Chapter 3

Fast Forward

It had been four months since Terra had teamed up with Chaud and Lan and a lot had happened during that time.

They discovered that the human that had aided the darkloids was Dr. Regal. And to think that they had fallen right into his trap when they had sought his help. Not too soon after that Chaud had lost Protoman to the darkchip's soul of darkness when he was forced to use it when Shademan had endangered their lives. She hadn't ever seen Chaud so lost before. Not that no one really noticed, Chaud had gone on with his life but she noticed his loneliness and so did Lan, burying himself in work hadn't fooled them.

Thankfully, her father, Dr. Hikari, Famous, and many other scientist were able to create a vaccine chip to counteract the effects of the darkchips. Although the chip hadn't worked on Dark Protoman Chaud's fierce determination had come through and they had succeeded in bring Protoman back. All this happened before the climax: Nebula's final attack.

When Dr. Regal attacked Net City for the second time that year and had stolen literally millions of netnavis they knew that something big was going to happen, they just had no idea how big it was going to be. Dr. Regal had managed to create a dimensional area large enough to cover the entire Earth. That's when he began his rampage destroying anything that got in his way. Thankfully his plan wasn't fool-proof. With everyone's help they had been able to take Dr. Regal down, but everyone knew it wasn't over. Dr. Regal hadn't been found so Nebula was sure to make a reappearance, it was just a matter of when. But for now they would enjoy their victory. The chief had even formed a Net Police banquet to celebrate. The date had been set for that night, and Terra had already gotten dressed in the spaghetti strapped dress and ribbon wrapped boots that her mom had picked out for her and was waiting for her father and mother to get ready and leave. As she waited in her room she busied herself by working on a project that she was trying to finish.

"Terra what are you doing?" Whisper asked, as she appeared on the screen of Terra's computer, "Your parents are going to be ready any second." then she took notice of what Terra was working on. "Hey, is it done yet?" she asked excitedly, her eyes glimmering with anticipation.

"I'm working on it." Terra replied with a chuckle as she made the last adjustments, "There, now it's done."

"So, does this mean that you're going to tell your dad about this?" Whisper asked.

"I think you know the answer to that." Terra replied.

"But, you're going to show Lan and Chaud tonight aren't you? That's why you've been working on this all afternoon isn't?"

"Yeah, but that's different." Terra replied, "If I tell them they're not going to try to send me to a school for exceptionally bright children."

"You don't know if your dad will either-or maybe he will." Whisper said changing her opinion when Terra threw her a look.

"Terra we're ready to go the limo's here!" Terra's father called as he came near her door and started to turn the knob.

"Ok, I'm coming." Terra said hastily, turning off her computer and jacking Whisper back into her PET accomplishing everything in time to be at her bedroom door before it was opened.

When Terra arrived at headquarters she quickly found Lan who was decked out in a tux. Although he looked great she could tell right away that he was extremely uncomfortable.

"Hey," she said when she approached him.

"Oh, hey," he replied, "You look nice," he said giving Terra a look over.

"Thanks" Terra replied, "Where's Chaud? I though that he'd be here by now." She said noticing that he was nowhere nearby.

"He's over there." Lan said pointing deep into the crowd, "he's speaking to his investors."

This was one thing that Terra had yet to get over, how much Chaud had changed over the past seven years. He was so serious all the time. He hardly cracked a joke; and when he did it was usually was used to insult a darkloid. Of course that shouldn't have surprised her one bit, all of this was a result of his father's breeding. But she had a plan. She was going to make Chaud normal if it was the last thing that she did. Her train of thought was soon interrupted though when the chief raised a glass to get everyone's attention.

"Everyone," he addressed, "I would like to thank each and every one of you here tonight. All of you here tonight played a part in bringing an end to Nebula, but there are three young people here tonight that made all of it possible: Lan Hikari, Chaud Blaze, and Terra Javedson. Would you three please step forward?" When they did he continued, "I would like to present you these metals as a commemoration of all your hard work," he said looping them over their necks. "And Chaud, I would like to present this to you." He said while giving him his own Advanced PET II. "Aren't we proud of them everyone?" With that applause erupted from every corner of the room. Soon the music started again and so did the party. But Terra soon found herself board, besides she had something that she wanted to show Lan and Chaud.

"You guys want to get out of here?" she asked.

"Sure," they replied, "sure but where are we going to go?"

"Follow me." When they left the ball room she lead them to the chief's office.

"What are we doing here?" Lan asked.

"I have something I've been working on that I want to show you guys, but I need a high-powered computer and since I didn't exactly bring my laptop with me I need to borrow the chief's desktop." She said taking a card out of her boot and slipping it in the lock and opening the door.

"What if we get caught?" Chaud asked.

"Oh Chaud, for once in your life do something unexpected." Terra said as she entered to room. Turning on the computer she took out a flash drive and ran the program. When Lan and Chaud looked it over they were dumfounded.

"So, what do think?" Terra asked.

"Terra, these are blueprints for another PET, you came up with this yourself?" Chaud asked.

"Yeah, I've been working on it for a while. When Dr. Hikari brought the PET II to life I saw some areas where he could improve." Terra replied.

"Like what?" Chaud asked.

"Well first off I boosted the onboard memory so that the battlechip-gate technology could be incorporated. It'll greatly help us in battling, now we won't ever have to worry about just having five chips on hand. I also found a use for trace data.

"What's trace data?" Lan asked.

"It's data that a navi leaves behind when it's transferred from one PET to another. It's like a digital echo only it has substance." Chaud answered, "But I never thought that there was any use for it."

"Well tell me what crossfusion is." Terra said.

"It's the fusion of a net op and navi, their data and your DNA." Chaud replied.

"Exactly, their data, if we can recombine our navi's with their trace data it would act like a bridge in crossfusion, enabling us to still be synchronized with our navi's even if they were separate from us."

"Are you saying that it's possible that we could battle side by side with our navis in a dimensional area?" Lan asked, his eyes glowing.

"If it works in the real world sure, things always happen a little differently out here than in a computer simulation. And there's one more feature that I think you'll like and it all because I found out why Rush can materialize in the our world."

"Why's that?" Lan asked.

"Well when you told me that he started to appear on the night of a huge thunderstorm I looked into it. It's possible that there's a dense electromagnetic field that Rush can form around him, that's all that a dimensional area is just on a larger scale. If that's true and we could duplicate that then our navi's could appear and crossfusion would be possible without a dimensional area. So if another darkloid decides to copy what Shademan did we'll be ready."

"Dose your dad know anything about this?" Chaud asked.

"Are you kidding? If my dad knew I was capable of this I wouldn't be a netsaver. I'd be behind some desk at Scilab or at some prep school for the extremely bright. I want to work in the field, not behind some desk. Why do you think I kept my mouth shut for so long?"

"But you are going to show this to the chief aren't you?" Chaud asked.

"I don't know-"

"Terra," Chaud interrupted, "you've made some incredible improvement and discoveries, Dr. Hikari revolutionized the PET once, you can do it again."

"I know that," Terra said taking out her flash drive and laying it down on the desk, "but-" then she grew quiet.

"What's wrong?" Chaud asked.

"Did you here that? Someone's coming." Terra replied.

Sure enough when they got quiet they could hear the Chief and Lan's father's voices coming down the hall toward the room.

"We have to get out of here!" Terra exclaimed in a whisper.

"I thought you liked the unexpected." Chaud shot back.

"That didn't mean that I liked getting unexpectedly caught." Terra said back.

"Hey guys," Lan said interrupting the two, "there's a fire escape outside come on." Lan said.

In the next second Terra had grabbed her flash drive (or what she thought was her flash drive) and was out of the window right behind Lan and followed by Chaud, and not a second too soon. Just as they had closed the window from the outside and scrambled to either side of it the chief had opened the door. Within five minuets they were back at the party and no one had missed them.

"So Dr. Hikari what was it that you wanted to show me?" the chief asked back in his office.

"A new program sir," he replied picking up a flashdrive off the desk and inserting it in the USB slot. When the program came up the chief was taken aback.

"Blueprints for a PET III?" he asked shocked. "The Advanced PET II hasn't even been released to the public yet and it's already been outdated?"

"Sir, this isn't my program," Dr. Hikari said removing the flashdrive, when he did he recognized the handwriting on the backside. "Chief, this is Terra's program."

"Terra, you mean Dr. Javedson's daughter?"

"Yes sir," he said as he reinserted the drive and started the program up again. The more he looked the more he was impressed at her discoveries.

"Is this just an idea list or are theses actual blueprints?" the chief asked.

"No sir, it's actual blueprints, she's thought everything through, worked out all the bugs as far as I can see. It's just the matter of if it will actually work outside a computer simulation."

"If I gave you a crew could you have some of these built by morning?" The chief asked.

"Well yes," Dr. Hikari replied, "But shouldn't we ask Terra's permission first? I mean I know that this isn't copyrighted of anything but I would feel better if we had her consent."

"I know so would I but we're in the middle of a war here. We may be celebrating tonight, but everyone on that ballroom as well as you and I both know that this is all a façade. Until Regal is behind bars we really haven't won, this PET III could just be the edge we need to do that."

"I understand sir." Dr. Hikari replied.

"Then get to work." The chief replied.

Somewhere in a darkened place someone is observing Dr. Hikari and the Chief. When he speaks his identity is revealed.

"So the net police are making more progress." It's Dr. Regal. "They may have found a way to upgrade the PET and take back my most useful navi (Dark Protoman) but this is far from over. You haven't destroyed Nebula and I will have my revenge."

The truth of the matter was that the Net Police weren't the only ones uping their game; so was he. The aftermath of his battle with Shadman had born unexpected fruit; the darkloid had actually found a way to materialize in the real world without one of his dimentional areas.

This had been a tantilizing find. It had taken him a while to extract the data from Shademan's remains but he had done it. No Sci-Lab grunt would EVER out think him. He wouldn't always use it though. Dimentional Area's had their advantages. One could trap hostages inside, not to mention making use of viruses. One wouldn't be able to give the ability of spontanious materialzation to a mindless virus, or even to a less than trusted darkloid; he would have to use this newfound power spareingly.

Then again was there truly such a thing as a trustworthy darkloid? Regal chuckled to himself, whoever he gave this ability to he would have to make sure it was a privilage that could be revoked.

But first there were some other things that needed to be set in motion. It was time to see how interesting things will get when the Dr. Jeckel's had Mr. Hydes.

"Rise and shine!" Whisper's voice rang out the next morning.

"Whisper it's Saturday! I don't have to go to school, and we didn't get home last night until 12, please let me sleep." Terra replied groggily.

" I know, but I just got an e-mail from the Chief, he wants to meet with you at Scilab and to bring Lan and Chaud with you for some reason he can't get in touch with them." When she didn't get up Whisper activated the alarm clock.

"Uhhhhhhhhh!" Terra exclaimed as she hit the snooze alarm.

"Come on sleepyhead, get up!" Whisper said shaking Terra.

Terra's eye's shot open. Suddenly she wasn't sleeply anymore. Her mom was out doing errends like she did every Saturday morning and her dad hadn't come home form the party the night before, plus she was an only child. There was no one in the house that could shake her.

"Whisp?" she said as she slowly turned over. When she did Whisper was standing over her. She wasn't in her PET.

"Yes that's my name don't ware it out." She replied.

"You're-" Terra started.

"Out of the PET?" Whisper finished, "yeah, I noticed, looks like your program works."

"But that's impossible," Terra said rushing to her computer inserting her flash drive. Then her worst fears came to life, this wasn't her drive, she had grabbed someone elses the night before. That meant only one thing. Dr. Hikari and the Chief had found her program. And it worked! That must have been what the chief had wanted to talk to her about.

"So are you going to start getting ready willingly or am I going to have to drag you into the shower." Whisper asked.

All Terra could think was that this couldn't be happening. This had to be a dream. She pinched herself. She didn't wake up. She touched Whisper thinking that her hand would pass through, that she had to be hologram. But that didn't happen. Whisper was really there. This left only one for Terra to do.

Scream.

"!"

TBC