Hacker boarded the Grim Wreaker first, followed by a solemn Inez being held between Buzz and Delete. The trio followed Hacker down numerous hallways and down several flights of stairs. Wow, Inez thought. It's almost like a maze. It never ceased to amaze her how large the Grim Wreaker was. After what seemed like forever, Hacker stopped in front of an unmarked door. Inez's heart quickened, she felt sure that Buzz and Delete could hear it almost beating out of her chest. The thought of what might lay beyond the door terrified her. But, when Hacker opened it, it turned out to just be the same dungeon that she and the others had been stuck in before, back during one of Hacker's other "take over Cyberspace" schemes. She had been so panicked that she hadn't recognized it.
Hacker motioned for her to enter the small cell. She looked him straight in the eyes, bravely she hoped, and took a step forward. When they felt her move toward the door, Buzz and Delete released her. Hacker smiled wickedly at her as she passed him to enter the room.
"This is where you will be staying until I find more permanent place for you." He said with an evil grin. Inez shivered. She wasn't sure she wanted to know what he meant by that.
He started to close the door, but before he had finished he remembered something. He looked at the small girl standing just inside the doorway. "Give it to me." He told her.
Inez didn't know what he was talking about. "What?" She said, confused.
"Give me your Squawk Pad." He said plainly. For him this was just another thing to be checked off his list. For Inez, it represented relinquishing the last bit of her freedom.
She pulled the pulled the device out of her pocket and handed it to him. Now she was truly alone; with no way to contact Motherboard or the guys. She wondered if Motherboard had let Matt and Jackie keep theirs. But she would have had no reason to; because Matt and Jackie were never returning to Cyberspace.
Once the Squawk Pad was in his hand, Hacker promptly shut the door in Inez's face. Leaving her alone in the dark cell.
The bedroom glowed a faint pink as two kids shot out of a swirling circle in the middle of a computer screen. Jackie landed softly on the bed, while Matt landed on the hard floor at foot of it.
Matt looked around the room. It was Jackie's bedroom and it was done up like a typical eleven year-old girl's room; with lots of posters of tween boy bands and Disney stars. Jackie was such a stereotypical girl; Matt found it almost revolting. Inez wasn't anything like that. Inez! Once again, it hit Matt that he would never see his friend again.
Before they went to Cyberspace this time, Jackie had invited Matt and Inez to her house to hang out. They had been talking and laughing when they got message from Motherboard. She had told them that the gang was needed in Cyberspace because Hacker was wreaking havoc in Radopolis again, trying to crown himself king. They had dealt with a similar incident almost eight months ago. That time they had gotten him to return the crown by beating him in a skate-off. Jackie and Inez hadn't been very experienced with blading or cycling, but they had agreed because, apparently that was how things were settled on that cybersite. They had won, but barely.
This time when the kids and Digit landed on Radopolis, Hacker seemed to be waiting for them. It was strange, like he had wanted them to show up. I guess he had. Matt, thought retrospectively. Too bad we didn't know that then.
The Cybersquad had demanded that Hacker give the crown back to the rightful king but he, in turn, requested a rematch of the contest that the kids had won before. At first, Digit and the kids were wary, but Hacker egged them on until the kids' pride got the better of them. They made a deal with Hacker that if they won he would leave Radopolis alone and give back the crown. If won Hacker won, he would get to keep the crown and the cybersite connected to it. With the stakes agreed on, they started the first round of the contest.
On Cybersquad's team, they had Matt on a skateboard, Inez on skates and Jackie on a bike. Hacker had Buzz riding the board and Delete on a bike. Hacker himself was on roller-skates. Matt and Buzz went first and Matt creamed him. Buzz only get three points to Matt's nine.
After this first round, Hacker approached the kids and asked them how it was that they had beaten Buzz so easily. "I guess we're just better." Matt had said arrogantly. This upset Hacker and he demanded that they up the stakes. The kids asked him what he had in mind.
He told them that if they were so sure that they would win, than they shouldn't mind offering up Inez... if he offered the encryptor chip that was essential to healing Motherboard.
The group was very wary of this suggestion. Digit didn't want to go for it because he thought Hacker had been up to something. And he was right! We should have listened to him! Matt thought as he ran this all through in his head. He hated himself for getting tricked by Hacker and losing Nezzie.
Jackie and Inez were initially cautious about the bet, but eventually Matt convinced them that the encryptor chip was worth it. "And besides," He had told them confidently. "There's no way we can lose. Have you seen their team?"
But we did lose, we lost everything. Matt felt as all that had happened after that had been his fault because he had pushed the girls into it.
As soon as they had agreed to it, Hacker left them and went to talk to the referee. After a short conversation, the referee announced: "Team Hacker will be swapping out the remaining two team members for new ones."
Two new borgs walked up as the referee was saying this. They went straight to Hacker and one stood on each side of him. None of kids recognized them, but Digit did.
"Those are the best biker and best rollerblader in all of Cyberspace!" He squawked, whipping himself into a little bit of a frenzy. The kids exchanged looks of panic. They realized that they had been tricked. And now Jackie and Inez had to compete against the best blader and biker in that universe. They had risked it all, against the most dishonest person in Cyberchase. They should have bet instead that Hacker would never, ever play fair.
Jackie had been the first to go after the change in Hacker's team line-up. She hadn't stood a chance. She had gotten a respectable five, but the other guy was so good that judges felt the need to give him a ten and add two points to Buzz's pathetic score in order to accommodate for the professional biker's talents. This meant the Earthlies were losing by one point. Not far behind, but they still had one round to go and it pitted their worst skater, Inez, against Cyberspace's best. They had already lost.
Although, we did get close. Matt thought, almost smugly. In the end Inez managed an incredible eight points. She was so determined not to lose her freedom to Hacker that she had tried harder than she had ever tried for anything in her entire life. But, it wasn't enough. The other team got another ten and had won by a measly three points.
We still lost; that's all that matters. We lost and Inez is who knows where in Cyberspace with Hacker. And there's no way we can ever get her back. Matt had run through all of this in his head numerous times and kept coming to the same conclusion: Inez was gone. Period.
At this point, Jackie got tired of watching Matt sit silently on the bedroom floor and she gently put her hand on his shoulder. The touch set something off in him and he began to sob uncontrollably. Jackie brought him into a hug and they sat there on the floor and cried together for what felt like an eternity.
Hacker walked into his office on the Grim Wreaker and sat down at the elaborate desk in the middle of the room. The office was quite bare and only housed the desk, two futuristic-looking purple chairs with plump cushions and several egotistical photographs of Hacker himself that were hanging on the walls.
He unlocked one of the desk drawers using a key that he retrieved from breast pocket. He put the Squawk Pad that he had taken from Inez into the bottom of the drawer. On the way his office, Hacker had tried in vain to work it, but couldn't even manage to turn it on.
Even if he couldn't work the device, he enjoyed having it in his possession; it was a trophy that represented his victory over the Earth brats. Well, that and the girl. Hacker thought maliciously to himself. Though, he still had not figured out exactly what he would do with her; he hadn't really this far ahead since his plans had never worked before in the past.
He shut the drawer, locked it up and returned the key to his pocket. He turned to a small monitor on the left hand side of his desk and booted it up. Slowly the image of the Earth girl began to appear on his screen. She was sitting on the bed in the cell he had placed her in. There wasn't any sound on the live security footage, but it appeared to Hacker that the girl was crying because she kept bringing her hands up to wipe her eyes.
Hacker, for the first time, seemed to realize exactly how young the girl really was. He hadn't really noticed before because she and the other two had been so instrumental in defeating him in the past. He now saw that she was actually quite weak and sensitive. She couldn't handle the burden that Motherboard had selfishly placed on her and her friends.
He wondered if she would grow resentful of the motherly ruler, for interfering in her safe, normal life. Hacker continued to watch the girl on the screen as he contemplated what he was going to do with his new prize.
It was dim in the small cell; but despite that, Inez strained her eyes to look around her. There wasn't much to see. She stood in front of the door as her eyes swept across her surroundings. Against the right hand wall there was a small bed with a thin mattress and an even thinner blanket and pillow. On the left and back wall were a four sets of wrist shackles; two pairs to each wall. She cringed at the sight of them; they reminded her of where she was. Behind her was the door, with two closed slats that could only be opened from the outside (she had briefly tried to budge them). One slat was in the upper half of the door which would allow someone to look into the cell if they cared to. The other was at the very bottom and Inez assumed that this was used to place a prisoner's food into the cell without having to open the door. Suddenly, it struck her once again that it was she who was the captive in this prison and that Hacker was her warden. At this thought she could no longer bare to stand. She stumbled a short way and ended up in a sitting position on the bed. She began to cry quietly, wiping at her eyes every so often at the tears that refused to cease.
Jackie and Matt were still crying, encased in each other's understanding arms, when they both heard the sound of someone climbing the stairs to the second floor. They quickly tried to cover up the meltdown they were having over the loss of Inez. Matt furiously wiped at the lingering tears in his eyes, sprang off the floor and promptly sat down on the edge of Jackie's well-made bed. Jackie also got up off the floor, trying to remove any sign of moisture from her eyes. She swiftly pulled the chair from the desk over to the bed in order to sit opposite of Matt.
Mere moments after she sat down, the door opened. Her mother stepped into the room and looked at the two children.
"Why's it so quiet in here?" She asked curiously. Jackie was always so loud and rambunctious when she had her friends over. Usually you would be able to hear their laughter from the neighbor's house. Looking around the room, the mother noticed something missing. "Where's Inez?"
Matt and Jackie glanced, almost imperceptibly, at each other before Jackie answered. "She left a little bit ago. I think she said she needed to go to the library or something before it closed." Jackie hated lying to her mom, but Inez had made it very clear that she didn't want anyone to know what had happened to her. Jackie felt sad about the fact that this would only be the first lie in a lifetime of covering up what had happened to her close friend.
"When did she leave?" Her mother asked confused and a bit put off by how silent the two were. It was almost as if something terrible had happened in the last twenty minutes since she had last checked in on them.
Again Jackie glanced away from her mother for a moment, this time at the digital clock on her nightstand, before answering. "I think it was, like, ten minutes ago." The girl seemed on edge, but her mother couldn't think of any reason why.
The mother began to leave, stopping in the doorway when she remembered something. Turning around she said: "Oh, and Matt? You're mom said she's coming to pick you up in about an hour, okay?" Matt nodded yes, and Jackie's mother left, leaving the door wide open.
Jackie listened as her mother's footsteps became fainter and fainter until she couldn't hear them at all. As soon as it was perfectly silent, she got up and slowly closed the door so that it wouldn't make a sound.
Without saying anything, the two looked over at Jackie's alarm clock together. The digital display read 5:34; it had barely been fifteen minutes, on Earth, since Motherboard had called and asked them for help with Hacker. Since Cyberspace worked on a different time frame from Earth, they had been able to spend almost an entire day there, without any time passing in their home universe. They both wondered how much time had passed in Cyberspace in the minutes that they had be silently grieving in Jackie's room. And how much Inez had endured in that time.
Jackie got up off the chair, walked over to the clock and set the alarm for forty-five minutes later. She wanted them to be able to grieve for Inez a little longer before Matt's mom can to get him. She left time for them clean themselves up when they were done crying. They couldn't have their parents thinking that anything was wrong. They had to keep this a secret. For Inez.
Jackie sat down next to Matt on the bed and started to cry into his shoulder. He wasn't much, but he was all she had to help her get through this. He was the only one who knew the truth. To the rest of the world, she would have to pretend that nothing strange had ever happened.
While Jackie sobbed uncontrollably in Matt's arms, he was silent. He was all out of tears. He just stared off into space...trying to think of only happy memories of his lost friend and not of their last bit of time together. Trying not think of their goodbyes, when she had looked so young...and broken...and vulnerable...and scared.
One last tear escaped his eyes as tried to shut the door on this chapter of his life; forever.