Chapter 5

Hiro slumped down in his chair in the garage, switching on the computer and bringing up his coding program. He grabbed the Noodle Burger programming chip from where it sat, turning to look at the deactivated Noodle Burger Boy sitting in the corner. Hiro shivered, remembering the events of the previous night. Some form of Obake's influence was still affecting the robot, and maybe Noodle's original programming held the answer.

Hiro slid the chip into the card reader, a progress bar popping up on screen as the computer parsed through the data. Hiro would've loved to have started this sooner, but the ever-stressful task of maintaining his superhero secret identity meant that he had to deal with school first to keep his cover, even skipping out on a battle with Baron Von Steamer. And what a first day it was. Hiro had been forced to chaperone Rishi around campus all day by request from Professor Granville, which had been stressful enough, but then the kid surprised him by being a Big Hero 6 fanfic fanatic. Just what he needed, another person he knew writing about his alter ego.

By the time Hiro had made it to his first class, his head was so busy thinking of everything going on that he was five minutes in before he realized he'd gone to the wrong classroom. Freshman level mistake. And unlike regular colleges, the teachers were not as forgiving on the first day since the school was full of geniuses. He hoped that little tidbit of information didn't make it back to Karmi, because even though they were on much better terms than when they had first met, she'd still tease him relentlessly for it.

"Hiro, I am detecting a raised stress level and body language that is evidence of anxiety. Are you alright?"

"Fine, Baymax. Just a rough first day of school." Hiro lied.

"The beginning of a new school year can often be stressful, especially for college students. Would you like some tea to help you relax?"

"That'd be great, thanks Baymax."

"I will return in a moment with your tea."

Baymax waddled out of the garage and into the house. The progress bar finally hit 100%, opening up Noodle's base code. Hiro scanned through everything on screen. Noodle Burger really hadn't messed around when programming their mascot. Noodle was almost as sophisticated as Baymax, just being programmed for burger flipping as opposed to healthcare. Even then, there were a few subroutines detailing stuff like the Heimlich maneuver in case of a customer emergency at the store. Recipes, grilling techniques, the menu AND potential new menu items were all listed. The one area Noodle was more advanced than Baymax was the personality matrix.

Hiro opened up that file and the code detailing how to properly treat customers and attend to their needs was astounding. Almost every command was followed by an additional note to be cheerful or to promote the brand. Baymax might have been programmed to have a calming pleasant demeanor, but Noodle was basically programmed to be happy all the time, every day. No wonder the little bot had gone bonkers, Obake's additional programing pretty much conflicted with everything Noodle was supposed to be on a base level. The door to the garage opened back up, but instead of Baymax coming back in with Hiro's tea, Aunt Cass walked in instead.

"Hey, sweetie. How was school today?"

"Oh, you know, first day of school. Not much to report. How was the café without the bots?"

"Difficult actually, I've been taking it so easy the last couple of weeks with them helping out that I almost forgot how hard it is to do everything myself. I am beat!" Cass leaned against the doorframe and fanned herself. "Whatcha doing there?"

"Just going through Noodle's programming, double checking that nothing is corrupted and that's not what caused him to malfunction last night."

"Isn't that almost like stealing a company's secrets or something?"

"I really doubt Noodle Burger cares at this point with all those lawsuits piling up against them."

"Fair point. Just know that if you open a really successful burger chain here in the next few months, I will be suspicious." Hiro laughed at Cass's joke and shook his head.

"No worries, that won't happen. What's for dinner?"

"Just some leftovers from the fridge. Come on in here in a second and we'll get started, ok?"

"Ok, Cass." Aunt Cass walked back into the house as Baymax dropped off Hiro's tea.

"Hiro, here is your tea."

"Thanks, Baymax."

Hiro took a sip from the cup and scrolled through the code on the screen. Nothing jumped out to him as evil, it looked like typical bot code. Hiro frowned. The Obake programming hadn't touched the original chip, so whatever was affecting Noodle had to be from somewhere else in the bot. Hiro stood up and turned Noodle around, opening the hatch on his back so expose a port to his memory core. Hiro grabbed a cable and stuck it into the little robot, plugging the opposite end into his computer.

After a moment, Hiro had access to all of Noodle's internal systems. Hiro opened Noodle's memory first, quickly glancing through timestamps and images of Noodle's every waking moment. He scrolled to one of the earliest memories and clicked on it. Several programmers sat around a table of computers, with one standing up and placing the Noodle Burger program chip into the bot. A Krei Tech logo was visible on the wall. Hiro clicked out of it and scrolled down further. He clicked another timestamp, the video showing Noodle fighting Big Hero 6 in the city dump while sitting at the controls of a mech suit Hiro and Wasabi had designed. Hiro rolled his eyes at the memory and closed it.

He scrolled down a tiny bit and clicked, the video showing Noodle Burger at night, the only light being from a streetlamp outside. The door to the restaurant opened and someone stepped inside. Hiro slowly sucked in a breath as the audio played.

"Howdy and Hello! Noodle Burger is currently closed. Is there something else I can help you with?"

"Yes, I think there is."

Obake stepped forward slightly out of frame to lift up Noodle's top bun.

"Hey, mister, what are you-"

The memory stopped, and the next one auto played. There was a subtle difference in the timecode designation between one memory and the next, showing when Obake's chip took effect. Obake began speaking, but Hiro couldn't stomach it. He closed the video feed and sat there for a moment. Baymax gently laid a hand on Hiro's shoulder.

"Bob Aken was a sick man. I regret that we could not help him."

"I'm not sure there was anything to help, Baymax."

Hiro closed out of Noodle's memory banks and went exploring elsewhere. He clicked a subroutine named "Countdown" and a timer with nothing but zeroes on it popped up. It looked inactive, so Hiro quickly closed it and scrolled further, finally opening up Noodle's CPU. To put it one way, it looked like a digital bull had run through the China shop that was Noodle's CPU. Corrupted data was everywhere, lines of code cut off in some places and just plain blank missing lines of code in others. This went far beyond corrosion from seawater, this was the work of a virus. Hiro sighed. There was no fixing this. Obake's chip had rewritten Noodle on a fundamental base level. Removing it had given Noodle's system enough of a shock to temporarily return to its original programming, but if the bot woke up again, there's no telling what he'd do.

It also meant that something similar had probably happened to the other mascots. They might still be salvageable, but after spending a month or so under Noodle's sway, they might be a lost cause too. Hiro spared a moment of sympathy for the robot, as he'd never been intended for this, but at this point Noodle was too dangerous to ever turn back on. Hiro slid the chair back from the desk and stood up, grabbing his teacup. There was nothing more to be done right now. He'd have dinner with Aunt Cass and then destroy what was left of Noodle. Fred would be crushed, and he'd probably need to make a call to Noodle Burger HQ as Captain Cutie to explain the situation, but for now, food.

"Come on, Baymax, there's nothing else we can do right now. Let's eat."

Hiro and Baymax walked back inside to join Aunt Cass for dinner, closing the door to the garage as they went inside. While Hiro had been diligent in looking for the tiniest detail, he also should have been looking at the big picture. Still plugged into Noodle, Hiro's computer screen showcasing the CPU code began to glitch out. The zoom on the screen began to decrease, the digits becoming smaller and smaller until they couldn't be seen as anything more than lines. When the screen quit zooming out, the broken and missing lines of code formed a familiar emblem of a demon with its tongue stuck out. The code making up the demon's eye changed colors to red and the "Countdown" subroutine opened back up, the zeroes now flashing to indicate that the countdown was over.

Hiro's computer lost access to Noodle's inner workings as the bot's systems finished rewriting and rebooting themselves. Noodle's left eye glowed pink as he sat up, reactivated despite the fact that his power switch was still flipped off and his Noodle Burger Chip was missing. Noodle reached behind him and yanked the cord out, closing the hatch on his back and standing up. Noodle walked over to the garage door and lifted it open high enough to make his exit and then lowered it again. He was on the outside. He was active. And he had a mission.

Honey Lemon fidgeted in her seat at the kitchen table in the apartment she and Go Go shared. The other girl had graciously stepped out for the evening to take a trip to Muirahara Woods to give Honey some space. She ran a hand nervously through her hair, checking the time once more. Instead of her usual attire she wore her finest dress, as it paid to look nice for interviews. All the stickers from her last sticker party had been cleaned off, the apartment was spotless, and Fred was on patrol tonight. Nothing should interfere with her job interview. She glanced once more at the clock on her laptop, the blank video chat screen reflecting back her nervous expression.

She forced herself to sit still and relax, practicing a smile. Wait, was that something in her teeth? She leaned in closer to the screen to check. No, false alarm, just a smudge on the screen and-

Three video feeds suddenly appeared on the screen along with Honey Lemon's. Two men and a woman sat in three different conference rooms bearing the logo of the company on the back wall, and a different major city posing as a backdrop for each member of this quite prestigious global company. And on Honey Lemon's screen, was her much-too-close face and bared teeth. Honey quickly sat back in her seat and waved.

"Um… hi!" she finally managed to stammer out.

"Good evening miss," one of the men said, ignoring the last few seconds. "Sorry that we kept you waiting."

"Oh, it's no problem." Honey smiled nervously.

"To start off, what made you interested in the company?" the woman asked.

"Well, first, you make products that help people, like toothpastes and deodorant and stuff, which is great. Your products are also very affordable, which is also great. But what really got me interested was that conference you held last spring where you said you wanted to start doing more to help, like the theoretical baby formula that helps infants begin to understand time so they can start having a consistent sleep schedule sooner. There can be so many advancements in so many areas in regard to stuff like that and I'd love to be part of it."

There was a pause as the three executives took a moment to gauge the other's reactions. The second man who had remained silent up until now cleared his throat to speak.

"You seem to desire to want to help people. Is this a big factor in where you want to work?"

"Yes, for sure!"

"What about outside of work? Do you do community service?"

"You… could say that."

"Well, I must say, I think all three of us admire your drive, but working on projects here is a big picture type of operation."

"Can you please explain that a little?" Honey asked.

"What I mean is, there's a lot of work that involves keeping your head down in the trenches and not seeing the affect your product will have on anyone for a long long time, potentially ever. Sometimes you'll work on a project that gets cancelled because it's just not working out despite the good it could do for people."

As the man spoke, Honey's phone buzzed in her lap. She didn't dare look at it, but that was alright since she had her messages also connected to her laptop. The images of the three executives were moved over automatically to allow the group chat to appear on screen.

Hiro, 7:33 PM: NBB is missing!

Honey didn't react physically, but internally alarm bells started to ring.

Go Go, 7:34 PM: Ugh, what, did the little moron wander off or something?

Hiro, 7:35 PM: No! Obake's programming is taking affect again, I thought he was powered down but when I came back to the garage he was gone.

Wasabi, 7:36 PM: I have 30 minutes left on my shift at work, then I'll start looking.

Fred, 7:37 PM: Mini-Max and I are on it already, we'll call if we see anything!

Go Go, 7:37 PM: Grrr, I'll cut my birdwatching short and head back. There's not telling what that crazy little toaster will do.

"Miss, hello?"

Honey snapped out of her daze from reading the incoming messages. "I'm so sorry, I got distracted. What did you ask?"

"I asked if you could see the big picture and know when to prioritize."

Honey looked between the three executives on screen and the updates from her friends, Hiro already dividing the city into search areas to locate Noodle. Honey sighed and looked back at the executives.

"I am really very sorry, but I have to go. An emergency has just come up and I need to go help my friends. It was an honor to be considered for this position, but I have to go." Honey clicked the button to close the video chat app before the executives could get a word in. The group chat opened to full screen and she typed in her message.

HL, 7:40 PM: I'm suiting up. Tell me how to help.

Baymax landed on one of the hovering generators over the city. Hiro jumped off and looked over everything as the sun finally set. Night wouldn't make it any easier to find the noodle bot, but at least potential collateral damage had been reduced with people off the street and returning to their homes for the night.

"Baymax, scan for Noodle Burger Boy."

"Scanning." Hiro waited for the long agonizing few seconds to pass. Finally, he heard Baymax's scanner ding in completion. "Noodle Burger Boy has not been located."

"I should have put a tracker on all of the bots the second we had them in our custody." Hiro began whacking the front of his helmet with his glove. "Stupid, stupid, stupid!"

"Hiro, don't beat yourself up about this," Honey Lemon said in Hiro's ear. He looked over to Night Market Square where she'd been designated to search. "You said it yourself that there was no reason to suspect anything until yesterday, right?"

"I know but he doesn't even have the Noodle Burger programming in him now. He's basically running on the war bot programs that Krei Tech originally designed him for, he might be more dangerous now than he was before."

"Then we stop him, like we always do," Go Go said, the engine from her motorcycle making it a tad hard to hear what she was saying. "And when we do stop him this time, we pummel him into spare parts and toss those in an incinerator."

"Have you alerted Chief Cruz yet, Hiro?" Honey Lemon asked.

"Not yet, I wanted to see if we could catch him before potentially starting a city wide bothunt with the police."

"We might have to do that anyway, Hiro, I think I've got something over here," Fred said.

"Where at?"

"At the Grocery-Mart over by the movie theater. And not the lame one, the big one three blocks over that hands out free samples."

"Baymax?"

"I have locked onto Fred's position."

Hiro jumped onto his bot's back and the two launched into the early night sky. A short flight later, Hiro and Baymax landed in the Grocery Mart parking lot. A squad car with flashing lights was already there, taking a statement from an employee. A large window was busted open and laser marks littered the parking lot. Hiro walked up to where Fred was talking with the officer and store employee.

"What happened?"

The officer flipped his notes back a few pages to check something. "Employees say that Noodle Burger Boy crashed into the place and stole five jars of pickles before jumping out a window and ran off. I thought you big heroes had that crazy burger thing under control?"

"I did too, but at this point his glitches are too dangerous to handle. We're going to stop him for good. Can we see the security footage? We might be able to figure out where he's going."

The employee nodded and led Hiro back to the employee's only section of the store. Black and white security footage showed Noodle calmly enter the store ten minutes earlier and find a display of pickle jars, only to start grabbing them and pour the contents into his 'mouth'. He was on the fifth jar when an employee tried to stop him. Noodle threw the now empty jar at the employee and made his escape by jumping through a window and blasting things at random. Hiro watched footage from another angle that showed Noodle run across the street and into an alley between buildings. Hiro placed his hand on his helmet to activate his commlink.

"Guys, Noodle Burger Boy is heading north, he can't have gotten far."

"Roger that, I'll head to the opposite end of the city and loop back. See if we can't corner him." Go Go suggested.

"Good idea. Fred take the rooftops, Honey, the alleys. Baymax and I will be your eyes in the sky. Let's shut this bot down once and for all."

When Noodle had come to in the Hamada garage, he had only one goal: refill his pickle supply. With that done, the little bot wandered around the back alleys aimlessly, pickle juice dripping down his robot chin. Maybe aimlessly was the wrong word. There was something he was supposed to do, but he wasn't sure what. His programing was a mess, no chip to guide him, no siblings to help guide him, Noodle was as lost as he'd ever been. The burger bot stopped next to a trashcan and slumped over, knocking it down and covering himself with garbage. A newspaper covered his face, allowing the pink light emitting from one of his eyes to reflect back to him.

Pink light? That wasn't right, Noodle's eyes didn't shine a color unless he was about to scan or blast something. Noodle knew someone that had a pink light on his face before. He did lots of special orders for him. That's when it clicked. Finally a hidden file in his CPU was unlocked, rewriting his memory banks and unlocking a hidden directive. Noodle's vision changed from the alley to back in the underwater lab, a year prior. Standing over him was the man who called himself Obake, his face currently glowing from the tumor in his head.

"If you are seeing this, then I have not been able to personally input the shutdown command to disable the timer I set, which means… my plan has failed, and I have likely passed on. Whether it be from my illness or something else, what matters is that I am gone, but my plan for San Fransokyo does not have to die with me. Go to one of these three sets of coordinates, further instructions will follow when your internal GPS matches one of the data points."

The vision of Obake vanished and three sets of coordinates flashed in front of Noodle's eyes. He quickly checked his current position and cross referenced it with the nearest set of coordinates, marking a route for himself. After a quick journey to a sewer grate, Noodle found himself in the old subway tunnels of San Fransokyo, many of them becoming unusable after the Great Catastrophe, with new ones being built during the reconstruction efforts.

As he walked, the digits got closer and closer, with only an old early 1900s door between him and his final goal. Noodle kicked the door off its already rusted and unstable hinges and walked in. The room on the other side of the door was massive, boasting some form of complex contraption in the center. Another video message from Obake appeared as Noodle lined up his position with the coordinates listed.

"Lenore Shimamoto. A pity that the world only knew of her as an artist rather than a scientist. If she'd been allowed to experiment openly, the Great Catastrophe might have been averted and the world would be a better place. Instead, she was forced to conduct her studies in secret, and the world never benefited from her genius. Well… until now. Going through Shimamoto's journal, I have discovered that she was overconfident in her abilities, as is proven by what happened in 1906. Before that fateful day, however, she constructed three stations to harness the power of her invention. If working properly, these stations would have evenly distributed the power across the entire city at the time.

Instead, she never got to use them after her initial disastrous test run. These stations are not mentioned in her journal expect for the coordinates being listed on a single page, presumably she would have gone into exact detail on them later if she had been successful. While she did not get the chance to utilize them, I think that I can put them to great use. Before you do anything with them, you'll need an energy source to power the stations. A list of potential power sources that existed at the time of this recording are included. Your next instructions will unlock when you have the energy source."

Noodle looked around the room as Obake disappeared again. The machinery inside was old, but intact, and was clearly built to harness something of immense power. The list Obake had provided flashed in front of Noodle. Quickly scanning the machinery in the room, Noodle ran calculations on what the machine was capable of and what he needed to get it running. One of the listed items Obake had selected would work perfectly. All Noodle had to do was collect it.

"He he. He he."