Matt wiped his eyes, drenching the inner folds of his green sweater in tears.
There was an awful silence now.
The squad was quiet, shocked by what just occured.
Matt sniffled, then swatted the hand off his shoulder, only afterwards noticing it was Jackie's.
Jackie let her hand fall to her side, eyes wide and confused.
Digit cleared his robotic throat, seeming to take the hint that Matt didn't want to be bothered about whatever he was facing.
"Uh... So, Earthlees. About the map I showed you..."
He reached for the map again, only to yelp in realization that it was gone.
"Wuh-oh."
Inez moved her head to face Digit, but her eyes still lingered on the ginger boy.
"What's wrong, Digit?"
"I seem to have lost the map in all the commotion," the cy-boird admitted in a rather guilty tone.
Matt mumbled, now hugging his knees, "It was just a map of Cyber Space. We can draw one out ourselves."
As if trying to cheer him up, Inez smiled and exclaimed, "Great idea! We just need some paper and a pen!"
The little girl from earlier took a few steps forward, offering a broken crayon.
"I always have colors on me in case I need to make things pretty. But..."
Her eyes stated watering.
"I broke it when the sand fell on me."
Jackie took the crayon regardless.
"Thanks a lot! It's just what we need!"
With that, the girl trotted off, not looking back.
The crayon seemed to be her 'thank you' for the rescue.
A few minutes later, after having obtained paper from the older man, the group was now sitting together, staring at a dilemma.
A few dilemmas.
One being that now everyone was aware that Matt was hiding something.
Two being that they were now aware that they couldn't inquire about it.
And three being that the map was lopsided and uneven.
Digit huffed, "We can't use this! We can't see how far apart everything is!"
Inez thought for a moment then spoke up, "I think I see the problem."
Digit looked up at her, "You do?"
Inez nodded, "Yeah. We need a scale to help us measure the distance between each location!"
Jackie slapped her forehead, "A scale! Of course!"
She smiled at her friends discovery, then frowned.
"How are we gonna make a scale when we don't even know the distance between each cyber site?!"
"That's where you're out of luck, Cyber-kiddies!"
3/4 of the squad stood up, brows furrowing in recognition of the voice.
"Hacker!"
Matt, though he didn't stand, still said the guys name in unison with everyone else.
Since saying names all at once is kinda the group's thing.
Hacker laughed, holding his arms out to the side in an attempt to look threatening.
"You'll never stop me! For you see, I'm already 10 steps ahead of you!"
He reached into his coat and pulled out a map.
The same map Digit had lost.
"My map!"
"Give it back, Hacker!"
Matt straightened up, leaning forward as he commanded the green man.
To this, Hacker simply chuckled and continued his speel.
"Thanks to you and your bird-for-brains friend, I've got the Internal map of Cyber space! And with it, I can reform each cyber site in my image. One. At. A. Time!"
He leaned forward to match Matt, showing mockery and intimidation with each inch.
"Buzz! Delete! Hurry up, you dunce buckets!"
Hacker turned on his heel and headed for the sound of his hencemens voice.
"Comin' bohss! Be there right away!"
"Yeah! This thing's heavy!"
The cyborgs eased into view.
But what was that they were carrying?
"They've got the Sunisphere!"
Digit pointed and yelled.
"After them!"
Matt commanded once more, and tried to follow his own order, resulting in a moan of pain and another collapse.
Inez rushed to Matt's side, placing her hands on his shoulders to help him sit up, "You guys go on ahead! I'll stay here with Matt."
Matt removed her hands from his body and huffed, "No, Inez! Go with them! I'll contact Motherboard and ask her to send me a portal to somewhere safer."
Inez hesitated, then nodded before running after her friends.
Matt then sighed, slumping his shouders.
He knew he was useless to them right now, and he wasn't in the mood to argue that fact with himself.
Actually...
He wasn't in the mood to do anything.
He didn't even want to reach for his squakpad.
The ground below him shook as the sand transformed into snow and ice.
He shivered.
And even then he didn't want to move.
Eventually the cold became so unbareable, he snatched his squakpad from his backpack.
But before he could even press a button, Motherboards face appeared on the screen.
Somehow, she already seemed aware of what was going on.
So words weren't necessary when a portal opened up in front of the boy.
Motherboard was always aware to some unnatural extent.
Matt crawled into the portal, figuring it was just unnatural for him because he wasn't native to Cyber space.
Maybe it was normal for Motherboard to have juicey details that no one told her about.
Or maybe someone was telling her.