A/N: Thanks to everyone for stopping by to read along, and especially for the follows, favorites and reviews (here or elsewhere) – they always make my day! We're halfway through the story now, and if you liked the pastel colors of romance and fluff so far, there's another scene for you right here; but be prepared for a slight shift to grayscale with the next chapter … (you'll know what I mean when we get there)
The lyrics in this chapter are from the song Digital Love by The Fold - a tribute to Pixal and Zane that can be found on TheFoldMusic's YouTube Channel.
"Zane?"
"Mmh?"
"Don't tell me you actually fell asleep!"
He slightly turned his head and opened his eyes. Everything around his face was soft, white, and fluffy, and when he looked up, he saw Pixal's wide smile right above him.
Oh, yes. Zane smiled back at her as he remembered where he was and why he was swathed in thick, white terrycloth, resting his head in her lap. The droid spa offered everything they could have wished for after their adventures of the previous evening: a selection of tools, from screwdrivers to soldering irons and wires (the variety that was most comfortable to use and actually felt pleasant on one's hardware), oil and various care products for artificial skin (neither Pixal nor Zane would normally use them, but they had to admit that this particular brand smelled rather nice – and it did feel good to apply a milky liquid labeled "Anti-Dent Smoothing Lotion" to each other's backs), and of course there were the squishy bathrobes and a daybed in the shape of a giant scallop, which was perfect for Pixal to sit on and finish her manicure and large enough for Zane to sprawl out and ...
"No point in denying it, you did fall asleep." Pixal ruffled his hair.
Zane hummed and nuzzled into the folds of her bathrobe again. "Maybe." His voice was muffled. "Didn't get enough sleep last night ..."
"You can't be serious," she grinned. "You're a nindroid. Technically, you don't need to go into sleep mode every night. I rather believe," her smile grew wider, "you're still a bit lost in that cloud ..."
She leaned back and began humming a tune of which he knew the words very well: "She's got me lost in her cloud / And I don't wanna come down ..."
He rolled over and sat up with an innocent look on his face. "I'm not sure I know what you mean?"
"Come on. I woke up to that song this morning, because someone must have hacked into the music player of my room. And it didn't take exceptional detective abilities to conclude that this someone was no other than you."
"Really?" He tilted his head to the side. "And who would have given me the idea to do so?" he asked, now openly teasing. She promptly cast down her eyes under his intent gaze.
"She's digital lovely / I hope she feels it, too," he started to sing softly. "You know, if I ever reactivate my musical funny switch, I might choose this song for a little public performance."
"Zane, please ..."
He could see her embarrassment when she imagined the scene.
"And I think I'm in love / She's got me all tangled up / In her zeros and ones / It's digital love / She's got my binary code …" It was highly amusing to watch her expression. "Your facial circuits start to glow rather brightly. May I take this as a blush? It's beyond cute."
Zane leaned over and briefly touched her cheek.
"My sensors detect a considerable rise in temperature," he observed. "You're overheating."
He held out his hand and grew a couple of icicles between his fingers. "Ice?"
"Oh, you're so silly," Pixal giggled. She snatched one of the icicles and tapped his nose with it.
"Hey!" He grabbed a large plush octopus that was sitting next to him on the daybed and threw it into her lap. "For my little mermaid," he winked.
"Just you wait!" She retaliated by hitting him with a starfish-shaped cushion. "Take that. You deserve it."
Zane grinned, shoved the cushions aside and pulled her into a hug. "Maybe." He looked at the clock on the wall. "You know, we should probably go up to our rooms and get dressed. Lloyd was adamant about that meeting."
Pixal kissed him on the cheek. "You're probably right." She slid off the bed and put the bottle of nail polish back on the table. "Ninja business is calling."
When the nindroids left their spa suite, they passed the large windowpane separating the reception area from the little swimming pool.
"Look, Jay and Nya are spending the morning here, too," Pixal observed and stepped towards the window.
"And they don't seem to be in a hurry to come to a team meeting, either," Zane smirked.
They watched for a few moments as Jay waltzed around the pool with a giggling Nya in his arms; in most places, the water was shallow enough for him to stand. Real and magical sea creatures seemed to be the overarching theme of the decoration not only in the spa suites, but also in the pool area: between the blue tiles, several glass cases with oversized oysters and corals were embedded in the walls and floor of the basin to create a striking underwater display of marine life.
Nya and Jay had disappeared behind the large central pillar, which was decorated with silvery shells and white and translucent pearls in a variety of sizes. Several mermen and mermaids elegantly draped their fishtails around it. Zane could not quite decide whether he liked the style; everything was very tastefully done, but it was just a bit – too much.
"We saw them finishing the redecoration last night," he remarked. "I'm rather … impressed with how it looks now. The water adds various optical effects."
"It was designed to impress, I suppose," Pixal agreed. "I'd prefer a slightly subtler décor, but there's no accounting for taste." She giggled suddenly. "I hope they didn't go overboard and place sea urchins in the pool, or else Nya will make their acquaintance right now!"
The water ninja was diving down to the bottom of the basin and pretended to try and fetch one of the almost fist-sized pearls for Jay. The pearl, of course, was safe from her grasp behind a glass pane, and when she came to the surface again, empty-handed and with an apologetic shrug, Jay laughed and gave her a peck on the cheek. Only when the couple turned round, they noticed the nindroids standing outside. They cheerfully waved at them, and Zane waved back and pointed at the clock. It was obvious that Nya and Jay had entirely forgotten about the time; with an exaggerated eye-roll, they climbed out of the pool and signaled to the nindroids that they would follow them shortly.
It was 10:59 am when Zane slipped into Lloyd's room. Pixal must have arrived just a moment before him; she was about to take a chair while listening to Kai and Cole, who were already engrossed in a conversation about the memory card Zane had cut out of the billiard ball the previous night. The nindroids, of course, had already discussed the topic right after they had met in the morning.
"Good job," Kai nodded. "So you took it to the police, Lloyd? And the commissioner said he'd have Borg work on it and let him share any information he finds with us?"
"Exactly," Lloyd replied with an elated smile. "I can hardly wait. This case is getting interesting."
"I thought last night was already quite exciting," Jay's voice came from the door. "Now, what is getting even more interesting?"
"Did we miss something?" Nya poked her head inside. She seemed to be slightly out of breath, and her wet hair fell curly and uncombed onto her shoulders.
Lloyd raised an eyebrow in an attempt to look reproachful, but Zane quickly stepped in. "Not too much. Gayle gave Cole the billiard set she had with her last night. It belongs to Dareth and is usually stored in the game room at Laughy's. All balls were brand new, with exception of the black and the white one. The black one contained a little capsule with a memory card, which we extracted last night, and Lloyd took it to the police this morning. The files on the card are encrypted, but Cyrus Borg is going to work on them, and he will let us know the results."
"Whoa." Jay was visibly impressed.
Nya closed the door and leaned against it. "That's what you call 'not too much'?" She furrowed her brow in thought. "I guess Dareth has no idea whatsoever how this ball came into his possession?"
"No." Lloyd shook his head. "I called him half an hour ago. He was completely taken by surprise when I implied that someone may have been messing with the balls in his pool room. He's unable to make head or tail of the matter, and I believe him."
"Yeah, me too," Cole agreed, and the other ninja nodded.
"So basically, we wait for Mr. Borg to start working tomorrow and letting us know when he finds something?" Kai asked. He obviously disliked the idea of being condemned to inactivity.
"Well, there's one more thing we can analyze in the meantime." Everyone looked round at Pixal, who had quietly set up a laptop on the table and connected it with the earpiece of her communicator. Her hands moved quickly over the keyboard.
"I recorded bits of a conversation among the Dartfrogs last night. I couldn't get their frequency exactly right and there's a lot of noise, but with the right voice recognition software, I may be able to increase the signal-to-noise ratio …"
"Really?" Lloyd bent over her shoulder. "Pix, that would be amazing!"
The ninja watched expectantly while Pixal ran a series of algorithms on the audio signal. Black and white curves appeared on the screen, changing their shape so quickly that only a nindroid could understand what was going on. After a few minutes, Pixal switched on the loudspeaker.
The recording was still frequently interrupted by static, but the words were much better understandable than the night before when Pixal had replayed the raw version she had intercepted on the rooftop.
"Screw it!" This voice was definitely angry. "He wouldn't just have lost them," the speaker continued sarcastically.
Through the white noise, they heard another voice. "They weren't at Laughy's?"
"Definitely not, we checked. He must have taken both the white and the black one with him. Who was so stupid as to leave them there and not prevent him from …" The rest of the sentence was made unintelligible by a series of crackling noises.
More voices chimed in, and when the first voice could be heard clearly again, it was even more angry than before. "But there was also a woman, no? And you didn't search her? That's pathetic. She must have them. Find her."
Jay whistled through his teeth. "And then, they went after Gayle."
Lloyd nodded. "Seems like the pool room at Laughy's serves as a classic dead drop for the Dartfrogs. They pretend to be an ordinary gaming club, they even admit totally innocent members, but the insiders use billiard balls to hide and exchange secret information. Quite clever."
"As long as the owner doesn't get the idea of taking the balls somewhere else," Nya pointed out. "That's what I call bad luck."
"Yeah," Kai rubbed his nose. "But there's one thing I don't understand. We can safely assume that the 'black one' they were looking for was the ball Zane opened last night, but didn't you say that the white ball in that set was just a common, plain ball? Why should they want that one as well?" he pointed out.
Nya turned to Zane. "You're sure there's nothing hidden in the white ball, I suppose?"
Zane shook his head. "Negative. But perhaps Lloyd wants to show it to Pixal as well?"
Lloyd fetched the white billiard ball from his bedside table, and Pixal examined it with interest, knocking on it and scanning it like Zane the night before.
"Solid phenolic resin." She smiled at Zane. "Not that I doubted your analysis."
Cole had been silent for the past few minutes. He frowned and tilted his head upwards as if trying to remember something. Now he glanced in the round.
"Hang on, guys," he said slowly. "We may be looking at the wrong ball."
"What do you mean?" Lloyd was confused. "There's only one cue ball in the set, and it's this one. It was in my room all night."
"Yes, Lloyd. But it may not be the one Dareth brought with him from Laughy's."
"Clear as mud," Jay grunted.
Pixal looked interested. "Could you elaborate, please?"
Cole nodded. "You know, Gayle talked an awful lot last night. About the attack on Dareth and herself, the interview with the police officer, the attempted snatch theft later that evening, her chances of getting exclusive content for her next news show – yeah, it was an eventful night." He smirked. "In between, she also talked at length about her pool game with Dareth. I didn't pay too much attention, but there's one thing I recall now, and that's her saying that in her opinion, the cue ball Dareth brought was crap. She said the other balls in the set were really good, but the white one, of all things, was difficult to play properly. As if it had an imbalance, she said; and she grew so frustrated with it that after a few shots, she secretly exchanged it for one of the Plaza's cue balls. She just mentioned this in passing and I didn't ask what she did with Dareth's ball, because it didn't seem important at the time, but now ..."
He did not finish the sentence. Everyone had realized the significance of these news.
"That's why you said last night that she was probably a better player than Dareth," Zane concluded. "Unlike her, he did not immediately notice the issue, so she just went ahead and exchanged the balls without telling him, because she did not want to hurt his feelings."
"Yeah, this was exactly my impression," Cole confirmed.
"Well, whatever happened with Dareth's ball," Lloyd chimed in, "it's likely that this is not it." He pointed at the ball on the table. "This one is a perfectly balanced, usable cue ball, if I understand our nindroids correctly."
Pixal exchanged a glance with Zane. "It is," she affirmed.
Lloyd had already taken out his mobile phone and dialed Gayle's number.
"Dang it, she doesn't answer," he said after a while. "I'll try again later."
"How about we just go downstairs, and Zane and Pixal check all the cue balls in the pool room?" Kai suggested. "Sitting here and talking about that mysterious ball doesn't really get us anywhere, we might as well go and look for it. It can't have gone far since last night."
"You're right." Nya got up, and the other ninja joined her. "Let's go!"
At the entrance of the pool room, they were briefly delayed by Scootie. The little robot was patroling the hallway again, and when Lloyd playfully booped his 'nose', he seemed to recognize him and offered him a mint candy. Everyone laughed, until a day care worker arrived and snapped her fingers. "Here you are, Scootie! Come over to the play room, the kids want help tidying up!"
"He's rather independent, huh?" Cole observed.
"That's what you get for letting a robot wheel around freely," Jay snickered and quickly ducked his head when both Zane and Pixal gave him a piercing look. "Ok, ok, you've made your point. Present company excepted," he backpedaled with a grin.
They entered the pool room, but it did not take long for them to realize that their search was in vain. The hotel staff had obviously cleaned and tidied up the room in the morning, and the three pool tables were each equipped with a complete set of balls including a solid, entirely inconspicuous cue ball. Among the extra balls in the cupboard at the wall, there was none that had been manipulated in any way, either.
Lloyd frowned. "Too bad. I was so sure we'd find another one with a hidden capsule."
Jay patted him on the back. "Come on, don't be disappointed. Perhaps the ball in question was never in this set – why are we so sure that the Dartfrogs were right about its whereabouts? If you don't have scanning abilities like our nindroids, all white balls look the same, after all. It may still be at Laughy's, or wherever it was before someone thought the game room at a much frequented club was a good hiding place for a chip with sensitive data. Or they've found it in the meantime and are currently preparing the doom of Ninjago." He laughed.
"Seriously, how much evil can come from a billiard ball? We've dealt with worse before."