The soft padding of fingers on nano-board filled the dark room.  A silvery glow laminated the tiered face of Jeremie. A wisp of white-gold hair hovered above one of his eyes, taunting him. But in his daze Jeremie stayed oblivious of the annoyance.  Boxes and words fluttered at daunting speeds around the bio-screens. Eyes moving in hypnotically from corner to corner Jeremie took it all in. Amid the mass of swarming data a Kari appeared.

“What ch’ ya doing, Jeremie?” Jeremie looked over from all the other boxes as they slowed to a halt. There was something oddly solicitous about the way the deep blue eyed girl had asked the question. Jeremie called her out “Let me guess, we have party crashers?” Kari nodded, her dark red hair swaying and bobbed in the digital display. Turning to another screen Jeremie began to tap on the nano-board again.

“Now what are you doing?” Without turning Jeremie replied, “Hacking the mobile network.”

“Why?” Looking back at Kari Jeremie smiled, sparkles of youth faintly visible. The jagged canyons and valleys that had lined Jeremie’s face for so long were fading. What were once fold upon fold of skin had lessened into deep scrunches, the spine web of deep shadowy gorges had been filled in to form dry riverbeds of old skin. A smile had replaced the old worn grimace, and streaks of gold were beginning to coat over the silver. In a miracle Jeremie was aging in reverse.  “Why? Because this way I don’t have to leave and go find them, but mostly it’s because this is more fun.”

After a few more seconds of hacking four greetings slipped through the speakers, then a moment passed and chaos broke loose. “Erin, why are you calling me?” “Calling you, why are you two calling me?” “I’m not even going to ask.” “Don’t kill me for answering the phone”

A second’s rest and Grant spoke up, “Professor?” Jeremie grinned sheepishly, it appeared he had been found out. He carefully formulated his word, not for his sake but for Erin’s, “Yes?” Any further conversation was blocked out by Randy, “Teach, you have got to give me her number.”

“Kralliar, if you even think about the thought of calling me you will be waking up in the hospital, with so many drugs in you, you’ll have trouble lifting your finger.”

Jeremie, sensing the doom that had dropped over the conversation, cut to the chase, “I need some pest control, any volunteers?”

Erin quickly responded, “Oh, pick me, pick me!” Aside from Erin’s enthusiasm it was difficult to get any further volunteers. Grace was unavailable to due to a swim meet, and Randy was occupied with an out of town Sparing tournament.

“As much as I love eating this sludge they call food, I suppose I will join Erin on this escaped.” Grant reluctantly caved. Several faint mechanical clicks flickered through the speakers as the four flipped of their mobiles.  Jeremie glanced over at Kari, who had questions sparkling in her sapphire blue eyes.

“I don’t think I can be an objective judge here, but they’re not very normal are they?” A faint smile spilled across Jeremie’s face, twinkles of mirth shined through his dark eyes. Shaking he head, “No their not very normal at all. But the saddest part of it is that most of humanity isn’t very normal either.”

Several minuets latter the motion sensitive cameras picked up two children walking through the decrepit gate way to the factory. One of the figures was short wherein an orange coat that hung down almost to his knees.  The other was tall, coal black hair crested his head. He was clad in a camouflage T-shirt and tattered old jeans. The unlikely pair hopped onto a slab of cement that sloped down to the subterranean floor. After slipping and sliding down they came to the opal white Beaming Pad.

Two Flashes light up the surrounding land in a brilliant starry blue. The desert was cold dark and desolate.  A rolling horizon separated the glittering sand from the glowing violet sky. The digital night was as silent as a tomb.  As Grant looked around his visor darkened, a grid work of green divided his sight. From above a voice echoed, “Your target is about half a kilometer south of you.”

Grant swung around to face south and stopped, Erin who had been digitized facing in that direction stood gaping at the same thing. An impossibly large pyramid shattered the sky, to see the top of the monolith was nigh impossible. Erin broke the trance, “You mean we’ve got to walk around THAT thing! That would take months!”

Lights flickering on the inside of his visor, Grant coolly contradicted Erin, “It is at least half a Kilometers tall, there is no way it has a base less than a kilometer. That means our query is hiding inside it.”

Erin stood still gazing at the structure for a second, then blinked. The silky hairs that covered him quivered slightly, conveying confusion, “Grant, can find a door anywhere?” And he was right, from their vantage the pyramid was smooth, not a wrinkle or crease stained its glassy surface, and they were within a hundred yards of its grandiose base. Grant began to walk toward the silvery structure, snapping for the third time from his trance, Erin soon followed. Seconds later they stood at the edge of the pyramid, a faint white glow emanated from its surface. Small streaks of light moved like whirligigs around on the building. Hypnotized by the spiraling lights Erin reached out to touch the giant.

The lights swarmed to his fingers coalescing in a bright pool beneath his wide spread hands. Erin jumped back from the light. A faint hum filled the air as the pool of light began to spread.  As the light reach about seven feet above the pyramids base if began to fade. The fading light reviled a new gap into the center of the pyramid. The doorway lead to no hall, in fact only the darkness showed that there was actually any hole there.

A white light flickered around Grant’s mechanical gloved hand, forming into a small pistol like apparatuses. The si-fi weapon was lifted to a firing position and Grant stepped through the gateway. Immediately he was swallowed by the darkness. After a second he put his head back out, “Come on Shorty.”

Crossing his arms and grumbling Erin followed. As he passed through the dark barrier an electric shiver passed through his body. Then icy shock slammed into his head, the shock of the pyramid had been one thing, the shock of getting slapped by Grace, quite another, but this was incredibly different. This was an obvious recognition of how far from earth Terra Machina was. A tall, incredibly thin spire stood in the very center of the massive room. A stair step base led up to several arches to the inner part of the tower. The tower was capped by a larger terrace, a small yellow orb above that. It was un unworldly sight.

“That is a tower, an access point to all of the computers functions, and to the controlling powers of the earth.” Jeremie sounded like he was going to say more, but was cut off by an electric buzz. In a fraction of a second a blast rocked the digital world. As the afterglow faded Erin, who lay on the ground shaken from the blast, saw Grant on kneeling on the ground. One arm was raised over his head, shielding him, from one of the plates on his arm a glowing hexagonal energy shield covered him. From the ripples rocking the shield it was apparent that the digital blast had hit Grants protection. Looking beyond Grant, Erin saw something else. A slim diamond shaped head, crystalline eyes reflecting the light of the tower, between the eyes was a small crimson insignia, but Erin was to far way to see what it was, but he was able the shout, “Zpider!”

Grant whipped around to where Erin had pointed as he screamed. Quickly raising his gun he fired, and missed. The machiniod creature was already thin the dimly light air, its fleshing limbs trailing behind it. Erin tried to concentrate to bring up some mini-drones, but the creature fired again. The trail of scarlet light slammed in-between Erin and the bio-suited boy. Both were thrown against the hard digital wall. Grant fired blindly, bolts of blue light ripping around the Zpider. The creature, unharmed by the poorly aimed shots, came down of the floor hard. The jolt gave Grant enough time to send another barrage of shots at the creature.  Several of them hit this time, but to little effect. Grant relizing that the pistil wasn’t strong enough disintegrated it.

Muttering, “digitize” a device wrapped itself around Grant’s arm. The blaster had two extremities that lay parallel to each other, three cylinders attached at about elbow length, and strip of flashing lights on its underside.  Pointing his weapon incased arm at the creature, Grant fired. A bolt of blue white light flew out of the firing gap. But never found a target, the Zpider had jumped high in the air again. The underbelly of the creature was just as armored as the rest of it, plate upon plate of white steel covered any weakness.  Grant tried to aim again, but was to slow, the digital beast slammed into the digital warrior.

If the Zpider hadn’t been trying to kill Grant it might have been a comical sight, a giant quadruped, half horrible stretched flesh- half cybernetic spider thing, crushing a teenage boy clad in a bio-suit, however it wasn’t comical, and it was about to get far worse.  As the digital beast jumped off of the boy a streak of red light rushed at them from the other side of the vast dark room.

“Two!? TWO! There are TWO of them. We’re getting murdered by one and there is another one!” Erin’s rant was cut off by the subsequent explosion. As he picked himself up off the ground Grant decided to go nuts with his blaster. The shower of green blasts slashed through the dark, one even managed to hit the nearest Zpider. The creature was knocked into the air spinning uncontrollably. When it slammed on its back into the ground Erin finally got a wave of mini-drones to materialize. The orange light arched around, hitting its target in multiple directions.

The Zpider couldn’t hold itself together after that. With an electric crack the dreadful creature disintegrated into a thousand packets of data. The eventful demise of the Zpider ruffled Erin’s sleek fur, “Oh, Yeah! 10 points! Who’s aw—“

Erin, who was getting really tiered of his rants getting cut off, was hit in the chest with a bold of digital energy. The explosion sent him flying backward, utterly defeated he rolled limply into the corner of the pyramid, where the roof met the ground. And he lay there, unmoving, limp, and dead looking. Only the information on his visor told Grant that the werepuppy was still alive.

Visor alight with informational displays Grant found his next target, quickly he replaced his blaster with a sniper like weapon. Raising it he fired, his visor replaced any need for a scope. Seconds later a blue- white flash signaled the demise of a second Zpider. “Headshot.”

Targets that weren’t jumping around, and didn’t have prior warning were defiantly easier to hit. “Grant you need to get Erin into that tower, now.” The voice from the sky wasn’t effected at all by the thick walls of the pyramid. But the urgency conveyed was imposable not to hear. Bending down Grand pulled one of Erin’s furry arms over his shoulder. He began the slog toward the tower at a quick but burdened pace.

A hundred feet to go and the glow from the tower was an enveloping light. The stairs proved more difficult for the quickly tiring boy.  Stepping over the last mettle stone step Grant threw himself through the arch into the tower. As he lay on the floor a small girl appeared before him. Deep, mystic red hair and brilliant blue eyes, Kari was a sight for sore eyes. But not a voice for sore ears, “You guys look pretty beat up.”

“Shut up.” The groan was almost a gowl, Grant’s tired face was contorted into a scowl.

“Don’t worry, Jeremie says the tower should restore enough energy for you to survive the materialization.”

“How long will that take?”

“An hour?”

The following day was not the most pleasant for the digital worriers; they were tired, sore, and all together grumpy. Grace and Randy’s constant prodding for the humiliating story didn’t help either. Nor did Chi’s gleeful cackles at seeing Erin to tiered to ruin her life.

***

The young man was nearly crumbling as he stood in front of the door. When a hand was placed on his shoulder he nearly exploded with fright. John looked at the wimp of an ‘professor’, sighing he asked the pile of jelly, “Why are you so scared? I mean it’s not like she will kill you, maybe extract or brain for experiments, but not kill you.”

John had to chuckle as his companion shrunk even lower into the floor. Grinning slightly, John turned and pressed his hand against the panel next to the door. After a second the hunk of mettle slid aside admitting them into the room. John walked in not failing to notice the onyx cloak that lay discarded on a table, this would be interesting.

From the room came a feminine voice, “Oh, John! How very kind of you to visit me.”

John sorted, reaching back he pulled his companion in, “Not like I had much of a choice, getting you miffed would not be in my best self interest. By the way I brought this little guy. Say hello Herb.”