Hi people, sorry about the wait, this chapter should keep you going for a while- I've finally devised where I'm going with this whole thing and you're in for a few surprises methinks! Thanks to all of you who reviewed this story already- one of you actually gave me the idea for the plotline (unintentionally). Anyway here ya go!
Bob sat back on the
comfy blue sofa and sighed. When he'd decided to surprise Dot by appearing
unexpectedly in her living room, he'd assumed that by ten in the evening she'd
be there. Now past midnight, Bob scanned the immaculately-clean room for the
hundredth time, then continued to stare at the fireplace opposite where he was
sitting. He ran through all the places she could be at that time of night, and
dialled the Principal Office. After only two rings, Phong's face appeared in
the vid-window.
"Hi
Phong. Can I speak to Dot please?"
"She's
not here, my son. I have not seen her all day."
"Okay,
she must be at the diner then. 'Night."
Bob
closed the connection and got up to leave. He was about to make a portal when
he thought that maybe Dot was already on her way home, so he left a note on the
coffee table in case he missed her and left the apartment on foot.
It
was only a short walk to the diner, and Dot had told him many times she didn't
need to be walked home when he'd offered because her apartment building was so
close by. It was also her way of justifying working late on a regular basis,
with no one around to make sure she took some breaks.
The
way was well-lit until Bob got to the diner itself, as all the outside lights
had been shut down for the night. He smiled to himself as he spotted the few
dim lights inside that illuminated a small part of the diner towards the back.
Bob slammed the doors open like a saloon- Mouse style.
"Hey
babe, you've really got to stop working so-" He stopped mid-stride as he
took in the scene in front of him. A pile of papers had been upset and were now
strewn across the floor along with a spilt energy shake.
"Dot?"
Bob called out anxiously, a feeling of dread beginning to knot in his stomach.
The feeling was heightened when he noticed her organiser, still on-line, lying
on the table with several 'missed calls' flashing on screen.
'She
would never leave that...' Bob
realised immediately. Trying to think of perfectly innocent reasons why the
diner could be left like this, he ran into the back, checking the small office
she sometimes used to work.
Nothing.
Not
even a clue as to what had happened either. 'Come on, got to stay calm. Maybe
she was called away by Matrix or...' Bob told himself, although he knew that
wasn't likely. He walked slowly to the front of the diner again. 'There'll be
some perfectly reasonable explanation and Dot will laugh at me because I got
so-'
He
felt his heart almost stop in fear as he spotted something on the bar that
really shouldn't have been there. A
tiny pool of blue next to some sort of card that had been left there deliberately
for someone to find. Bob picked it up carefully and turned it over in his hand,
only to see a single word scrawled crudely:
'Pay back'
Bob
stared at it in disbelief, then touched the blue liquid and his fear was
confirmed when he realised what it was.
Blood.
Dot
struggled half-heartedly in his grasp again, but she knew it was useless. Her
captor had taunted and teased her until she'd blocked his voice out and ignored
him, at which point he'd gotten bored, finally leaving her alone. She refused
to cry, although despair was beginning to make it difficult to not to cry as it
was to believe she'd escape.
At
the diner, Damien had told her she was 'going for a little walk' and promptly
shoved her forwards against a table, sending papers and what was left of her
shake to the floor. Then he'd pulled her arms painfully tight behind her back
and tied her wrists. It wasn't rope or cord though. Some sort of thin metal
wire that dug deeply into her skin, leaving trickles of blood running down onto
her hands. Dot thought she saw him take something out of his pocket, but before
she knew what was happening she felt a searing pain in her right upper arm.
Damien had forced her sideways so her injured arm hit the bar, making her cry
out angrily. A few drops of her blood were now dotted on the bar-top, and she
watched as Damien pulled a small card out of his pocket and threw it down on
the counter.
After
that he had pushed her out of the diner and along deserted alleyways until
they'd come to a building Dot recognised as somewhere near Level 31. All the
way he'd made comments about her looks or her job, provoking her to respond
snappily, which only seemed to fuel it all the more. Damien had opened the door
and pushed her in roughly after him, but not before whispering harshly in her
ear:
"Try
to call for help and I'll slit your pretty little throat, understand me?"
Dot
turned to glare at him in return as he pushed her into the room. It was an
open-plan one-room warehouse building, with a large coffee table placed between
two dark red sofas in the centre of the room. A desk was at the far end of the
room, almost hidden due to the bad lighting.
Keeping a firm grip on her, Damien locked the
door behind him, then stared at her.
"You
were more trouble than I expected."
"Good."
Damien
laughed, then shoved her violently to the floor. Landing awkwardly because of
her tied hands, Dot let out a gasp of pain. Suddenly she felt Damien circle an
arm round her thighs and she screamed. Her wide, frightened eyes met his as he
glanced at her in amusement.
"No
one can hear you. It's not worth the effort."
Damien
held tighter to her legs and Dot felt the uncomfortable tightness of the wire
binding her ankles together. When he was finished he leaned his face close to
hers.
"I'm
not going to hurt you, baby." He stroked a fingertip across her cheek.
"Not yet anyways." Damien laughed and squeezed her waist cruelly,
then got up and sat on one of the couches.
Dot
pulled herself into a sitting position.
"Why
am I here? What do you want?"
"I'm
just following orders. Boss wanted you so I got you. End of story." Damien
lay back, hands behind his head and closed his eyes. "How's Bob by the
way? I heard he was web-bound not so long ago. Poor guy." He laughed
again, emphasising his sarcasm.
"If
my brother or Bob finds you-"
"What?
I'll wish I'd never been born?"
"You
haven't met Matrix. Trust me he'd-"
"Look
baby, I don't care, okay? Now just be quiet like a nice little girl and-"
"Damn
it, Damien, I'm not twelve! Stop treating me like-" Dot gasped as Damien
was suddenly out of his seat and forcing her shoulders down again.
"Maybe
I'll bring forward the fun part. You sure as hell deserve it, that temper of
yours." He squeezed her thigh and ran a hand up her side, round the curves
of her leather-clad body. Dot screamed again and tried to wrestle him away, but
she could barely move with her arms and legs bound.
"No!
Stop it!"
Dot
felt his hands stop just below her chest and he brought his face close to hers
again.
"Be
quiet, then I won't have to... shut you up, shall we say." He sat back in
his place again and Dot lay there, fighting back tears.
"This
is all my fault. I should've sensed something was happening. I should have gone
to the diner earlier. I should've-" Bob was pacing the War Room,
frantically pulling a hand through his long hair and speaking more to himself
than any of the sprites that were also present.
"Sugah,
just stop. We'll find her. Chances are it'll be a ransom demand, she'll be
okay." Mouse assured him, barely turning round to stop him pacing.
"What
if whoever she's with doesn't want units?" Bob challenged, only vaguely
aware of his misplaced anger.
"Well...if
it's anything else..." Her eyes met Bob's and she left the sentence
abruptly, turning to Phong instead. "Don't suppose anythin' came back on
that lil' message, did it Phong?"
"Not
as yet, Mouse. But Specs is still working on it."
"I
should have been with her. Why didn't I think waiting for two whole micros was
odd? User, I'm so basic!" Bob was saying, starting to pace again,
"Bob,
sugah, she was in the diner. Her diner.
There couldn't have been a safer place, but it still happened. Now we hav' ta
find her."
"Dot
could be anywhere! What if they... what if they..." Bob faltered, wishing
he hadn't thought along those lines and afraid finishing what he was going to
say would make it real. He took a deep breath and his eyes darkened. "If
they touch her, hurt her in any way I'll-"
"Bob!
What the hell is going on?" A looming great frame demanded as he entered
the room.
"It's
Dot. She's- she's been taken from the diner."
"She's
what? Why- how did this happen? When did
this happen?"
"The
diner- there were signs of a scuffle when I got there last night and I found...
there was blood on the counter."
"What
does my sister have to do with anything? Why'd they take her?"
"There
was something left at the diner, Matrix. A piece of card. It said 'Pay back' on
it," Mouse interjected, saving Bob from any further questions. "Maybe
this has ta do with Daemon's destruction. Some stray followers we don't know
about?"
"But
why Dot?" Bob asked her helplessly.
"Mainframe
was named as one of the main
instigators in the battle against Daemon. Word probably got round nearly the
whole 'Net that we were a major part in that virus's defeat- and I hate to
think maybe Daemon actually gained some voluntary followers but Dot's in charge
of the system." Mouse explained, looking weary now after hours of constant
work.
"So
they took her as revenge... for stopping
Daemon?" Matrix echoed in disbelief.
"But
that means they won't want a deal. If it's revenge they'll... User Mouse, I
hope you're wrong!" Bob exclaimed, the uncomfortable knot of panic within
him becoming harder to repress.
"So
do I." Mouse replied solemnly.
Dot
awoke slowly, finding it hard to break through to reality. It was almost like
being under the spell of sleeping pills or drugs... had he drugged her? If he
had she couldn't remember it, although she couldn't remember falling asleep
either.
"Ow,"
She murmured aloud when she moved her head. After being tied up for so long her
limbs ached and her head throbbed. There was light coming from a window nearby
that hurt her eyes.
"What
the hell is going on?" Dot asked irritably to the empty space around her.
She struggled against the wire, only to feel the sharp, stinging pain again as
the skin was broken. The sudden feeling of helplessness was completely foreign
to her- and she hated it. Even in the war against Megabyte she hadn't felt like
this. But then she'd been surrounded by people who could help her, trusted her,
and she had been in control. Now that
control had been taken away from her and she felt... helpless.
The
warehouse was the same, so at least he hadn't moved her. 'If we don't move from
this building, they could find us. I'm sure they will...' she took a slight
comfort in that hope. CPU's would search the entire system at daylight as a
first in a missing sprite case. 'When will they notice I'm not where I should
be? I usually check in at the Principal Office before mid-cycle... mid-cycle?
That's so far away! Half the cycle will be gone, they-'
"Hey
it's about time you woke up!" Damien told her impatiently, suddenly
standing in front her.
"It's
not like I'm going to make any of my appointments today, is it?" Dot
retorted.
Damien
laughed at her anger. "You just can't control that fiery temperament of
yours, can you?"
"When
are you going to let me go?"
"Let
you go?" Damien laughed again. "What in the 'Net makes you think
you're getting out of this in one piece?" He took a threatening step
towards her for effect.
"Why
me, exactly, Damien?" Dot asked, keeping her voice level. "Because I
hate to break this to you, but Daemon's been deleted, Megabyte is web-bound as
you put it, and Hexidecimal is a reformed virus. So if you're thinking of a
deal with the enemies of Mainframe, we're fresh out of evil at the
moment." Dot smiled sweetly at him, feeling strangely empowered by her
words.
"Jeez,
you think you're so clever, do you? Well I'm going to be able to prove that
evil is a lot closer than you think."
"Oh,
don't tell me. Your boss is the new supervirus that's going to take over every
system, city and person there is. Right?" Dot replied sarcastically.
"If
you want to look at it that way..." Damien replied, barely sparing a
glance in her direction as he started sifting through the papers and magazines
on the coffee table. Dot rolled her eyes.
"How
original." She commented aloud. Damien was still shuffling through the
contents of each magazine, obviously searching for something.
"That
damn Guardian is taking forever!" Damien cursed to himself, barely loud
enough for Dot to hear.
"Guardian?"
She
didn't receive an answer so she assumed that he hadn't heard her or ignored her
question. 'A guardian? Surely that isn't who Damien is working for?' Dot's
thoughts began to produce an onslaught of unanswerable questions that she would
prefer not to think about. Dot found herself thinking of Bob, and what his
reaction to this would be. She felt so sorry for him- if this was the beginning
of some sort of Guardian rebellion, he wouldn't take it well, especially after
the entire Daemon situation.
'Why
can't they all be loyal to their protocol like they're supposed to be? Like Bob
is?'
"What
d'ya think it means, love?" Ray asked, hovering behind her as Mouse
re-examined what she was working on to, be sure of her previous conclusion.
"It
means we've got a big problem, sugah." Mouse replied, turning round and
leaning back against the console. She scanned the empty Command Room with
slight relief. "Did Bob finally leave?"
"Yeah.
It's about time you did too." Ray replied, suddenly scooping her up to
carry her to the door- his attempt at lightening her mood. It didn't work.
"Ya
had better put me down, right now
or-" Mouse warned him, stress and worry for her best friend making her
irritable.
"'Kay,
okay. Relax Mouse. At least for a while? You need rest, love." He backed
down quickly, having learned the warning signs of Mouse's temper already, even
in the short time they had known each other. Instead he put his arms round in a
supportive hug, and felt her head rest on his shoulder in exhaustion. After a
few millis she pulled away, the same tense expression on her lavender face.
"But
what about Bob? How's he gonna take the news that a Guardian's responsible for
his girlfriend's disappearance?"
"You're
going to wear a hole in the floor, Sparky." AndrAIa teased him gently,
getting up from her place on Bob's couch to lay her peach-coloured hands on
Matrix's wide shoulders.
"It
just follows us," Matrix told her cryptically.
"What
does?" The pretty game sprite asked as she clasped her hands behind his
neck, wondering if using her nails would be a good idea after her boyfriend's
sleepless night.
"Trouble.
Follows us everywhere we go. And now Dot's missing and I can't do anything
about it."
"We'll
find her, Sparky. I just wish I'd stayed at the diner longer... maybe
then-"
"No!
If you'd stayed longer both of you
might be gone." Matrix told her firmly, his pale green face flickered with
a mix of anger and relief.
"Have
the search parties been sent out?" AndrAIa asked softly.
"Yeah,
but the distorted energy reading Mouse found could be anything and from anywhere. And it's been
scrambled," Matrix replied with an infamous scowl. "She could be anywhere
in this system or anywhere in the 'Net if the reading's a fake- according to
Mouse."
"Sssh
Sparky. We'll find her. Don't give up yet, okay?"
Bob
had walked in, around, and out of his girlfriend's diner more times than he
could count in the last micro. He was feeling guilty, worried, restless and any
other emotion that could be connected to frantic searching for clues and trying
to find a shred of hope at the scene.
It
wasn't helping him. in fact it was probably making things worse, seeing the
blood on the counter again- however small the drop was- almost made him sick.
It
wasn't fair. Why was it always Mainframe? Always them- the group of friends now
known 'Net-wide and hailed as heroes. Why Dot?
A
vid-window popped into existence next to him as he was walking, displaying
Mouse, and Ray- he noticed- behind her.
"Bob
sugah?"
"Yeah
Mouse. What's happening?" He greeted in a dead-pan tone.
"Ah
think we got somthin'-" Mouse started to explain.
"You've
found her?" Bob's azure face lit up as he dared hope...
"We
may have a possible location,
sugah," She told him carefully, making sure she didn't give him any false
implications. "Level 31, near Al's old place. We tracked it by-"
"Where
Mouse? Give me the co-ordinates!" Bob interrupted impatiently, already
maximising his zip-board.
"Bob,
I think ya might wanna hear this mate." Ray informed him anxiously. Bob
glanced back at the window again in time to see Mouse's grateful smile at her
companion.
"Sugah,
we found traces of a Guardian-based key tool on that little message ya
found." She explained, dreading his reaction to the news. "And Ah
managed to hack inta Turbo's new system ta find a match on that scrambling
device. It belongs to a key tool as well, which kinda confirms it."
"This
is happening because of a Guardian?"
Bob cried in disbelief.
"Looks
like it, sugah."
"I've
got to help her, Mouse. I need those co-ordinates!"
"We'll
be there in a nano." Mouse assured him after reciting the location.
"Wait at-" As she looked up she realised Bob had ignored her plea to
wait, seeing the increasingly small figure of Mainframe's Guardian disappearing
into the midst of the city.
"You're
starting to annoy me, girl." Damien warned her, his black eyes flashing
angrily as he held her violet ones in a challenge.
"Tell
me what you're looking for." Dot replied, her stare not faltering.
"Just
be quiet!" He told her for the fifth time. She knew she was pushing her
luck, and that it would run out pretty soon. Damien moved across to the desk at
the back of the open-plan room, an obvious effort to ignore her.
Dot
obeyed his request for a while, tired of the constant confrontations and the
cramps in her arms and legs. The half-healed cuts were painful as the wire
relentlessly dug into her skin again.
Suddenly
Damien laughed triumphantly from the other side of the large room and murmured
something that sounded like a command.
"Does
that mean your Guardian friend's coming now?" Dot asked wearily.
"I
wouldn't call him a 'friend', baby," Damien replied, throwing a bundle of
things onto the table in a heap. "But you're pretty close aren't
you?"
"What?"
"You
and blue-boy Bobby." He laughed. "He'll come if he can ever figure
out what's going on."
"You're
setting him up? What are you going to do?"
Damien
ignored her and picked up something from the table, making Dot's breath catch
in her throat.
The
knife.
"This-
this- it's a trap?" Dot stared, seeing something that wasn't there. She
reeled back at the glimpse of an old enemy. For a second Damien had changed
to... no, must have been her-
Dot
heard her name called a few times from a distance, maybe just next door and it
was Bob's voice! From then on, Dot lost track of what was happening because it
happened so fast.
Bob
appeared at the door, Damien grabbed her up off the floor and she realised he
was holding the knife in his other hand.
"Damien? What the-?" Bob started in
disbelief, unsure whether he was imagining this or not.
Dot's
short scream reassured him of the reality of the situation in the next nano, as
Damien pressed the cold metal against her throat, dangerously close to deleting
her...
Fifth
chapter coming soon...
(Don't
worry- this is going somewhere!)