Chapter 59 – Help is on the Way
Meanwhile, back in the room with Mrs. Olis. Syls sat back in her chair, thinking of how to connect and talk to her old Matron, "Are you sure we can't just get out and talk to her?" Tris asked.
"We're too small, our voices won't carry." the shorter Dryskian explained.
The three sat in silence, until with great hesitation, Mrs. Olis reached for a small metal stick that pointed straight up from a small flat round base, "How was I supposed to…" the larger Dryskian asked herself, and then used her clawed finger to tap at a holographic screen. When she thought she was done, she leaned in and spoke into the top of the metal stick, "Hel…" she never got a full word out, because she could hear herself inside her own room, and the screeching back-feed nearly broke her eardrums. She quickly touched a part on the base of the mic itself, and then placed her hands to her face, "Oh, why can't I ever get this right?" she asked, "I just want to make sure he's alright."
"That's it!" Syls said happily, "We can use the mic to talk to her, we just need to recalibrate the audio to prevent back feed."
"I can do that!" Tris said, and then calmed down to a much more serious tone, "But are you sure you want to do this?"
Syls looked to her friend, "Why wouldn't I be?" she asked.
"It just seems a little selfish right now," Tris said.
Suddenly, the matron stood up, a worried look on her face as she viewed one of the screens. With a shot, she turned and bolted out the door. "What was that about?" Syls asked and brought her racer to the front. She looked up trying to spot the screen that had frightened her Matron and froze herself. There, in the corner screen, was a small building on fire, and a group of kids out front while her smaller self was curled up on the ground, young Tris trying desperately to get to her friend while two of the larger kids held her back. Jibs was still on the ground coughing and Pums rubbing his back. A small fist was raised, and then brought down upon the smaller version of herself, then again and again. Only when Mrs. Olis actually showed up did it stop, and the angry yelling of the Matron began. The child who had raised his fist was instantly singled out, and some form of punishment was given. She couldn't hear anything, as there was no sound at the moment, but she could quickly see Jibs lift himself up, and talk to Mrs. Olis. She knew what he was saying, he was defending the smaller Syls from any wrath and all it took was a few words.
"She saved my life." Jibs said, his smile fallen and soot adorning his singed fur. His eyes pointed to the ground. The other children went silent, Syls on the ground, her hands placed against the new wounds that had been inflicted and tears streaming down her cheeks to fall to the grass below.
"How did the fire start?" Mrs. Olis asked.
"I don't know." he said hesitantly, "I was exploring, then the ground caught fire." He paused a bit, pretending to be in thought, "I guess there was a bad wire that caused a spark."
Mrs. Olis then sighed, and turned to the child that had struck little Syls, "Do you see?" she asked the small Dryskian, "You hurt an innocent soul…" she said as she leaned down to pick Syls up off of the ground, "All because of a misunderstanding." She glared at the others, disappointment in her angry eyes, "I hope this teaches you never to strike another in anger or fear. There are better ways." She began to walk away, Tris and Jibs right behind her as she took the three of them to a place to heal up.
"Mrs. Olis?" she heard Tris ask from behind her.
"Yes Tris?" she asked.
"We found Jibs in the shed because Syls and I were chasing a rainbow bug thing." she admitted.
"A rainbow bug thing?" she asked as Jibs gave a kind of curious look to her.
"Yeah!" she admitted.
"It was fast, and it left a rainbow behind it when it moved, like a ribbon or something." little Syls said as her tears finally started to stop flowing.
"A rainbow?" Mrs. Olis asked, "I've never heard of such a creature."
"Maybe it's a guardian, like a sign that someone is in serious trouble and needs rescuing." Jibs said and then smiled, not his mischievous smile, but rather a pure smile, "I want to find it!" he said.
"Perhaps it doesn't want to be found." Mrs. Olis said, "But if it is a guardian of some kind, then perhaps we just need to wait and see if it shows up again."
Off in the field, the tiny Rainbow Trail Mk. 2 could be seen just hovering there, Rainbow Dash and Breeze smiling at the work they had done, the blue pegasus panting shallowly from the energy she had used. "I'm gonna have to apologize for getting Syls beat up like that, but at least the kid got out ok." R.D. said.
"Meh, I think she'll be ok with it eventually." Breeze said with confidence.
Rainbow Dash smiled, and then looked up at the sky, "Hey?" she asked, "Why do you think we're here?" Breeze looked to her on his screen, she looked worried to him, "I mean, here in this memory. I was never here. Are we here to save that Jibs kid? Are we supposed to do something else?"
"You ok Dashie?" he interrupted.
"I guess I'm just a bit worried. How do we get out of this maze?" she asked.
"Labyrinth!" he corrected, "A maze is just walls, a labyrinth tells a story."
She narrowed her eyes at him, "Not helping." she said. Her only response from him was an embarrassed look of an apologetic nature. "We need to find Syls and Tris and get out of here."
Breeze simply nodded in agreement, then turned his eyes back to the sky, "But how?" he asked, "We don't even know how this place works. For all we know, we've got a gauntlet of memories to go through." Rainbow simply looked to her console, her hooves gripping the controls tightly as she tried to think of some way to get back to her reality.
Back in the other room, Syls and Tris were outside their ship. Syls was pacing on the desk while Tris sat on the top of the Silver Blitz. "We missed it; I can't believe we missed it." the smaller of the Dryskians said to herself.
"She'll come back. I mean, this is the main security room, right?" Tris said in concern for her friend.
"It's just that…" Syls started as she stopped in her tracks. She turned to her partner, her gunner, and sighed, "I just don't want to leaver her alone again. I want to help."
"Then maybe we're not the ones who are supposed to talk to her." Tris said.
Syls stopped in her thoughts, turned back to the screen above her, and looked to the picture that had been moved to the upper corner, the picture of the electrician, Kads.
Suddenly, it was as if she knew, realization hitting hard as she realized, and then with stern confidence, she went to work, jumping from button to button on the holographic keyboard and jumping to the mouse pad to scroll to where she needed it to go.
It was a while, but eventually, Rainbow Dash saw the Silver Blitz as it crept out of the room. Breeze was the one who spotted them as they exited, and the air around them seemed a bit somber, "You two ok?" he asked as the four of them finally connected back together.
Syls took a second to collect her thoughts before she spoke, "Yeah, I guess I just tried to rush it a bit." Then she looked up, eyeing Rainbow Dash right in her eyes, "That was you two, wasn't it?" she asked, "That rainbow thing that Tris and I chased to find Jibs?"
Rainbow Dash looked to her ceiling, "I don't know what you're talking about!" she said as innocently as she could.
"Well, thanks anyway." Tris said, "Without you, we wouldn't have even known Jibs was in trouble."
Instantly a thought came to Syls' mind, one that caused her to sneer in disgust, and then cause the scene to shift rapidly as if the colors were rushing past them. "What's happening?" Rainbow asked in a small panic, and when the scene cleared up and stopped, they could see the same building that they had just left, outside near the burned down shack and the younger Syls running and playing happily with her friend Tris. They suddenly stopped, and Tris turned to shout something back, before waving to Syls and running back inside. Little Syls then flopped herself onto the grass, a smile on her face as she looked to the sky, "Hey!" they all heard from above her, and suddenly, Jibs' face entered into view.
"Oh, hey Jibs." Syls said, not with disdain, but with disinterest.
"You're arm feeling better?" he asked.
She instinctively grabbed her left arm, and rubbed it a bit, "Yeah, it's healed up pretty good." she said with the same disinterest, "And you?".
"I'll be fine." he said, and looked up, spying the burned-out shed, "You know, I've been looking around that shed to see what actually happened, and I found something interesting." This time she looked to him with mild interest, she had always been an adventurer. "There's a bunker underneath, one no one has even touched in Deca-Cycles."
"Really?" she asked, only mild interest in her voice. She planned to keep him at arm's length, but this was something she just couldn't pass up.
"We can kind of see into it from the edge of the door, we don't even have to go in." he said and walked up to the edge without asking her to come with him. She looked to his face, he didn't have that mischievous smile anymore, instead, he had the same smile as when he, Tris, and she were with Mrs. Olis, making their way back into the building after they had saved him. She wanted to trust that smile.
"No, why this memory?" the current Syls asked, her eyes showed alarm and betrayal.
Jibs did what he said he could do, he leaned over, placing his hand to one of the still-standing walls, and peered down at the floor, "I think I can even see another door or something."
The younger Syls came up to his spot, and like him leaned over, placing her hand against the other side of the still-standing door frame, and peered down, "Wait." she said, "I think you're right!" she didn't get to say much more, the place she was holding gave way, and down she went, the burned-out floor crumbling as soon as she hit it, and caved away.
