The Internet
Time Unknown
(Kowalski's POV)
Marlene and I walked through the streets of The Internet. A glitching character ran past nearly knocking us over. It appeared to be a little girl that looked like she was from some video game about candy or something.
"Sorry!" she said as she glitched away and then entered some racing game called Slaughter race.
"Weird," Marlene said, "I swore I saw the character before in some arcade game…Sugar Race…Candy rush…"
"Doesn't seem like a character that would be in a game that violent," I replied.
"Yeah," Marlene said, "I tend to stay away from the grand theft auto games."
"Alright," I said, "their probably not in the gaming district or Ohmydisney."
"So, where are they?" Marlene asked.
"First we find a search engine and see if they saw three penguins lately," I said.
"Isn't there a faster way to travel The Internet?" Marlene asked.
"Those Cubes probably," I said pointing to the avatars that probably represented actual users.
"Those look cramped," Marlene said.
"Too bad we can't take one of those roomy ones," I said as one with a Google Chrome logo on it zoomed by.
After a couple miles of walking we came across a "search bar" for some obscure search engine called Knowsmore. Marlene and I looked at each other and walked towards it.
"Oh hello," the owl at the desk said, "how may I help you…Isn't that interesting you're only the second group to approach me without a search history today."
"Let me start one for you," Knowsmore said, "all right…"
"H…"
"Hibachi, Hebrew, He-man, Helium."
"Autofill?" I asked.
"Yes," the owl said, "very annoying sometimes."
"Have you seen three penguins today?" I said.
"Oh yes," the owl said, "the short one was quite nice, the flat headed one was a bit…rude, and the one with the crazy feathers and distinctive scar was kind of psychotic."
"Do you know where they went," Marlene asked.
"Let me pull up their search history," Knowsmore said, "ah yes…Fanfiction."
"Send us there!" I said.
"Sure," Knowsmore said.
Marlene and I got crammed into a tiny cube and flown off. We zoomed into the Social Media district and past the other smaller fanfic sites. We were painfully dropped into a vast walkway in front of the "Fanfiction" building complex. It consisted of three building connected to one another and a central non-descript tower. The buildings were labeled, "Fictionpress", "crossovers", and "stories."
"Cybersecurity experts are still not sure who started the Wreak-it Ralph virus and why," a news anchor on a jumbotron on the "BBC world news" building said.
"I hated that virus," I said, "It almost succeeded in destroying The Internet."
"So, they're in fanfiction?" Marlene said.
"If I were to guess they probably went over to crossovers," I said, "and ended up in that central tower. I believe that where the accounts are stored."
"So how do we get to them," Marlene said.
"We go inside their has to be some info desk representing the websites browsing system," I said.
Suddenly we were besieged by pop-ups, "get rid of belly fat using one weird trick"
"No," I said pushing Marlene towards the building.
"Top ten Famous child celebrities where are they now?" another popups message said, "number 5 will surprise you."
"I hate clickbait," I said.
"A top gut doctor says that you should avoid these three fruits…watch now!"
"Top music instructors in your area!"
"Ignore the clickbait Marlene," I said noticing her interest in the music one.
"Get an exclusive offer by clicking this link," another pop-up said.
Marlene clicked the link and the "never gonna give you up" video played.
"Great," I said, "we be rickrolled."
We managed to avoid all the clickbait only to accidently hit a random one, "Oh no," I said.
I suddenly got smashed into a tiny cube and got flown off leaving Marlene behind. Marlene quickly hit the ad and shot off after me in a cube of her own. I guess these cubes represent little packets of data being sent through The Internet network. Little bytes of data flying about going from one end of The Internet to another. The Internet really is an information super-highway.
"I would have sworn I seen this in a movie before," I muttered.
We flew towards the video site part of the city past daily motion, Vimeo, YouTube, and others. We zoomed towards an obscure site I never heard of call, "Buzztube."
"It like they combined YouTube and BuzzFeed," Marlene shouted at me.
Our cubes suddenly disintegrated and we crashed hard in the websites lobby. A rotating cube of videos dominated the room the netizen's representing the viewers sending hearts to their favorite video. I looked and noticed that the heart's must be some kind of currently that could be exchanged for actual cash.
"Weird site," I said.
"Odd some of the content looks like it was made by the site itself," Marlene said, "and random online game characters."
"Don't be ridiculous Marlene," I said, "it's the users that make the videos…the website doesn't make its own. I pretty sure reality would break if that was the case."
"Alright," I said, "let's get out of here…and go back to fanfiction."
"Oh, cat video," Marlene said.
"This always happens in The Internet," I said, "you come here to do one thing…and you end up stuck doing something else for hours."
"Right," Marlene said, "find Skipper and the others first…cute cat videos later."
"Alright," I said, "we just have to walk back to a search browser and…whoa!"
My foot slipped on a banana peel and I fell face first, "Tesla's coil! Who put a banana here!?"
I got up and dusted myself off, "you okay?" Marlene asked struggling not to laugh.
"My pride's been broken," I said, "but I'll…"
I slipped on another banana peel, "Oh come on!"
I slid across the floor through a vat of glue and then a cloud of colorful feathers. I then dropped off a cliff into a ball pit. I got out of the pit and then got a pie to the face.
"Who designed this place," I said as I slipped on another banana peel into a vat of boiling water.
The water boiled off the glue and feathers thankfully, "could this get any worse?"
Suddenly all the user avatars started laughing, "what…wait's going on?"
"I think your trending," my otter 'friend' said chuckling.
"What do you…" I turned around and saw to my horror and humiliation my banana peel disaster.
"Let's leave and get back to fanfiction," I said.
I failed to notice a camera and some watch in an office, "that penguin video is fantastic," a voice said, "bring me that penguin and otter! This could be our next big trend."
"Let's see," I said looking at a sign outside, "the fastest way to fanfiction is to cut through the dark-web."
"Really?" Marlene said.
"And avoid all the malware, spam, scams, computer viruses, and other bad programs down there," I said.
"Great," Marlene said.
"Alright," I said.
Suddenly we got smashed into a cube and taken back into Buzztube. We zoomed past the screen to find that I was indeed trending. Skipper will never let me live this down if he sees this.
Meanwhile
Fanfiction
Skipper watched the video and laughed, "I will never let Kowalski live this down!"
Shortly…
Buzztube content algorithm office
Marlene and I got sat down in two chairs in front of an office desk. A placard on the desk told us that this was the office of the "head content algorithm" named Yesss. Oh, Ralph breaks The Internet is where I saw all this.
"Welcome," the algorithm said, "I'm…"
"Before you say anything," I interrupted, "my friend and I are on a time crunch to find our missing friends. And we have no time for this trending video stuff…goodbye."
Marlene and I then left the office leaving the occupant speechless.
"We have enough distractions," I said, "there has to be a faster way to travel The Internet."
Marlene turned and saw a door marked, "Private Web browser."
Marlene pointed to the door and we silently entered. To my surprise we found what was basically a sleek flying car. We got into the vehicle and I quickly hotwired it…by hacking it. I put it in drive and hit the accelerator crashing through a garage door as we flew forward.
A shout of, "Hey! That's my web browser!" could be heard as we 'drove' off.
"Should have done this earlier," I said as we sped towards Fanfiction.
(end of chapter five)