience, he at last turned his focus back to the screen. A basic case of data decay. It was practically child's play. He opened up Digit's code with a smug superiority which slowly dropped as he scanned the script.
When he'd sat down, there had been one thing his memory circuits had failed to remind him of. He stared at the screen goggle-eyed. He felt as if he were back in high school with a pop quiz he'd failed to study for laying in front of him, only there was no one to cheat off of this time. He had built Digit during a phase of his life where he invented a new programing language for every project he worked on. The result being he had about 11 of them in total, each being used only once. And after years worth of evil schemes, his processors had opted to erase a few in order to save space. In other words, he'd completely forgotten how to read his own code.
VI.
"Is there a problem, Mr. Evil Genius?" Jackie was already well and truly tired of Hacker. She could tell he was being more difficult than usual on purpose just to annoy them. It hadn't been unexpected, but that didn't make it any easier to deal with. She wondered what dumb thing he'd try to spout this time.
Hacker turned to the girl with a smile that was sickeningly sweet. "Could I ask just a teensy flavor?"
"No," Jackie retorted firmly.
He decided to ignore her and kept talking. "There's a book in the residential wing. Second to last room on the right. Top shelf. Be a dear and get it for me?"
"Does it have anything to do with what you're suppose to be doing?" she inquired. Hacker gave, as far as could be said for him, an innocent shrug. "Nah, uh, uh. Tell me what you want it for first." She could see this plan of action was not going to sit well with him.
"You're stuck aren't you?" Inez deduced. "You don't have a clue what you're doing."
"Do you want me to fix your stupid bird or not?" he snapped, trying to preserve his cracked ego. Jackie relented with a sigh and turned to her friends. She wasn't sure if this was just another trick, or if he was being genuine, but she didn't see any way around it. They would probably know once they found the book anyways. And as long as one of them stayed behind, Digit wouldn't be in any danger.
"You guys go ahead. I'll stay here," Matt volunteered. He had been scowling at the cyborg the whole time and wasn't about to leave him alone with Digit for a second.
Jackie took Inez's hand and the two of them hurried out of the garden, looking back before they turned the corner. Having their greatest enemy at Control Central was still a bit nerve wracking and despite the safety measures they'd taken, there was the ever-present chance he'd try to pull a fast one.
"Last room on the left," Inez echoed as they came to the residential wing. Jackie could only remember visiting said section of Control Central a few times before, when Digit and invited them to his room. There were a handful of doors lining an "L" shaped hallway, most of them guest rooms.
They reached the end of the hall and spotted what seemed to be Dr. Marbles's room, if the plaque on the door was to be believed. Opposite, on the right side of the hall were two unlabeled rooms, one of which had pieces of yellow tape crisscrossing over the door.
"That has to be it," Inez said. "Do you think we should go in?"
"I'm not sure." Jackie scrutinized the door. "It could be a trap."
"Let's see if the door's locked," Inez suggested, going up to turn the knob. "It isn't."
"Open it slowly." Jackie turned on the squwak's flashlight function. "Do you see anything?"
"Nothing out of the ordinary." Inez tore down the yellow tape and attempted to open the door all the way. "Sorry, Dr. Marbles. We have to. For Digit." She'd hardly gotten it to a right angle before it banged into something. She reached for the inner wall, looking for a light, but couldn't find one. "There's something blocking the door."
"There's a lot blocking the door," Jackie said, shining her flashlight on a pile of scrapped machines on the floor. She squeezed around the door and tried to turn on a collapsed lamp on a desk. "Doesn't look like there's any power in here."
"Doesn't look like anyone's been here in years. The lightbulbs probably need a change. Do you see a bookshelf?"
"I don't, but who could with all this stuff in the way?" Jackie shrieked and leapt back as she felt something brush against her face in the dark. "I think I just touched a spider!"
"It's probably harmless, Jax. But I think we should go. Whatever Hacker was looking for, I don't think we're going to find it. At least not without help."
"Do you think he really needed this book? Or did he just send us on another wild goose chase?" Jackie asked. They were going through all this trouble and weren't even sure it would pay off. Would Hacker really stall until Digit broke down forever? Or worse, would he manage to reprogram him even while they watched his every move? Jackie had started teaching herself a bit about programing and computers, but she was still definitely a newbie. She wouldn't even know where to begin coding a robot let alone something as complex as a cyborg, or cyboid in this case.
"I don't think his pride is going to let him run out of power in Control Central," Inez asserted, pushing up her glasses. "I think he's serious for once, even if it's self-serving. Maybe we should bring him here? If we all worked together to clear out the room, maybe we'll find what he's looking for."
"Are you serious?"
"The way to the lobby is blocked. Motherboard's safe," Inez reminded her. "But if we don't hurry-"
"Digit..." Jackie breathed. "Alright we'll get him."