Sorry that it has taken me so long to upload the third chapter. Life keeps getting the way of writing. Hopefully, it won't take quite so long to upload the next edition.
Matt and Jackie spent much of the following six years trying not to think about Inez. For the most part, they were successful. Every so often though, they would be hit by a fresh wave of grief. When this would happen, they would help each other through it; remembering the good times and ignoring the bad. They tried not to consider "what-ifs" regarding that life-changing day and refused to think about Inez's existence with Hacker. They only thought about her in the past tense, as though she were dead, instead of lost to an unreachable, alternate universe.
It hadn't taken long for Inez's parents to realize that she was missing. When she hadn't come home in time for dinner, her parents didn't think much of it. She often stayed late at Matt's or Jackie's house and sometimes forgot to call. Inez's parents phoned the parents of Jackie and Matt, but were shocked to find that nobody had seen Inez in hours.
Inez's dad immediately called the police, while her mom drove around frantically looking for her. Matt and Jackie both felt bad about not telling Inez's parents where their daughter was, but they had promised Inez that they wouldn't. And it wasn't as though revealing Inez's whereabouts would have lessened their suffering. They still wouldn't have been able to get her back and they probably wouldn't have even believed the two eleven-year-olds.
The following day, local law enforcement launched an investigation and a county-wide manhunt for the missing girl. The police interviewed everyone who was close to her, including Matt and Jackie. They had been Inez's best friends and the last ones to see her before she disappeared. The two kids didn't like talking to the police, but they cooperated because they didn't want to draw any suspicion to themselves.
They were questioned several times by the cops in the weeks following the disappearance. The two of them maintained that they hadn't seen Inez since she left Jackie's house to visit the library. Eventually, the police stopped calling on the three families and things quieted down. The case was shelved and everyone gave the missing girl up for dead.
After about a year, Inez's family moved away. Her mother had been unable to bear seeing the sight of her daughter's empty, untouched room every day. With her family gone, it became easier for Matt and Jackie to forget. But only slightly.
Years passed and Matt and Jackie's lives went on as normal. They went to school, did homework, hung out with friends and lived their lives. Six years after what Jackie and Matt had begun calling "The Incident", the two had were normal high school juniors and had been going out together since their freshman year. This was a relationship that largely came out of how dependent the two had become of each other in the wake of their loss of Inez.
One day, during the end of that April, Matt and Jackie were walking home from school. It was starting to feel like the first day of spring after a long winter. Neither of them had worn their winter coats that day and they were enjoying the nice, warm weather.
"Why don't we go to my house today?" Jackie suggested. Matt thought this was strange. They hadn't gone to her house since "The Incident" because it had always felt wrong to be there, just the two of them. He wondered if this was a sign that his girlfriend was finally getting over what had happened over six years ago. This filled him with hope. It's about time Cyberspace stopped ruling our lives, he thought to himself.
"Sure, sounds good," he told her. They changed direction and started heading towards her house. Jackie didn't say a word for the rest of the walk and Matt didn't try to prompt conversation because he understood how hard this must have been for her, even after all these years. It was hard for him too. It felt like they were traveling back in time to that horrible day. Jackie lived very close to the school so it took less than ten silent minutes to reach to her place.
She fumbled with her keys as she tried to open the front door. After a minute of this, Matt gently took the keys from her and unlocked the door. He handed the key ring back to her and waited for her to open the door. He wanted her to lead to way; after all it was her house and he wanted her to be confident in it. As he waited for her to step into the small foyer, Matt contemplated how long it been since he last had been here. He'd been such a little kid, barely through his first year of middle school. So much had happened since then: he had endured almost three years of high school, he was taking pre-calculus, he had a girlfriend. He looked fondly over at Jackie and took her hand. Gaining courage from this human connection, she led Matt into the house.
Directly in front of them were the stairs leading up to the second story, where Jackie's bedroom was. They both nervously avoided looking in that direction. The house was perfectly quiet. Jackie's parents were both still at work, so the teens were there alone.
Jackie broke the silence. "Do you want anything to eat?" Before he could answer, she started walking towards the kitchen at the back of the house.
"Um, sure. What do you have?" Matt asked as he followed her, distancing himself from the stairs at the front of the house.
Once Jackie reached the kitchen, she began to busy herself with making sandwiches. Her boyfriend offered to help, but she refused it. With nothing else to do, he sat awkwardly down at the kitchen table. He tried to start a conversation, but Jackie ignored him and kept preparing the food.
When she was finished, she brought over two cans of root beer and two plates of sandwiches and chips.
"Why don't we bring this upstairs?" she suggested suddenly. Matt glanced towards her, slightly shocked by this sudden change in attitude, but he went with it. He wanted Jackie to know that he had her back. Matt couldn't show her that he was nervous; it might cause her confidence to falter.
They grabbed their plates and sodas and walked back to the foyer. Jackie seemed very sure of herself until they got to the bottom of the stairs. She stopped there for a moment, but then quickly started up the steps. Matt followed, a little unnerved about being so close to the spot where their lives had fallen apart. They were so close to putting the pieces back together; he wasn't sure he was ready for this. But Jackie seemed to be and he needed to be there for her, like she had been for him in the beginning.
Immediately after "The Incident" had happened, Jackie had been so strong and had helped him through the recurring bouts of agony and regret. She understood that Matt blamed himself for what happened so she buried her own sadness in order to help him through it. It took Matt a long time to realize this. Now, he thought, I'm going to help her through this, even if I'm not ready myself.
Jackie led Matt down the familiar hallway. Matt felt as though he were reliving that awful day once again. It seemed almost like a dream. When they reached her bedroom door, images of the two of them mourning on Jackie's floor began to flicker inside Matt's head. But, when she opened the door, the entire room had changed.
It was very different from the tween room he had remembered. Now it was very plain and boring. The walls were bare and there was very little in the room other than some simple furniture. Clearly Jackie didn't like spending time in here. He couldn't blame her. Feeling uncomfortable, he sat on the edge of the bed and put his food on the nightstand next to the alarm clock. Jackie sat in the desk chair. Matt couldn't help feeling that they were retracing the steps of that terrible day in reverse.
They ate their snack and talked about school. Matt told Jackie about a failed English test that he was worried about showing to his parents. Everything was going quite normally until the laptop sitting on the desk behind Jackie started to glow a faint pink.
Matt motioned for Jackie to turn around. They were shocked; they hadn't seen this happen in years. They both watched in silence as the portal became larger and larger.
Matt wasn't sure how he felt about the turn of events. There were days that he missed their childhood adventures in Cyberspace, but that last trip had marred it for him. He was so close to getting over it and now this?! It seemed like terrible timing. Jackie clutched Matt's hand for support and squeezed it hard.
Before either of them could say a single thing to each other, the portal had grown large enough to forcibly suck them out of the room.
"I'm not so sure about this," Digit told Motherboard. "This could just complicate things."
"Digit's right. What if Hacker gets them too? It'll just give him more leverage over us," a nineteen-year-old cyborg tried to tell her.
"It can't...get any...worse...than it...already is...Slider," she explained to him.
Slider disagreed. "It'll ruin their lives! Why bother bringing them back, when we might just lose them like we lost Inez!" he yelled at her. He understood Motherboard was scared, but it didn't justify bringing the Earthlies back. They were fighting a lost cause and Matt and Jackie didn't deserve to have their lives torn apart a second time.
"It...doesn't matter," Motherboard told them. "I've...already...sent for them."
"What!" Digit and Slider shouted in unison. An older bot heard this outburst from the next room and came to see what was happening.
"What is going on here?" asked Dr. Marbles. He looked tired; he'd worn himself out these past few years, defending Motherboard from Hacker's unceasing attacks.
"Motherboard's sent for the Earth kids," Slider explained angrily to the aging doctor.
"You mean Matt and...?" Marbles said, searching his memory for the girl's name.
"Jackie," Digit piped in.
"Yeah, Motherboard's called them up from their world as a last ditch effort to save Cyberspace," Slider said.
"But, Motherboard, you said that if we ever needed them again, that you and I would discuss it together," said Dr. Marbles, outraged.
Before Motherboard could justify her actions, a large portal appeared in the center of the room. Jackie and Matt tumbled out of it and onto the floor of control central.