Like most young sprites, Enzo had a rather short attention span where most things were concerned. The Guardian craft, however, kept him occupied for the better part of a half-millisecond. He had examined every detail in wide-eyed fascination, played a make-believe game of "shoot the Web creatures" at its helm, and "accidentally" pressed a button or two – though none of them seemed to have any noticeable effect. But he had just about exhausted the possibilities for fun here, and he didn't want anyone to catch him where he wasn't supposed to be, so he decided that it was time to head home.
"Okay, Frisket," he addressed his faithful companion. "We'd better go home now. C'mon." While the young sprite had enjoyed himself immensely, Frisket had not shown much interest in the ship, and had chosen instead to curl up on a bench in the rear of it. Now, though, he perked up and leaped down from his seat, shook himself and followed his master out the door of the ship.
Had Enzo been here on his own, he could have taken his zipboard out the open hangar bay door. Since Frisket was with him, he would have to go to one of the walkways instead, because Frisket could not use a zipboard and, though he could find his way around, was unable to open doors by himself. The two of them left the hangar for a wide corridor, which would lead them to a lift for the ground level. But when Enzo turned right to head for the lift, Frisket turned left, in the air. Then the dog began to growl.
Enzo turned around. "What is it, boy? Whaddaya smell?" Frisket trotted in the direction of the scent he had picked up and Enzo, curious, followed after him. After they had gone a few micrometers down the corridor, Frisket put his nose to the ground instead, following a scent trail. The dog stopped at a door, one that Enzo had never entered before, and started to whimper. He looked at Enzo imploringly.
"In here?" Enzo asked, reading the sign on the door. It was a locker room, probably for the technicians who worked on the CPUs. Frisket confirmed his choice by nodding and pawing at the door. With a shrug, Enzo put his hand to the panel by the side of the door, and it slid open. Then he moved aside for Frisket, who began sniffing the floor again.
After a few moments, the dog raised his head and emitted a growl. Enzo followed the dog as he trotted up to another door, this one with a handle rather than a touchpad, and was very surprised to hear faint noises coming from the other side – banging and incomprehensible yelling.
"There's someone in there!" Enzo cried as he straightened up. Frisket let out a loud whimper of assent as his master turned the handle and pulled the door open.
A One binome stumbled out of the boiler room on the other side, looked at Enzo, for a moment, then gave him a grateful hug. "Oh, thankyouthankyouthanyou! I thought I'd never get out! It was just awful, it was all stuffy and dark and I'm scared of…"
"Whoa, hold on a nano!" Enzo exclaimed as extricated himself from the binome's embrace. "How did you get locked in there in the first place?"
~***~
While Dweila and Phong were going over the system records in the Principal Office control room, Dot took the opportunity to talk to Bob in the corridor outside. Although the inspector had treated Dot with a lot of coldness and contempt, she couldn't bring herself to leave her friend in his time of need. So she had set her chin and weathered through it with him. Though she didn't know how much longer she'd be able to stand Dweila's treatment without going completely random.
"Everything seems to be going all right," Bob told her. He seemed a little better than he had this morning.
Dot nodded. "I told you it would. But I still can't wait until she leaves," Dot admitted, scowling at the control room door.
Bob shrugged. "I think it'll only be another millisecond. Unless a Game comes down, or something else happens." She could tell that just thinking about it made him more nervous – she put a comforting hand on his shoulder.
"Let's just hope that Dweila is the only unpleasant surprise we get this second," Dot said.
It was then that another unpleasant surprise arrived in the form of Enzo, with Frisket hot on his heels, skidding around a bend in the corridor. "Bob! Dot! I'm glad you're here, you have to…"
"Enzo!" Dot interrupted, crossing her arms and frowning at her little brother, "Didn't I tell you to stay at home? What are you doing here?" He had better have a good excuse.
Enzo sighed exasperatedly. "I'm sorry, I came to see the Guardian ship." Dot narrowed her eyes. "But can I be in trouble later? This is really important."
Dot was surprised for a moment, but managed to resume her glare in less than two cycles. She kept it fixed on her brother while she considered what to do next. "All right. But it had better be serious."
It certainly was serious; Enzo told them about the binome he had found stuck in the locker room boiler closet, and how he had gotten there. As he told his story, Bob's face became progressively paler and paler, as if all the nervousness that had lifted off his shoulders earlier were crashing down on him again. By the time Enzo had finished speaking Bob was more white than blue. Dot couldn't blame him – they both knew what this meant. It was obvious.
"Megabyte's got the computer core," Bob said in a near-whisper. He took a deep, shuddering breath, then squared his shoulders. "Okay. I guess that means I'll have to get it back," he said, in a stronger voice.
"What should we do?" Enzo asked.
Bob looked significantly at the control room door, then back at Dot and her brother. "Stall her," he answered in a voice cracked with panic, before running off down the corridor.
~***~
Hexadecimal uploaded herself into her mask and vanished, leaving a rather unsettled Megabyte and a smoking hole in the throne room wall behind her. Megabyte had finally convinced her to leave by ignoring her – attention was what she'd been seeking, after all – and his strategy had succeeded, but it had also made Hex angry enough to toss a fireball at him. She had not managed to delete him, but she had done some rather irritating damage; now part of his throne was reduced to slag and he had a grand view of G-Prime through a ragged round gap in the wall. Megabyte sighed, tapped a button, and maneuvered the crippled throne to his pair of legs as it came up from a hole in the floor. He had just finished transferring himself onto them when Hack and Slash arrived.
"We got it, boss!" Hack exclaimed, triumphantly brandishing a red box, the twin of the one that Slash had brought in earlier.
"Yeah, we got it!"
"And it is…"
"…the right one!"
"We made sure! Everything is…" Hack finally noticed the damage Hex had done on her way out.
"Uhhh…what happened, boss?" Slash asked.
"Never mind that," Megabyte snapped, striding up to Hack with an outstretched hand. "Give it to me!" Hack obliged him by handing over the box. Megabyte opened it and, to his delight, found the object he was looking for inside. "At last," he began, removing it from its foam bed, "The path to the Supercomputer is mine!" He dropped the red box, which made a loud, echoing clang as it hit the floor.