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Walk.
Just keep walking.
One foot in front of the other, Dot. You can do this. Don’t think about the abductions. There’s Al’s now, neon sign glowing through the gloom of Level 31.
Level 31, where people have been disappearing. I should have used a zipboard. But it was such a nice cycle, and I don’t get out nearly enough. At least that’s what Bob and Enzo are always saying. I hadn’t remembered the news of the abductions until I reached the oppressive darkness of Level 31.
I try to suppress a shiver as the thought of something lurking in the shadows makes my skin crawl. I tell myself I’m just being paranoid, jumping at shadows, that the talk of something strange slinking about here in the bowels of Mainframe is all just wild fantasy. Imaginations run rampant. There has to be a logical explanation for the disappearances.
And yet, I can’t dismiss it as entirely as I’d like to. I can’t help but remember the incident with Hex and ‘Nullzilla’ all to well. Remember Mike’s claims that something came out of her looking glass and changed her. And I can’t forget Bob’s voice saying there were three signals after he split Gigabyte. Megabyte, Hex, and something else. The same something that came out of the mirror? And if so, is it still here in Mainframe, hiding undetected?
Lost in thought, I don’t hear it until it’s too late. A sound akin to fingernails on a chalkboard. A sound I’ll never forget...
When I awake,
I wish I hadn’t. I’m too tired to even open my eyes,
and given the circumstances, I’m almost grateful for that.
I can feel it drawing off my energy, A ring of pain encircling each of the tubes driven into my body. It hurts less if I hang here perfectly limp and it’s so hard to stay awake...
“Dot, hang on, honey. I’ll get you outta there.”
The next thing I know, I’m lying on the rubble strewn floor and a familiar face hovering above my own. “Mouse?” I ask weakly. “It’s horrible. It feeds off our energy to stay stable in this system.”
“Wait here. Ah’ll get the others out.”
“No, I’m okay. I’ll help.” Mouse helps me climb to my feet and together we set to work freeing the others who’d been taken by the web creature. A low rumbling begins to echo throughout the empty building and a knot settles in my stomach. It’s coming back.
“Run! Now!” I call to the blindly panicking Mainframers, trying to fight back the urge to panic myself.
“That way!” Mouse points them towards the door.
“Let’s go,” I say to her, my every nerve screaming at me to run. I don’t know if I’ve ever been this terrified in my life. Another part of me says I have been, but only once.
I knew this same terror as I watched the Twin City engulfed in a blinding flash of light, forever changing my life in the blink of an eye.
“No. You get out of here with them. Ah’ve got to stay.”
“What?” Is she insane? Doesn’t she know what it’ll do if it catches her?
“Ah’ve got to get proof that this thing exists.”
“Trust me, it exists,” I say. The rumbling grows louder and the two of us find our gazes transfixed on the large grate on the far wall. It’s coming...
The web creature bursts into the room and I’m scared stiff, unable to move as it reaches for me and drags me off in it’s iron grasp.
“Dot!” I see Bob zip into the room and my eyes lock on his own. He looks as terrified as I feel. Oh Bob...
“Now, Modem!”
A bright light springs to life, blinding me, and the web creature lets out a shriek. I feel it’s grip on me loosen, and suddenly I’m falling...right into Bob’s arms. “You all right?” He whispers. I nod. He sets me on my feet.
“You were right. It can’t stand the strong light,” a red headed binome I recognize as CGI special agent Data Nully says.
“I’m sure there’s a very scientific reason for it,” her partner, Fax Modem, replies.
“But we don’t know what it is.”
“Mouse, get Dot out of here! There’s a security team on the way.” I frown, almost ready to interject that I’m perfectly capable of getting out of this place by myself when Mouse cuts in.
“Ah think you’ll need a little more help than that, Guardian,” She starts to speak into some sort of device attached to her wrist. “Turbo, Ah’ve got visual conformation. Send help now.”
Did she say Turbo? But isn’t he...
“Who were you talking to?”
“The cavalry, sugah.”
“You were talking to Turbo?” I can see a sort of dread in Bob’s face and I wonder why he seems so upset about this...
“Ah’ve been working for Turbo.”
“You don’t understand what you’ve just done!” Bob cries. I’m beginning to get a very bad feeling about this.
“What do you mean? He’s sending help,” Mouse says, somehow missing the distress in Bob’s voice.
“Do you know what the Guardian protocol is for finding a web creature in a system like Mainframe?”
“They have no intention of savin’ us?”
“They have every intention of destroying us!” My heart sinks. “They’ve probably already planted a device,” he continues. “The only question is, where?”
“Hurry, Bob, we’re running low. We don’t have much time,” Nully says. She and Modem are still holding the web creature in check.
“What did the Guardians give you?” He demands of Mouse. I can hear the urgency in his voice and it gives me a feeling of dread. For the third time this cycle, I begin to think I may not live much longer.
“Only this communicator.”
Bob grabs the device from her wrist. “Glitch, probe.” His face falls and I know that this is bad. Very bad.
“Guardian, we can’t hold it for much longer.”
“In a couple of nanoseconds, it won’t make much of a difference. I’ve got to get this out of Mainframe!”
I watch in stunned silence as he zips out of the room.
“Bob!” Mouse’s voice breaks me out of my shocked state. The security team files in, but I hardly notice.
“No!” I take off after him, brushing past Mouse as she tries to stop me. I hear her and the two CGI agents following close behind me. I reach the surface in time to catch a glimpse of Bob high above us before an explosion rocks Mainframe to it’s very core. “Nooooooo!” I can’t even hear my own scream.
Then I see him emerge from the light of the giant tear that is pulsing high above Mainframe.
Bob zips closer, talking to someone, Phong I assume, over Glitch.
The ground begins to shake, and the web creature breaks the surface, racing towards the tear. Time slows as I realize what’s happening. My heart stops as the web creature slips from Mainframe, leaving a web portal looming over Mainframe, filling the sky with it’s ominous presence.
“No!” Bob cries. The look he gives me breaks my heart.
“It just broke free,” Modem says, as if in shock.
“We couldn’t stop it,” Nully adds.
“You see, Nully? The web is out there.”
“No, Modem. It’s here.”
Bob glances down at Glitch and says the words that send ice water through my veins, taking my breath away and filling me with dread. “This is it, Phong. Prepare for war.