Peace
C/by: Kenjaje
Chapter 4: Virus
Lilo walked tiredly out of the elevator. Angel was brushing the ruffles out of her fur, and had just flattened the last dry cowlick as the doors opened. Lilo set a brush down on the bedside table, and went into the closet to change.
"Ju traga miga oculeo?" Angel asked timidly, as Lilo came out of the closet in her nightshirt.
"Of course you can stay the night. I asked Nani to make sure, she said that you can stay here until we either find Stitch or he comes home." She replied politely. She was a bit more cheerful now that Jumba claimed he had a lead. Angel and Lilo were anxious to know what he had found, but he locked himself away in his room saying he needed to be absolutely positive what he'd found related to Stitch's disappearance.
Lilo climbed into bed and pulled the covers up to her neck; Angel requested for an open window. Lilo didn't mind it that much, but she put socks on to keep her feet from getting cold. Angel sat back, her arms behind her head, as she thought to herself. Lilo pulled out a book about the existence of vampires, and read it with half an ear out for Angel.
"I hope we find out what happened to him soon, I don't think he was caught by Gantu on accident."
"I thought the same. I think Gantu captured Stitch on purpose, and maybe Jumba can tell us-"Lilo froze in mid sentence. "Lilo...pasha..." Stitch's voice came in her mind, along with a troubled feeling, which she couldn't describe. Her mouth froze in the position of the last sound she had made; her eyes stared as if she'd just seen a ghost fly out the window, but she wasn't concentrating on what she saw.
"Maybe Jumba can tell us...what?" Angel asked, an alarmed look over her face. The pause in Lilo's sentence made her wonder what was wrong.
"...I...sorry," Lilo apologized, "I just had a mind numb..."
"Ok..." Angel said, rolling her eyes and quickly rotating her finger around her ear.
"Oh shut up!' Lilo laughed, trying to null the strange phenomenon she'd just experienced. "I meant to say maybe he can tell us where Stitch is."
"Well why didn't you say so?" Angel mocked. Lilo gave a goofy angry look, making Angel retort by sticking out her tongue. The two laughed a little at their craziness; it was the only thing to laugh about that entire day.
"Well, anyway, I think I'm going to go to bed."
"Daga-tua." Angel bid.
"G'night." Lilo bid back. However, Lilo did not immediately go to sleep, the phenomenon that had occurred was still fresh on her mind. "Stitch is in trouble. I don't think I was imagining things, I think I really heard his voice asking me to help him. But if I tell Jumba or Angel, they'll just think I'm crazy." Lilo sighed. The feeling came back again, waking her up, but Stitch's voice didn't come. A chill ran down her back, but she ignored it and fell back to sleep, trying to keep this from effecting her too much.
"Amazing..." Jumba spoke with astonishment. "Simply being amazing..."
"Huh?" Pleakley asked, waking up from his sleep.
"Shush, go back to sleep." Jumba told him.
"I would if you'd get off that thing; that ticking is driving me nuts." He said, clasping the sides of his head.
"Am being sorry, will be done in one minute." Pleakley sighed with relief, and soon fell back asleep, even though Jumba never left the computer at all that night. He ticked away at the keyboard for hours. The night was a second to him; he didn't even realize he'd been up for five hours until he took a break to get some water. But that didn't stop him at all; again he sat at the computer until the sun rose. "Again, I say, this is being a piece of work." Pleakley turned over in his sleep, and Jumba covered his mouth to keep himself from talking any more.
"Don't bother, I'm already awake." The covers spoke to Jumba.
"Heheh...sorry." He apologized, shrugging his shoulders.
"Nah, it's alright." Pleakley assured. "I was going to get an early start on cleaning anyway." He spent no time in climbing down from the bunk and walking to the door.
"If you see girls, tell them to come here." Jumba shouted to Pleakley.
"I don't have to," he told him, "they're right here already." Jumba turned in his seat.
"Do you know what you found now? We've been dying to know all morning." Lilo complained.
"Eh." Angel spoke, backing Lilo up.
"As matter of fact, I have. Come here." Jumba got off of his chair and walked over to the door with a remote in his hand. The girls sat in two chairs they pulled out from the desk and sat down as Jumba pulled down a display sheet from the ceiling. "Be paying attention." He told them.
"Right." Lilo said.
"This is what I have found." Jumba pushed the button. From the computer behind the girls, an image was projected onto the sheet. A blueprint to some type of insect-looking creature was displayed. "This is the reason as to why Stitch has disappeared." The girls looked at the blueprint, cocking their heads in confusion.
"How does that make someone leave?" Lilo questioned.
"Am getting to that, let me be explaining." Jumba took a pointer from atop the sheet on the door. "This is robotic life form, with high artificial intelligence. Documents found within the data indicates at some point in time, thousands of these insects were somehow put into 626's bloodstream."
"What do they do?"
"Being good question 624." He commented. "These insects provide whomever is injected with it an enormous amount of awareness in the five senses, as well as increased strength, coordination, and amazingly, these robots will repair wounds and illnesses that the infected person may have."
"So then, they're good?"
"Would be, yes, if not for two other functions. These insects will tamper with programming, and produce an infinite amount of Noradrenaline."
"Nora...what?"
"Nor-a-dren-a-line. Is hormone in which when released causes the feeling of anger. From what I am to understand," he clicked the button again, and the projection turned off, "Dr. Hamsterveil created these insects specifically for 626. These insects are literally a computer virus, affecting programming. Stitch is part computer, he is most likely under the control of these robots."
"But what does it mean?"
"Means he is puppet; will listen only to Hamsterveil, and is making him very, very angry. But am not sure why Noradrenaline was a key component to their program..."
"We gotta stop this from happening, before it's too late!" Lilo shouted, jumping up out of her seat.
"Little girl may already be too late. Robots inject directly into artery of neck. By now, they are all over Stitch inside. But, I can probably cure him of the virus if we're able to get him back."
"Then let's find him, he has to be somewhere close." Lilo pleaded.
"...Alright." Jumba gave in. "I will search for him one last time, maybe computer just had glitch last time." Jumba sat down and instantly began keying the console, the search started up, and he leaned back to examine the numbers that came up. "523...222...624...625..." Angel and Lilo leaned in closer to see the screen, but nothing happened for minutes; not dot, not blip, no nothing. "Am sorry." Jumba sighed. "Is no use, computer just can't-"A beep sounded off in the computer. Jumba quickly fixated back onto the screen, darting his eyes across the surface. An arrow was on the upper left hand corner, pointing up. Jumba scrolled the screen, the image of earth went down, and in the black area that represented space, a small yellow blip blinked the number 626. "Aha! Computer has found 626!"
"Where?" Both of the girls asked eagerly, pressing their faces onto Jumba's to see the screen better.
"Right there." Jumba muffled. "There is a hyper drive tunnel in that area, computer shows Stitch is on the other side of it." A moment of silent passed as Jumba, Angel, and Lilo all looked at one another, each thinking the same thing on their minds.
"Rescue mission." They all spoke at once, and ran for the door. Jumba was the first to arrive to the ship, opening the door and sprinting inside, Lilo shut the door after Angel strode in before her.
"Fuel canisters at full." Jumba said, going through the preparation for launch routine. Lilo and Angel took the pilot seats next to him as he flipped switches and turned nobs. "Engines one through four fully functional. Gravity stabilizers green; shields green; laser cannon green; oxygen supply green; provisions stocked; steering functional; engine functional..." He looked toward the girls to confirm they were ready for launch. They nodded toward him, giving him the ok. "Three, two, one, launch!" Lilo lurched forward as the ship took off from the ground, and sped quickly into the sky. Soon, Stitch would be rescued.
