Kyisha gasped and stepped back. "Whoa! Not so fast. I don't even know you!"
The boy became redder. "Sorry. I was too direct. But you are the most beautiful girl I've ever seen."
Kyisha's face flushed with embarrassment. "Eeek!"
The cherub laughed and disappeared in a cloud of smoke.
Cupcake folded up her phone. "The professor just found an address. Apparently there have been strange people coming to the store, and they've been giving it out. 2300 Shuttle Avenue. Oh. And I've also got the professor's ID and password if you want to get online." She stared at the boy. "Who's that?"
"Strange people? Sounds like something we should look into." She paused. "I have no idea who this guy is." She shook her head. "'Kay, let's see about that internet..."
Cupcake led Kyisha down a staircase, then another, showing her to a computer lab in the building's basement.
A crowd of students and creatures occupied all but two of the workstations. Cupcake took her over to an open one, logging her in. A desktop appeared, displaying a set of menus, with a picture of a beach in the background.
Pelican Pokecenter System
Welcome Frederick Bubbles!
You have 100 Messages (Go To Inbox)
(Post Class Announcement)(Your Website File Manager)(Order Books from GLWE)(IGGS Grading System)
(Search the Internet With )(SLURM Instant Messenger)(ISFA Image Search Engine)(ORKO Jambascript Compiler)
(Sabrina Writer)(Sabrina Spreadsheet)(Sabrina Finance)(Shepphardmedia Player)
(Sabrina Start Menu)
Sabrina 2000 Desktop
"Hey, whatcha doing?" said a voice.
Kyisha cringed. The boy had followed her downstairs. "N-nothing," she mumbled, staring at the screen.
"You need help with anything?"
"I..."
Pete leaned over the computer. "What are you looking for?"
"I'm trying to find a symbol," said Kyisha. "I was hoping I could find something about it on the internet, but this is too confusing."
"It's a teacher's account," the boy shrugged. "It's got a lot of extra stuff like grades and book ordering. The Sabrina stuff is for writing papers. If you're looking for a symbol, you can either use to search the internet, or you could do an image search with ISFA. Either one will work okay, but you'll need a search phrase for Slurm. Which one do you want?"
"Well...I know what the symbol looks like, but nothing more... Not even an origin or a name..."
Pete nodded. "You can use ISFA. It's an image based search engine."
Kyisha clicked the link and a program with a gray background opened. On the left side she saw something like a painting program, with tools like a pen, an eraser, and a pair of scissors. A grid of blank boxes sat on the right.
"Just draw a symbol and click submit."
She shrugged, drawing the symbol she'd seen on the ring. She clicked submit and the grid filled with similar images, drawn less crudely, with titles under each one.
A cinnamon roll from Naugha King. The logo from an SSX-3 video game console. The Horrendo Motors logo. A photograph of a whirpool. A spiral nebula. Snack chips. It seemed everything had a spiral shape.
She rolled the scroll bar downwards. On and on the list of spirals continued.
After searching through two hundred pages, she came to a photograph of a gold ring with the spiral symbol on it. She clicked the image and was transported to a personal webpage at .
`Lost ring?' the page said, displaying a large color photograph of a hand holding the ring. `I found this ring on the ground outside Zed's Tavern in Bayunia. If anyone knows who it belongs to, or what this symbol represents, please send me an e-mail. Scrag .'
Suddenly the website vanished. A page with the word `Skullsong' appeared in its place.
"That's weird," said Cupcake. "Why did that page disappear?"
"Maybe the browser is set to automatically refresh every few seconds, and he updated his site. Or maybe it's Jambascript."
Kyisha frowned. "What's skullsong mean?"
"I don't know."
She went back to the ISFA program, modifying the symbol to look like the ring she'd just seen. She pushed submit again.
She found the list of results smaller this time, but she still had to search through a great deal of images. She scrolled down through pages of photographs and cartoon pictures ranging from the serious to the silly.
On the corner of the tenth page, she found the strange symbol again. She clicked it.
`Accessing mtte:56+DsdfS89Kpdskml(sdf]kjklj:+342at23232565/EWORS/FANG.'
A black website appeared, the words `Blood Fang' spreading in bright red across the top. Beneath it, Kyisha saw the ring symbol and a block of red text. She squinted at the letters.
"Only Blood Fang members are allowed to view content on this website," Cupcake read from the screen. "A Blood Fang key fob is required. Our system detects that your computer does not have a key fob installed. Put one in now, or a virus will be downloaded into your computer in sixty seconds.'
Pete laughed. "That looks like a prank made up by a fourth grader."
Kyisha tried to scroll down on the page, but the scroll bar kept snapping to the top before she could get a good look at the content.
The browser closed, returning her to ISFA.
"What!"
"Maybe it's Active-X or some illegal Jambascript or something," said Pete.
`Illegal Exception 8761235,' said a dialog box. `ISFA has encountered an unexpected error and must close.' The program shut down.
"Maybe it is a virus!"
The desktop turned black. All the windows vanished.
A giant laughing skull appeared on the screen. Kyisha clicked buttons, attempted a hard reset with CTRL ALT and DEL, but nothing worked. The skull kept laughing.
"I...think we should leave now," said Cupcake.
They hurried out into the hallway and up the stairs into the cafeteria.
Cupcake's phone rang. She answered it. "Hello?" She paused. "Professor! Where are you?" She frowned, staring at the phone. "Great."
"What's wrong?" said Kyisha.
"It's the professor. He just said `help!' and hung up."
"I think he was at a clothing store, then..." Cupcake scratched her head. "I think he said 2300 Shuttle Avenue, but I really don't know how to get there."
"I have a GPS on my bike," said Pete. "And that sounds like it's in East Norfork, so it shouldn't be too hard to find. Do either of you have a car or something?"
"I have one," said Cupcake.
"Great. Let's go."
"Let's?" Cupcake blinked at him. "Why do you want to come along?"
"Because..." He looked into Kyisha's eyes. "I want to be wherever this beautiful lady is. And if I can help her out, maybe I can win her heart."
Cupcake laughed. "Kyisha! Are you going to put up with this guy?"
"Umm...ok..." She just followed the boy, acting as if nothing had happened.
Pete led them outside and along the building to a bicycle rack. A blue bike stood chained at one end, with a gray box bolted to the handlebars.
Pete took out a wrench, undid a couple bolts, and the object came off. "Where's your car?"
Cupcake led them to the sloppily parked gray Expo stuck halfway on the median. A white paper had been stuck under the windshield wipers. Cupcake picked it up, read a line, then fell asleep standing up.
"Cupcake!" Kyisha shouted.
"Oh!" Cupcake shook herself awake. "What am I doing here?"
"We're trying to save the professor!"
"Oh! Right!" She unlocked the doors and opened the driver's side door.
Kyisha went to the front passenger side door.
"Could you please sit in the back with me?" said Pete.
"I think it's best if I sit up front..." She opened the door, buckling herself in across from the driver's seat.
Pete got in the back.
"Okay," said Cupcake, climbing in. She shut the door. "Now where do I go?"
"Just a second. Let me calibrate this thing," said Pete. He tapped the device a few seconds. "Okay. What's the address?"
Cupcake stared out the window. Her eyes shut. "230 Shuttle Avenue," she mumbled.
"230 Shuttle Avenue?"
Cupcake nodded, then snored.
Kyisha poked her.
Cupcake jolted upright. "Where to?"
"Is it really 230 Shuttle Avenue?"
"No, it's 2300 Shuttle Avenue. At least, I think. It could be 230. I don't know."
Kyisha sighed.
"Just a second," said Pete. He paused.
"Turn right on Fromboz road," said mechanical female voice.
"Okay," said Cupcake.
She pulled the car back.
Crunch. They settled on the pavement.
She turned the car around and they went out on a road, turning right at the intersection.
"Go straight, then go straight down Frumboz road one point five miles," said the device.
Pete leaned over Kyisha's seat and smiled.
Cupcake followed the directions, swerving back and forth in her lane.
The bird's eyes closed as they approached a semi.
Kyisha prodded her back awake at the last second.
The dangerous journey continued.
They hopped a curb, thundering back on the street, crossed a red light, narrowly avoiding a wreck and weaved across the yellow line more than once.
After several close calls, they reached Shuttle street.
Cupcake fell asleep, veering to the curb. The wheels scraped pavement, and Kyisha heard a loud hiss.
"Oh!" Cupcake cried, sitting up. "What happened?"
"I don't know," said Kyisha.
The bird drove onward and the side of the car sunk down on one side.
Pattering sounds.
"Great!" Cupcake moaned. "Just great."
"At least we're close," said Pete. "The GPS says we're only two blocks away."
"Well, then I guess we're going to have to go on foot," Kyisha said, getting out of the car. She ducked her head into the car again. "Cupcake, will you be able to stay awake?"
"Yeah. No problem," the bird said in a groggy voice. "I'll be fine."
"Well, let's walk then."
"Wait. I have your bike in the trunk if you want to use it."
"That's all right. He's got the GPS. I wouldn't know where to go."
"It's only a few blocks away," said Pete. "We just have to turn on Froggore and go down Shuttle."
They marched down the street, past rows of ugly abandoned buildings, a closed filling station, and they came to the next street, a narrow alley lined with chipped, crumbling curbs, broken storm drains, and buildings with bars on the windows.
They went down a few yards, arriving at Shuttle.
"Turn right, then, turn right on Shuttle," said the GPS. Pete pointed to his right.
After walking a bit, they came to a block surrounded with boarded up brick buildings and a fenced in lot filled with construction debris.
The robotic voice spoke again. "Arrive at your destination."
"We're here," said Pete.
"Where is here?" said Kyisha.
"Ummm..." He stared at the GPS. "Somewhere in this area."
Kyisha looked around herself. It could be any one of the empty graffiti covered structures, or none of them. None of the buildings had any identifiable numbers on them, unless you count gang signs. "So...you don't know where to go from here."
"Nope. The red dot is the same size as the intersection. It's not very specific."
Kyisha frowned. "Well, maybe we can listen for sounds of them or something."
Everyone got quiet. Cupcake fell asleep.
Kyisha heard cars, jackhammers and dogs barking. The sound of pneumatic bus brakes. "Now what am I supposed to do?"
Cupcake's arm slowly raised. Snoring, she unconsciously turned her body in the direction of the fenced lot. Her finger extended. "The sun is shining," she mumbled in her sleep. "But the ice is slippery."
"That's an abandoned lot! What are you trying to-" She looked up and her mouth fell open.
With the effect of a rolling fog, a giant high rise building had materialized out of seemingly nowhere.
The structure was ribbed and trimmed in brass, looking like something made in the roaring twenties. As the building solidified completely, Kyisha heard the sound of a grand orchestra swelling to a movie-like crescendo.
She turned around and saw a black kid with glasses carrying a boom box down the street. The music stopped as he went away.