~Chapter Twenty-Five~

Location: Ann Arky's Triangle of Doom:

Dawn came at 6:30 A.M. and Marbles woke up to see that his girlfriend was still asleep. It had taken hours for her the two of them to go into sleep mode. Ada was panicking all night and Marbles had to stay up until 5:00 to try to calm her down. He was absolutely exhausted but figured he better get started on figuring a way out of this prison they had been trapped in.

"Maybe if I determined the area of the triangle, that would help some."

The sixteen-year-old searched through his glove box for some sort of tape measure, before realizing that it was no use. There couldn't possibly be a way for him to measure the entire triangle with the average tape measure. Looking to his Skwak pad he remembered a certain app on it that could scan their surroundings. But when he tried, he found that the Skwak pad also had no signal, which was something it would need to scan the triangular prison. Marbles sighed. There was only one way that this could be done. He would have to measure each side of the triangle using only his one-foot Skwak pad and then convert the measurements into cybermiles. But he was so tired already. How could he keep track of each foot? Surely there was some easier way, but he couldn't think of one now. And there wasn't much time to think about it. They had to escape before their friends, and especially his sister, realized they were missing.

"Well," the teenaged cyborg thought to himself, "I suppose I better get started."

Marbles tore a piece of paper from his research notebook and wrote a note to Ada on where to find him. After kissing his girlfriend on the forehead, he took his Skwak pad, got out of the cyber-coupe, and headed out to find a corner to start measuring on.

At 10:00 A.M, Ada woke from sleep mode to find Marbles not there. She immediately panicked until she saw the piece of folded up lined paper with her name on it.

"My dear Lady Lovelace,

I have gone in the Eastern direction to measure the sides of the triangle with my Skwak pad. I know that it will probably take a while for me to complete the task and you will have woken up before I'm finished. However its the only way I can think of for us to exit this program.

Whether I have completed it by sunset or not, I will return by then and start again tomorrow. For now. please just rest.

-Marbles"

But Ada couldn't leave her lover alone in this mysterious place. Neither of them had the slightest clue what sorts of dangers Ann Arky had hidden throughout the prison. She immediately got out of the cyber-coupe in search of him. But it took quite some time. This was no small triangle, that much was true. It had to be at least the size of a grocery store plus its parking lot and there were all sorts of aging grass and half dead trees looming about. Ada ignored the fear that was creeping into her circuits and kept going. After about two hours, she found her boyfriend kneeling on th grass as he measured one of the sides of the triangle.

And wasn't very far from the beginning of the side.

Ada cleared her throat loudly causing Marbles to jump slightly and turn around.

"Ada I told you to wait for me to come back."

"Well I refuse to leave you out in this strange place alone dear," Ada remarked.

Marbles sighed. "Alright. But only if you'll help me out with this," he said handing Ada a piece of paper, "I've been using this to keep track of how many feet I've measured. I'll measure and you record the number with a tally."

"No Marbles," Ada argued, "I'll do the measuring. You've had enough of straining your knees by now."

"Why must you be so difficult?!"

Ada glared at him and he sighed again, getting up to grab the paper. "Fine."

Location: Cyber University:

Melissa rode her bike to the school news stand with anticipation. She had taken forever to fall into sleep mode last night but at last she closed her eyes around 4:00 A.M. She spent the whole of her morning getting ready, deciding whether she should dress casually or formally. In the end she decided that she didn't want to look desperate and she threw on a simple grey sweater dress that had elbow length sleeves and a turtle neck. The hem came just above her knees with black stockings covering her long legs. And this time she remembered her coat and hat too.

When she arrived at the news stand, Antoine wasn't there just yet so she went ahead and bought a newspaper. As she looked though the headlines she tried to find something either on their campus or a nearby cybersite that was enjoyable AND affordable. She didn't know much about Antoine's likes and interests though, so it was a struggle. Amongst the events that caught Melissa's personal interest were a school play, a tour of cybersite Aquarium, the school art exhibit, a science fair, and an ice-skating rink in Penguia that was half price for college students.

"Hello Melissa," a voice said from behind her. Melissa turned around to see Antoine dressed in a white sweater and beige pants.

"Hello Antoine," Melissa said, "You look rather nice today."

"Thank you," Antoine replied, "You look very lovely yourself."

Melissa smiled and shrugged her shoulders embarrassed. Antoine smiled back. He never had seen such a strikingly beautiful woman and was sure he never would again. The two remained gazing at each other timidly until Antoine finally broke the ice.

"I see you have a copy of the school newspaper already," he said noticing the paper in her hands, "Have you found anything of interest?"

"Well... yes," Melissa answered nervously, "But I don't know what your interests are. So I'm not sure if you would like them."

Antoine gestured for her to hand him the paper, which she did. As he looked through the newspaper he saw a variety of things that caught his interest too.

"Do you like art?" he asked upon seeing the ad for the campus art exhibit.

"Very much so," Melissa answered, "I take it you've found the ad for the art exhibit?"

Antoine nodded. "Would you like to go?"

"Yes," Melissa answered, "That would be nice."

"Great," Antoine said and looked down at his watch, "We better hurry though. We're already late."

Location: Ann Arky's Triangle of Doom:

"One hundred forty-three cyber-feet," Marbles said to Ada as she wrote down another tally.

"Marbles you've been at this for how long now?"

Marbles looked at his watch. "Four hours."

"There must be another way we can do this," Ada sighed.

"Unfortunately there isn't," Marbles said as he continued measuring, "One hundred forty-four."

"Marbles really?"

"Ada I'm just as frustrated as you are but we don't have many other options... One hundred forty-five.'

"Isn't there anything longer we could use?" Ada asked as she wrote down another tally.

Marbles thought about the question. If they could find something longer, he could measure it with his Skwak pad and then use it to measure the rest of the triangle side.

"Go look for a straight tree branch," Marbles told his girlfriend, "I'll keep measuring and recording."

For about 45 minutes Ada searched for a long enough branch, but none of them were completely straight. But then she ran across something that nearly made her scream again. It was another dead cyborg.

"Oh dear," Ada said repulsed by the sight, "This is going to be us if we don't do something soon."

Then the idea came to her mind. It was disgusting, but they would just have to.

Location: Cyber University:

"That's one of the most life-like sculptures I have ever seen," Antoine said as he and Melissa came across a clay sculpture of the school's president.

"Indeed it is," Melissa agreed, "Not many cyborgs can make a sculpture look so close to the real thing."

Antoine smiled and they continued walking through the exhibit until a painting caught his eye.

"Well that's a rather interesting painting," he said pointing to it.

Melissa turned to where he was staring. The painting was titled Gateway to Another Dimension and depicted one of the many black holes in Cyberspace. It was like her portals, only this painting was dark and intimidating as opposed to the fairy-like pinkness of her portal.

"They have indeed speculated that black holes may lead to another dimension," Melissa pointed out.

"Yes," Antoine agreed, "If only there was a way to find out without the risk of never returning."

Melissa was silent a moment, wondering if it was safe to tell him about her portal experiments. He already knew her biggest secret, after all... No, not yet. At least not all of it.

"There might be a way actually," she said simply.

Just then Melissa's cyberphone rang, the caller ID reading Archimedes. Normally she would've turned off the volume. But something told the eighteen-year-old cyborg that this call needed to be answered, a sort of intuition that had never been wrong before.

"Would you excuse me, Antoine?" Melissa asked feeling rather embarrassed, "I need to take this call."

Antoine nodded, feeling secretly disappointed from assuming this Archimedes man was her boyfriend.

"Hello Archimedes" she said answering the call, "Is something wrong?"

"I don't know Melissa," the seventeen-year-old answered on the other line, "I came back from Poddleville a couple of hours ago and Marbles wasn't here. At first I thought he was just out with friends, but after an hour I called him to ask him something and my cyberphone said the number was outta reach. Then I called Ada to see if she knew where he was and the same thing happened. So I decided to visit her in person."

"And?" Melissa asked, beginning to worry.

"Her roommate hasn't seen her since she left for her date with Marbles!"

"WHAT?!" Melissa exclaimed into the phone, causing Antoine to now worry also, even though he didn't yet know what for.

"And she says that she's been unable to call Ada," Archimedes added.

"Oh my gosh, Archimedes!" Melissa said trying not to make everyone at the art exhibit hear her, "What if they're hurt?! Or worse, what if they're..."

"I know," Archimedes said over the phone, "That's why I called you Melissa. We can't waste any time. We need your portals."

"Alright," Melissa said, "I'm at the art exhibit right now and I'll leave immediately. Just go ahead and I'll meet you there."

Melissa hung up her end of the line and turned to Antoine.

"Is everything okay Melissa?" Antoine asked.

"My brother and his girlfriend are missing," Melissa answered in a shaking voice, "That was just his roommate. He can't find him or contact him. I'm very sorry Antoine, but I have to go now."

"Wait Melissa," he said grabbing her arm as she walked away, "Let me help you."

"Antoine I appreciate your concern but-"

"Please."

Melissa looked into his emerald-green eyes and could tell he was just as concerned as she was. And she knew that she would need all the help she could possibly get. However this would mean telling her secret about portals. Still...

"Alright," Melissa sighed, "But please hold any questions for later."

Antoine nodded in agreement and the two walked quickly out of the art exhibit and over to Melissa's bike.

Location: Ann Arky's Triangle of Doom:

"Three hundred," Marbles sighed as he recorded the number in his notebook.

It had been two and a half hours since he sent Ada off to find a tree branch. He hoped she wasn't lost. That was the last thing that needed to happen to the two of them now. Just then he heard his name being called out by a feminine voice. He turned around to see a heavily breathing Ada dragging the body of a dead cyborg.

"Ada what in Cyberspace do you think you are-"

"I know its crazy and disgusting Marbles," Ada interrupted, "But its the best we've got. This woman must be at least five feet tall. We can use her body to measure with."

Marbles cringed as he stared at the female cyborg's corpse. She couldn't have been dead for more than about half a week, for all her features were still discernible. In fact, she actually looked very familiar.

"Alright let me measure her," he said, swallowing his disgust as he marked a line where he'd left off and picked his skwak up from the ground. Using the device, he was able to find her height to be exactly five cyber-feet.

"Five cyber-feet tall exactly," Marbles announced, "That means we can get this done five times as fast."

With that he gave Ada the notebook and he placed the body in a straight line with her feet touching the line which marked where Marbles had left off.

"Three hundred five cyber-feet," Marbles said to Ada.

"Now we're sure to be done with this side of the triangle by sunset," she said as she wrote a tally, "Just as long as it isn't another seven thousand cyber-feet."