Data Wonderland: The Everyworld Project

[Jake]

Jake walked over to Kate and Greg, adjusting his wrist terminal "Okay, anyone know what happened?" Kate glanced over at Kate "Jake, take that boy and wait for us outside of the building..." Jake was puzzled "Why, did something bad happen that we dont know about?" "Damn it Derix, just do it!"

Jake jumped a bit, Kate was really angry about something, and he didn't want to test her patience "Alright! We're going...Come on David." Kate waited several minutes after Jake and David had left the room before glaring angrily at Greg "Are you out of your god damned mind! Those two boys could have died because of this! What would that young boy's family or guardians think if they found out he was dead? They could have pressed charges against you and I wouldn't blame them for doing so!"

Saber nodded and crossed his arms, looking around and seeing that the security programs had vanished, along with any traces of the spyware even being there "I guess we wait for her orders then...I wonder what's taking so long." "Hang on, I'll check...Hey Kate, is everything alri-" <Not now Baretta!> Baretta jumped and looked at Saber nervously "Looks like we'll be waiting a while, eheheh..." Saber sighed and shook his head "I was afraid of that...Alright then, we wait." He then looked over to Illusion man "These two are Baretta and Rotor, they're...friends of mine."

Gat looked over at Illusion Man as he was mocked "Just wait ya circus reject, I'll be sure to take you out first when I break free..."

[Deleted]

David didn't protest as he was ushered out of the room, but stopped outside the door and looked down towards the far door marked 'R&D' when he heard more faint screaming. After a few seconds he glanced over to Jake in time to see the netcop halfway down the hall. He quietly followed, but three quarters of the way down he stopped. "Jake, can I trust you to keep a secret? Even from the netcops?"

* * *

Another few minutes of searching revealed no sign of the infiltrator. Ada sighed and rubbed her eyes with one hand, convinced the avatar had escaped during the blackout. She turned around and headed back to the group in time to hear Gat's statement. "I sincerely doubt you would be able to do that before one of us deleted you, even if you somehow managed to escape." She glanced up to Saber. "Where's David? Is he alright?"

[Deleted]

Greg narrowed his eyes at Kate, "Officer, you cannot in all good conscience think that we were prepared for a hacker assault of this magnitude. The park is still in beta in what we thought was a closed off network, that confounded hacker must have figured out a backdoor of some kind."

Greg crossed his arms, "As for Jake and David, if it weren't for that horrid program closing us off completely from the program, I would have pulled them immediately from the park before there was even a chance of them being harmed."

Frank cleared his throat, "Ma'am? Perhaps it'd be best to figure out exactly what it was Fr3udm@n made off with. That way when the scumbag tries anything in the underground, our undercover operatives can identify it and blow the whistle."

------

"At least I don't have a CANNON for my shoulder!" Illusion Man stuck his tongue out at the rogue avi, "That is the weapon of a LOSER...and PLEBIAN!"

Rotor blinked, "He's gone bonkers, hasn't he?"

-------

Meanwhile in a darkened corner of forgotten 404 errors and lost domains, the creature that had retrieved the data from the theme park propelled itself with squidlike grace.

"J00 h4V3 D0N3 W3ll, mY cr34710N. 0uR 83N3f4C70R W1Ll 83 Pl34S3d W17 J00R w0Rk," A voice intoned from the darkness, distorted and foul, "N0W C0me, 7HerE 12 4N07hEr Wh0 W15hE2 70 Mee7 w17 U2."

The creature inclined its head and moved deeper into the shadows, soon lost in a sea of corrupted data.

[Jake]

Kate continued to glare at Greg. Though he was right, she was still pissed that Jake was put in a dangerous situation without her knowing about it right away. When Frank suggested an investigation, she huffed and crossed her arms "Fine. We'll be sending an investigation crew in the morning to look into this. A full examination will be needed for the entire R&D department, and any department that may be of importance depending on the result." She turned and began to exit the room "Jameson, you and Derix will be in charge of the investigation, I want no stone left unturned, understand?" With that, she opened the door and made her way towards the exit.

Saber glanced to Rotor blankly "He's been like that since I've met him, Rotor. He must have faulty programming." Cannon fire was soon heard from Gat's cannon, the shots exploding a foot from IM's feet "You're so lucky I can't aim higher, I'd blow ya to bits." Saber's blade met Gat's neck, pressing against it lightly "Care to try that again?" "Bite me!"

Baretta responded in Saber's place, since he was busy dealing with Gat's disorderly conduct "He and Jake both made it out alright, though we haven't heard from Jake yet about how their doing. Something must be going on in-" She was soon interrupted by Saber, who was hearing Jake's voice in his head, like a two way radio <Saber, you there?> Saber crossed his arms, grinning as he glanced at Baretta "Speak of the devil, that's him. Give me a bit." He pressed his index and middle fingers against the side of his helmet "I was wondering when you'd contact me, what's going on out there?" <I have no idea, me and David were sent out of the building. But Kate is definitely ticked off about something, any word on what?>

"We've noticed...'Fraid not Jake, Baretta tried but got cut off. My guess it has something to do with this whole incident. It's probably best to wait until she cools down, then ask her. We'll talk later, Saber out." He sighed, rubbing the back of his helmet with his free hand "Looks like this is gonna be a private matter for now, not even Jake knows about what's happening."

With business about inside the building finished, Jake closed his terminal, just as David was asking him a very odd question "A secret?"

=======================

Meanwhile, in S1G's hideout, just as he pulled out from Team Dream Logic's headquarters, his security alarms began to go haywire as all of his firewalls began to shatter almost every few seconds. As he sent high level security programs after the intruder, they were immediately reported as terminated. No doubt in a panicked state by now, his final firewall breached, his screen lit up with the appearance of a beastly looking avatar <You seem like a person who enjoys wreaking havoc onto society. How would you like to REALLY cause a riot among the masses?>[/b] Not even waiting for a response from S1G, the avatar continued <Call your avatar back, we need to have a little chat>

[Deleted]

David nodded. "Yeah. See, I might have a way to track down the avatar that escaped. But, see... uhm... it's not exactly legal and I really don't wanna get in trouble over it." He bowed slightly, looking up to Jake nervously with clasped hands. "So could you please not tell them how I found the avatar, if it works?"

* * *

Ada nodded. "Thank you. I need to go see him, unless you need me here to help guard this prick?" She punctuated her statement by stomping down hard on Gat's groin.

[Jake]

Gat's whole body tensed up as he felt his groin cave in slightly "HRK!" He was very silent after that, which made Saber blink a couple times "Well, we know what will shut him up now. I'm gonna go talk with Jake, see if there's been any changes. Let me know if anything changes on your end Baretta." "Same to you." Saber vanished from the game, transferring back to Jake's terminal. With Saber gone, Baretta glanced over to Ada "That was pretty harsh of you gal, make sure to do that again if this guy starts acting up again."

Saber appeared back in Jake's terminal, not too long after David suggested finding the mysterious avatar <I'm back Jake, did I miss anything?> Jake lited up his arm, looking at Saber oddly "Yeah, David claims he can find the avi that vanished, But he hasn't said how yet. You may want to listen in." He looked back over to David curiously "Alright David, I'm not one to keep secrets normally, but I guess I can make an exception this time. You seem pretty intent on keeping this quiet, so, I'll promise to do the same. Now let's hear it, how can you find that avatar?"

[Deleted]

David gave Jake a very nervous smile. "Okay, see, I kinda... sorta... hackedthenetcops'systemputaprogramatthehubtosort,block,andsendmeinformationandspreadtheiravatar-trackingsystemtoeveryserverinthecitysothatIcouldhaveaheads-upincaseIgotintroubleandsoIcouldtrackanyoneinthecityifIknewwhotheiravatarwasandcouldblockalertsImightcausefromgoingtothenetcopspleasedon'treportme!" He ended his statement by bowing to Jake again, hands clasped in front of him and looking straight down at the floor.

* * *

Ada's response was to turn her staff over so the top was pointing down before slamming the staff down with one arm right under Gat's abused lower regions. The impact created a web of cracks three feet across in the concrete. "Trust me, miss Barreta, I would be doing a lot worse to him already if you didn't need to interrogate him. He hurt my little boy."

[Jake]

Jake blinked when David shot out a winded, unclear explanation "Whoa there David. Let's take it from the top, but a bit slower this time."

[Deleted]

David slowly glanced back up to Jake. "I... I kinda... hacked the netcops' system, put a program at the hub to sort, block, and send me information and spread their avatar-tracking system to every server in the city so that I could have a heads-up in case I got in trouble and so I could track anyone in the city if I knew who their avatar was and could block alerts I might cause from going to the netcops. Please don't report me!" He bowed his head again.

[Jake]

Saber sighed and scratched his head, his armor uninstalled now <Well, I guess the cat's out of the bag then, if he's telling the truth. If he does have a network in HQ, then it's probably why he's so worried about telling us...> Jake crossed his arms, tilting his head curiously "Well, this is new...especially since ASCII and Digit (security avatars @ HQ) never noticed any hack attempts in the few years I've been with them."

Jake llowered his arms and pocketed them, looking David dead in the eye with a serious undertone in his voice "Alright David, if you can find it without getting caught, then do it. But you and I are going to have a long talk about this afterward, understand?"

[Deleted]

David nodded, then pushed a random button on his terminal while mentally sending a command to his surveillance spider sprite to contact him via the terminal. Almost immediately, the mildly disturbing technorganic face of the spider sprite appeared on the terminal's screen. "WhaT dO YoU deSiRe Of ME, my mAstEr?" "I need you to track an avatar that departed from the Team Dream Logic server some five minutes ago. It's a shapeshifter, so use arrival and departure times and locations rather than IDs. Understand?" "AS yOu WiSH mY MastER. it WIlL tAke TiME, tHoUGh." "Just follow him until he stops long enough to get his current location." "VeRY wEll."

The window closed and David slowly looked up to Jake. "Well, it's working on it. No telling when he'll catch up." The window opened up again and David looked down to it. "Yes?" "MaSTeR, tHe fLY Is jUmpiNG aROunD QuiTE a biT. DO noT eXpeCT a QUiCk tRAckiNg." "Understood. Keep at it." He glanced up to Jake. "Yeah, this could take a while..." He then braced himself for the talking-to.

[Jake]

As David worked on getting the 'program' working on tracking the runaway avatar, Jake had been sending silent messages to Saber via text [Saber, I want you to go back to the HQ databank, see what you can dig up on David's personal records. Get any and all data copied to my terminal in an anonymous zip file, and I'll get David's side of the story in the meantime.] [Alright Jake, I'll see what I can do. Go easy on the kid okay?] [Fine, let's just get this done.]

Saber vanished from Jake's terminal, who Jake promptly activated Saber's Cyber-bike program to reach HQ faster. With Saber on his way, Jake turned his attention to David "Okay...I'm sure you're going to want to keep this quiet, so I'm driving you home so we can talk in private. Let Ada know before we leave, and I'll tell Lieutenant Bale the same."

He sent Kate a quick text message, telling her he would be taking David home. Afterward, he escorted David to his Spider Bike, handing him a spare helmet that he keeps attached to the back of his seat for just such an occasion "Alright, where are we heading David?"

[Deleted]

David nodded and 'sent' Ada a message using the terminal. <Ada, Jake is driving me back to te apartment. Meet us there as soon as you can, okay?> <Understood David. I'll meet you there if Miss Baretta doesn't need me to keep an eye on this thug.> Message sent, he donned the offered helmet and plugged his terminal into the bike. After 'sending' the bike's navigation controls his address he unplugged the terminal and looked up to Jake. "My address is in the navigation controls, but do you mind if we make a quick stop by the arcade first? I need to pick something up really quick."

* * *

Ada glanced over to Baretta after receiving the message. "Do you need me to keep this cretin in line, miss, Baretta, was it? Because I just got a message from David asking me to meet him at home. Apparantly Jake is giving him a ride."

[Deleted]

S1G grinned in the light of his terminal at the creature before him, "Hmm...th4t s0unds l1k3 4n 1ntr1gu1ng pr0p0s1t10n...4ll0w m3. F4ust, 1'm r3c4ll1ng y0u, th3r3 1s y3t m0r3 t0 b3 d0n3 4t th3 h0m3 t3rm1n4l."

Deep within the cover of corrupted data and forgotten domains, Faust received the message and was back in the terminal, swirling chaotically around the stranger.

"OoH, a gUEst, iS IT?" The avatar whispered, "InvITED?"

S1G shrugged, "N0t 3x4ctly, but h1s c0m1ng w4s m0st f0rtu1t0us, pl34s3 1ntr0duc3 y0urs3lf, Mr..."

S1G let the question hang, allowing the avatar to answer for himself.

--------

Rotor shrugged, "I could handle the little bastard if you want. I'm the one got 'im pinned down, after all."

Ahem, Madams, if I may... The voice of Greg, slightly tired after the madness that had ensued, I think I might have a solution.

In the next instant, a full dozen of the security programs were ringing the rogue avi, truncheons raised threateningly.

Illusion Man's eyes darted to the programs around him and mimmicked their stance with his cane, looking like a pale and ridiculous imitation.

-------

Greg sighed and leaned back in his chair, he was ready for this day to end.

Sadly, it didn't appear that this was in the cards as a man in a sharp suit burst into the room with the countenance of a lord in a bar full of simple thugs.

"Mr. Matthews?" He asked in a cold, measured.

"Yes?" Greg sighed and took of his glasses, rubbing them with his shirt, "What's going on?"

"The executive board would like a word with you," The Man said simply, "Regarding this...lapse in security."

Greg opened his mouth to protest but closed it just as quickly, hanging his head in resignation, "Fine, Thomas, oversee the goings on here, and see about fixing IM's programming glitch so it doesn't interfere with the Trickster program any further."

"Yes sir," Thomas nodded, "Erm....good luck, sir."

"Thanks," Greg said, following the Man out of the room, "I believe I'll be needing it."

[Jake]

Jake nodded and got onto be bike "Alright then, hop on, and hold on tight." Once David was safely on the bike, Jake revved the engine and they rode off toward the arcade. ((Continue in Arcade thread))

Meanwhile, Kate decided to follow Greg and the man, whether they approved or not "If it's involving the incident that took place just now, I'm going to be joining this little discussion." She glanced back to Frank "Jameson, I'll leave you to question the scientists while I'm gone. Derix left already, so I'll leave you to observe them if they search for anything that may have been stolen. Wait for me outside of the entrance when you're finished." ((Continue in Team Dream Logic thread))

Baretta saw the security programs appear and holstered her guns "Well, it looks like we have enough backup now. You're okay to go back to your user, ma'am, Rotor and I can oversee things here."