The Borg helicopter arrived shortly afterwards, and when the ninja had taken their seats, Zane switched off the autopilot and flew the aircraft to Ninjago City. They safely landed on the heliport of Borg Tower, where a staff member met them and led them to the director's office.
"Welcome, ninja," Cyrus Borg beamed. "How are you?"
They exchanged the usual courtesies, and then the director of Borg Industries wheeled towards his large desk and motioned to the ninja to follow him and have a look at a couple of screens.
"Operation Frogspawn" was written in purple letters on one of them. The ninja exchanged confused looks.
"Borg Industries hasn't got into the tadpole-breeding business, I suppose?" Jay snickered.
"I doubt it." Lloyd gave him a stern look.
Cyrus Borg smiled. "No, in fact not. What you can see here is a decrypted copy of the files that were on the chip you found … in a billiard ball, correct?"
Zane nodded.
"An interesting hiding place," Borg observed and pressed a key on the computer. "And the documents on this chip are, to put it mildly, even more interesting."
"Plans?" Kai asked, trying to make sense of the lines and sketches that appeared on the two screens.
"Ground plans," Zane confirmed. "Architectural designs and detailed cross sections of buildings. Do we know which buildings?" he asked Borg.
"Yes," the other nodded. "Look here." He pressed another key that brought up various captions and labels.
"Ninjago Power Station," they read, "Central Water Supply Facility. Ninjago Hospital. Police Headquarters." And finally …
"Borg Tower," Cole gasped.
Cyrus Borg looked up at him. "Exactly. I was rather surprised to see our building on this list as well. Or should I say flattered?" He gave a dry laugh. "No, in fact it's quite alarming. Because these are not just any floor plans. These are the precise plans of the main server rooms in all of these buildings. Of course I know the plans of Borg Tower, that's what gave me the idea; and when I checked the other documents, I realized that whoever assembled the plans on this chip knows exactly where the computational heart of each of these facilities lies. And more, in fact."
Borg used a third screen to show another document. "This shows the specifics of five particular servers. If we can trust the label, it's the IT center of Ninjago Police. Details of the design, type, and wiring of every single computer."
"I assume this isn't publicly available information." Lloyd stated with a concerned look.
"Oh, no. I wouldn't hope so," Borg agreed sarcastically. "You don't want this chip to fall into the wrong hands."
"And particularly not the hands of a hacker gang with considerable criminal energy," Kai added darkly. "The Dartfrogs, you know? They could easily be hackers."
"I don't worry too much about common hackers," Borg said. "The combination of architectural plans and electronic layouts makes me fear that this information was not compiled for an online attack, but rather a physical attack, which is much worse. No common firewall or security settings would be effective against it."
"A physical attack on … servers?" Lloyd wondered.
Jay hummed. "That would be weird. I mean, you can destroy a computer, but the data would still be there, in the cloud, and I guess there would be enough redundancy …"
He fell silent when Cyrus Borg shook his head. "That's not the kind of attack I mean. 'Operation Frogspawn', you remember? Frogspawn – that's the cue. I fear these criminals intended to use a novel substance."
He made a dramatic pause.
"Purple Goo."
Borg looked at the ninja, obviously expecting expressions of concern and shock. Their blank faces made him realize that the existence of something called Purple Goo was no common knowledge.
"You've never heard of it? You neither, Zane?"
The ninja, including Zane, answered in the negative.
"No, of course you haven't." Cyrus rubbed his nose. "Right. I probably live in a bubble here, among programmers and data specialists." He smiled. "Outside of this circle, very few people would know that this substance can be created. To be fair, only our most senior physicists are really able to adequately explain its effects. I'll spare you the details. In essence, it's a highly potent source of radiation embedded in a sticky, slightly translucent putty with a purplish glow – a substance that is reminiscent of, well, frogspawn. That type of radiation is not harmful for humans, as far as we know, which makes Purple Goo relatively easy to handle. But stick it to any running electronic device, and it will immediately interfere with various ongoing processes, particularly at internal memory interfaces. It may wipe out whole partitions of memory, reset important parameters to zero, cause active operations to go into endless loops – you get the gist."
"So if I stick it to our game console, I can finally wipe out Cole's unnerving high score. And if I put it on the coffee machine, Kai will get half a dozen of Lloyd's terrible latte shakes instead of his super strong espresso, right?" Jay suggested. "Sounds like fun."
"Well, if you look at it like this, maybe," Cyrus smiled. "But think a bit further, and you'll realize that it's no laughing matter." His tone became serious. "Power stations, emergency rooms, broadcasting studios, the banking industry – all essential services in our society rely on electronic devices. Spread some Purple Goo on a central server and you bring the whole city to a standstill. It's the ultimate weapon in the hands of blackmailers."
"Is it really so potent, then?" Zane asked.
"A small, pea-sized ball could easily shut down a medium-sized server within a few hours. The first effects would be noticeable earlier, though, because the radiation would seep through gradually. But since a small amount of Purple Goo would be so inconspicuous, the source of the malfunction would most likely not be detected before major harm has been done already," Cyrus explained.
Then, his voice became more cheerful again. "You may have noticed that I talk of all these events as hypothetical outcomes only. Our group of scientists who work on the topic has never created functional Purple Goo so far. It is difficult to stabilize. But I admit that I was greatly concerned when I saw the plans for this 'Operation Frogspawn', and I'm utterly relieved that you helped the police to round up the members of this gang, so they won't pursue their plans any further."
"Hmm." Cole knitted his brows together. "How can you be sure that Purple Goo isn't being produced anywhere else?"
"Oh, probably because we've never seen the effects of it," Kai interjected. "I think someone would have noticed if all electronic devices in a particular lab would suddenly go haywire."
"Well, yes, that's one reason," Cyrus agreed. "You need a controlled production environment. One of the easiest measures to protect your devices would be to just shut them down completely, because Purple Goo can only harm them as long as they are running or in standby mode. And as long as you don't use the Goo, you store it in a container made of synthetic resin. A wall thickness of half an inch or so would be sufficient. These would be the basic precautions to take. But to come back to Cole's question," Cyrus continued thoughtfully, "no: I can't be sure that Purple Goo hasn't been produced yet. I simply assumed it. All plans for its civil use are still in the early stages of development. And I cannot imagine that any criminal syndicate has the means and resources ..." His voice trailed off.
"You would be surprised by the means and resources of some criminal syndicates," Zane remarked gloomily. "The scientists at Borg Industries may be the ones who officially know most about Purple Goo; but we can't be sure that no one else has this knowledge. Yes, Jay, what is it?"
Jay had, with Borg's permission, taken a seat at the desk and enlarged some of the details on the screens.
"Guys, I'm not entirely sure what to make of this," he said in an unexpectedly serious tone. "But these plans are far too detailed to be hypothetical only." He scrolled down. "Check out those numbers on the list of buildings: assuming they're dates, the one for the Police Headquarters would actually be – no, it would already have been yesterday! Then there's the Central Power Station on Thursday, the hospital on Sunday, then Borg Industries on a Thursday again, and so on." He turned round in his chair. "Think of the terror they would spread if people see these institutions fail, one after the other. Let alone the havoc a criminal gang could wreak while the police is incapacitated, or the power is out, or all of Borg Tower's security systems are out of commission at once."
The other ninja had gathered behind him, looking alarmed.
"But this would mean …" Cole began.
Jay nodded vigorously. "That they already are in possession of Purple Goo and the first attack was scheduled for yesterday. Exactly." He pointed at the server layouts of the Police Headquarters. "Here. On each of these servers, there's a purple arrow pointing at what seems to me the most sensitive area of the circuitry. Is that correct, Zane?"
The nindroid took a closer look. "Affirmative."
"That's where you would stick that Frogspawn to achieve the most effect, then?" Kai asked.
"Yes. They even," Jay hit a key on the computer and revealed another layer of small sketches and numbers, "calculated how much they would need for each server. Five coin-sized blobs to take out the entire IT system of the Ninjago City Police. Corresponds to what you said before, Mr. Borg."
"So these are the detailed instructions for whoever was supposed to break into the server room. They'd get a little batch of Goo, and the flow chart tells them how and where to apply it onto the five servers," Lloyd concluded.
Cyrus Borg peered over the rim of his glasses at the screen. "You could be right. Although, if this is depicted correctly in terms of size and shape … it strikes me as odd that they should have chosen a ball-shaped casing. Everyone knows that cubes are easier to stack and handle in general …"
He broke off when he realized that Jay was staring at him open-mouthed.
"Ball-shaped," Jay said slowly.
"Like a billiard ball!" Lloyd blurted out and immediately covered his mouth with his hand. "You don't think …?"
Zane looked over Jay's shoulder and checked the measurements given on the sketch. "It says the ball of Goo has an approximate diameter of 1.25 inches. Small, but sufficient, as Jay mentioned. It's encased in another ball with a diameter of 2.25 inches." He frowned. "That's exactly the size of a pool ball."
He straightened himself.
The pieces of the puzzle fell into place.
Suddenly, it all made sense: the newly founded gaming club paying for exclusive use of a pool room at Laughy's on Wednesdays and Saturdays. The commotion among the club members when they realized that the unsuspecting Dareth had taken one particular billiard set with him on Saturday night, thereby thwarting the handing over of the plans and weapon for the attack on the police headquarters scheduled for that weekend; the assaults on Dareth, Gayle, and eventually, Nya and Pixal, when the gang had desperately tried to take possession of those two particular balls again …
Zane glanced in the round. "I fear we know now what is hidden in the ball that Nya and Pixal have set out to retrieve," he said slowly, unable to hide the concern in his voice.
Jay looked aghast. "But Pixal is … a droid!"
They all realized immediately what it meant.
Cyrus Borg turned to face Jay. "Are you saying that Pixal may be in danger of getting near a batch of Purple Goo – without knowing what it is?"
"Unfortunately, yes," Zane confirmed gravely. "As long as she and Nya make no attempt of opening the casing, she is safe. But if they break it …"
He did not need to complete the sentence.
"We have to warn them! We cannot let her get near it unaware!" Kai exclaimed. "Jay, Zane, are they still offline? Can't you get through to them?"
"No," Jay replied quietly. "The line is still dead."
"Is there no other way of finding out where they have gone?" Cole asked desperately. "They must have said something, or given some sort of hint."
Zane's processor was whirring. Like Jay, he was unable to communicate with Pixal right now, but Cole was right: it must be possible to somehow reproduce Pixal's reasoning and arrive at the same conclusion with regards to the whereabouts of the missing ball. Zane searched his memory drive and pulled up every image of the past weekend, every bit of conversation he could access. He compared, and calculated, and aligned bits of information.
And suddenly, it clicked.
"Jay." The blue ninja looked up, and their eyes met. "You've been there. With Nya. And Pixal and I have seen it, too. That's why Pixal knew she would need Nya's help to find the right one and retrieve it."
Jay frowned. Then, he understood. Eyes widening, he nodded at Zane.
They knew where the white ball was.
They knew how it had got there.
And they knew what Pixal and Nya were about to do.
A/N: Happy holidays, everyone! Sorry for leaving you with a little cliffhanger at this point … Stay tuned for the next chapter, which will go online shortly before the New Year!