Sector Avi had been hit, luckily, far from the residential area. The Avi ground zero had been west of the Sound Archives, but David could see that the roof there was caving in. The Industrial Sector had a huge, gaping crater in it. The park had a smaller one. But the Central Sector, around the Principal Office, had been hit too. Not the Council or the Police or Fire HQ, or the P.O. itself. It appeared to be west of the P.O.
Nada paled. "Dear merciful heavens," she whispered.
"What the hell happened?" David asked.
Naught blinked his glassy eyes. "Hey, what's going on? What's down there?"
"Be glad that you can't see it, buddy," David replied.
"Where should we go?" Nada asked.
"The Hacking Parlor," David replied without hesitation. "From there, we can find your sibs and Quinn, see if they're all right."
Quinn groaned as he felt small pieces of plaster raining on the side of his head. He snapped to full alertness and gave a yell. He rolled away and brushed the stuff out of his short-cropped hair. He pushed himself up, grunting at the deadweight of his legs, and looked around.
Hostan was getting up himself, and Mark was trying to push his desk away to free his legs. Hostan went over to him and strained against the desk.
"It's too heavy!" Hostan said. He reached for the intercom on the desk and smacked it. Red and Yellow immediately entered. Hostan indicated for them to get to work helping. So the two cops stepped over Quinn to help Mark.
"Yeah, thanks, I'll just get up myself," Quinn said loud enough for them to hear, but they ignored him. He grunted and turned himself over and G.I.-crawled to his hoverchair. It took him a while to get there. He was used to moving his body enough to get into his chair, but no more. Crawling with his useless legs was not something he was used to. He grabbed the chair and slowly pulled himself up it. When he was high enough to swing his legs into the chair, he did so. Then he twisted himself around and sat down. Grunting, Quinn bent at the waist to untwist his legs and click the brace into the chair again.
Hostan looked over at him briefly. "You got anything on that chair that can help us pull Mr. Mark free?"
"If I did," Quinn replied, "I would be using it already."
Red looked at him with a scowl. "Why would he care about what happens to us?"
"Yeah," Yellow chimed in. "Maybe he's the one who did all this in the first place!"
Quinn glared at them. "Look, I may not like our Government, but Lord knows, it's the best one we have." Then he smirked-without-smiling again. "Rather, it's the only one we have."
"You're a laugh riot," Red scowled.
"Just shut up and get back to work," Quinn said as he skimmed over to the windows. He assessed the damage. Whatever else happened, the Resonate would be a federal disaster area within--well, whenever the World Council decided to put red tape and bureaucracy aside and do something. He frowned. He'd been doing that a lot lately.
There was a cry of triumph from the desk. Quinn didn't turn. He was too busy trying not to cry as he saw the devastation across the system. Al Mark joined him at the window. "Dear Lord," the command.com said.
"I'll second that," Quinn replied.
"Who do you think did this?" Mark asked.
Quinn shrugged. "Could be anybody. Hate group, terrorists, virus." Then he scowled. "Probably virus."
"The Wolf?" Mark asked.
"Probably Lean Il Lupe, yes," Quinn said. "Is there anyway to tell if he came in-system?"
Hostan scoffed. "Of course. We have scanners that keep track of this sort of thing."
Quinn peered at him. "It didn't work when he arrived as Andrew Ginole, did it?"
Hostan blinked.
Hostan and Mark stormed into the 'command center' of the P.O. It was apparently modeled after the Mainframe P.O. during the time of the Heroes, but was, of course, much larger. Mark stepped up to the command console. "Damage report!" he barked.
"Reports coming in from all over the system!" a human called from across the room. "Damage on all levels--Surface, Mid-Level, and Depths! It appears to be concentrated to the Surface!"
"What the hell was it?" Hostan demanded of the Police rep at his console.
"Apparently some kind of attack, sir," the policeman informed him. "Explosives of massive yield." He shook his head. "We can't tell what kind of explosive it was yet."
"Johnson!" Mark called. "Run a system scan for any viral signs."
"Viruses, sir?" Johnson replied as he initiated the scan. "Why would any virus come here?"
"Trust me," Quinn muttered under his breath, "they would."
Johnson shook his head. "Sorry, sir," he told Mark, "but a lot of our scanners are down due to the explosions. It will take two hours to complete a system-wide scan."
Hostan looked at Quinn. "You think Il Lupe can hide from the scanners?"
Quinn considered, then skimmed over to Johnson's console. "How will the scanners work in their damaged state?"
"Sector-by-sector scan, level-by-level," Johnson replied.
Quinn nodded. "Then Il Lupe can easily outrun the scanners. He can just put himself in an adjacent sector when the scanners go by, then slip back in once they pass." He shook his head. "Pretty damn clever."
Johnson looked at Hostan. "Who's this guy, Chief?"
"Quinn Rentack."
Johnson's eyes widened. "That demagogue from the news-sheets?" He scowled at Quinn. "Why the hell did you bring him here?"
"Because Mr. Rentack has had more experience dealing with virals than any of us have," Hostan replied.
"I just hope my friends were able to get away from any of the ground zeroes," Quinn said.
"Ow."
Zilch grunted as a small piece of masonry caromed off his head. He braced his hands against the debris pinning his legs and shoved again. It might as well have been a giant steamer ship. It wasn't going anywhere. Zilch blinked and wiped his hands across his tinted goggles. They were dusty from the explosion, but thankfully, not damaged. He felt a bit of panic. Gangrene would set in if he didn't free his legs soon.
There wasn't much pain, just extreme discomfort from the debris sitting on his legs. He looked around for his bike, but it hovered up in the air, out of reach, and his icon--with which he could summon it--was on his belt, pinned beneath the debris.
Lean was nearby, his arms pinned by his sides by the equally large chunk of debris on his chest. His legs kicked and his hands clenched, but the position was so awkward, Lean would never be able to move it without help. Rollo and Tomasi were somewhere on the opposite side of a wall of masonry.
A wolf-like howl came from Lean's direction. Energy crackled around his hands and Lean placed them against the debris on his chest. Lightning fired, and the debris exploded in dust and masonry-shrapnel. Lean sat up, then stood up. His cane was gone. Lean shrugged and held out his hand. A living lightning bolt quivered in his hand, then hardened into an exact duplicate of his black and silver cane.
"Much better," Lean remarked. He turned to Zilch. "Well, this is an unexpected turnabout."
"Why'd you do this, Lean?" Zilch grunted, straining against the debris on his legs again.
The virus blinked. "Me? Why would I do something like this? I want to take over the Metaverse with as little damage as possible. Besides, despite its occupants, I like the Resonate. I wouldn't blow it up."
"Right," Zilch said. "And I've got a bridge in Brooklyn that I wanna sell to you."
"I'm serious!" Lean snapped. "The only reason I came here was because I found a hidden portal in the Negacrag that led here! It was van der Waals!"
Now Zilch blinked. "That psycho doctor that did that stuff to Quinn and Naught?"
"The same."
Zilch roared and shoved against the debris all the harder, but the adrenaline surge did nothing. He panted as he rested for another try. He looked at Lean. "You could help."
"I know." He turned to the wall of debris blocking his goons and fired off a bolt of lightning. The wall crumbled and Rollo and Tomasi--still in disguise--stepped through. "Boys, take off the disguises--our cover has been blown."
Tomasi grunted and reached behind him to his hidden icon and tapped it. His form shimmered and the dye in his hair disappeared. He discarded the loose shirt covering his tank top. Rollo looked at his brother, blinked, then did the same. The beard fell off and the dye in his hair disappeared. He left the loose shirt on.
"Boys, help Mr. Aught here out," Lean said.
"That User-lover?" Tomasi asked. Lean raised his cane and zapped him briefly. "Yeow! All right!"
The elder Exley brother smacked the younger and they went to the sides of the debris. They spat into their palms, rubbed their hands together, then braced themselves. Tomasi raised one hand, which was mirrored by Rollo. They snapped their fingers twice, then grunted and slowly lifted the debris off Zilch's legs. Zilch pulled them out and scrambled back. The Exleys dropped the debris and panted from the exertion.
Lean looked up into the still-dusty air. "Damn. Somebody really did a number with that bomb."
Zilch stood and tapped his icon. His bike lowered enough for him to climb into the seat. He swiveled the cannon around. "You know, I could delete you right now."
Lean turned and blinked. The Exleys tensed.
Zilch switched off the cannon. "But I'm not gonna. You helped me out, so I'll let you compile for a little while longer."
Lean smiled. "A truce then."
Zilch nodded. "Until we get out of here, that is."
Nil and Void backed against the wall of the public terminal booth in the Sound Archives and nodded at each other. They charged the piece of ceiling tile blocking the door and hit it with their shoulders. It tilted up, but fell back against the booth again. The twins sighed.
"Gotta hit it harder!" Void said.
Nil rubbed his shoulder. "Yeah, but my shoulder's killing me!"
"Would you rather starve?" Void asked.
Nil nodded. "Right! Again!"
The twins backed against the wall and charged again. This time when the tile tilted up, it continued and crashed against the floor. Nil sighed thankfully and stepped out of the booth. Void pocketed the sound file they had purchased. The entrance had been blocked by debris from both the outside and inside, and people were coming around from the explosion as they watched.
They both took out their hoverboards and went over to the nearest victim, a woman. They helped her up, then Nil scanned her for injuries. "You'll be okay, ma'am," he said. "Just a minor shock to the head."
She nodded shakily, and then the twins went to the next person. Soon, they were all gathered together in a group. "What happened?" a male sprite asked.
"We don't know," Nil admitted. "But we saw a virus just before the explosion. Might be terrorists."
"But why here?" wailed a woman from the back. "This is the Resonate System! It's supposed to be the safest system in the Metaverse!"
Void shrugged. "Maybe that's why they hit us. Because of that sentiment."
"Whatever the case," Nil said, "we have to find some way to get out of this building."
"What about that way?" asked a little kid, pointing up.
They looked. The explosion had knocked portions of the ceiling out, and one such hole was large enough for several people to get through. Nil and Void looked at each other. "It could work," they said in unison.
Niente, for her part, was in the air at the time of the explosions, hovering over the Downtown District on her hoverbike. When the first explosion had ripped through Sector Avi, she had turned to face it, only to be caught by surprise as other explosions hit each of the other major sectors of the Resonate System Surface level.
And when the last bomb went off near the Principal Office, Niente's thoughts went back to the call from Quinn. Listen, it looks like Police Chief Hostan and Dot-Com Mark want to talk to me. I'll probably be a few hours, Quinn had said. Al Mark always met people in his office. He rarely left the Central Sector at all. That meant that Quinn was in the Principal Office at the time of the explosions.
Niente blanched and whipped her bike around, heading for the P.O. as fast as her bike could go.
DaVinci tried the door to the Hacking Parlor. It wouldn't open. He frowned. It was probably related to the lack of power in their part of Sector Avi. He turned to Nada. "Looks like we'll have to try percussive maintenance."
"Right," Nada said. She helped Naught stand against the wall while she and DaVinci braced themselves in front of the door. DaVinci held up a hand and counted--one, two, three! On three, they both kicked as hard as they could. The door gave a harsh buzzing sound and grudgingly slid open. Nada went back to her brother and helped him inside the Parlor and sat him down at the table.
DaVinci sat down in one of the chairs and tapped his faux icon. With a beep, a keyboard and a vid-window appeared. The Renaissance Hacker patched himself into the Resonate's systems and did a quick diagnostic.
"Every sector on the Surface Level was hit," DaVinci reported. "Collateral damage to the Mid-Level areas. Looks like the Depths managed to ride this out."
Nada, by this point, had already tapped out her computer as well. She tapped her icon again and her appearance changed, slightly. Her red and gray outfit that she had been wearing that morning during the talk with Orion was replaced by a sleek black jumpsuit with the arms cut off. She almost resembled some of the pictures of the famous Dot Matrix, during the war with the virus Megabyte. Surf patched herself into the PID scanners-which were undamaged by the bombs-and initiated a check for her siblings.
"Nil and Void are here in Sector Avi--the Archives!" she exclaimed. "Zilch is west of there--oh, sweet Lord. He was near ground zero."
DaVinci looked at her, his sunglasses glinting with green light. "Surf, focus. Get through it, tell me where the others are, then we can go help them."
Surf blinked away tears and nodded. "Yes. Um, Blank and Zip are at their school-probably got in trouble again, that's why they stayed late. But their school was in Sector D-Nine, Mid-Level. Could be collateral damage."
DaVinci nodded. "Right. What about Niente and Quinn?"
Surf tapped more keys. "Niente's over the Central Sector. She's headed for the Principal Office. Thank the Lord she's all right. Quinn's hoverchair-locator is in the P.O. Hmm, I wonder why."
"His column," DaVinci said. "Al Mark and Cal Hostan probably wanted to talk to him."
Surf nodded. "Right. So who should we go to first?"
"Zilch," DaVinci replied. "If he was near the Avi ground zero, he could be in trouble."
"Listen, Mr. Aught," Lean said as he strode through the wreckage west of the Sound Archives, "I am willing to live and let live about your moves against me." He stepped aside as a piece of masonry fell from above. "I mean, despite your participation in my first defeat eight months ago, that was before my bitmap was deleted. I'm trying to redesign myself."
"If it were up to me," Zilch rumbled, "I'd redesign you very small and very squishable." He brushed dust out of his bangs. "But that's just me. For now, yeah, I'm willing to let you compile a while longer."
"You've said that before," Lean remarked. "Frankly, you're right. Fighting right now will get us nowhere. I am going to find out who was behind these explosions."
"Good idea," Zilch said.
"Boss, can we pound this guy into a pulp?" Tomasi asked. "I don't like his face."
Zilch responded by whipping around and driving a fist into the goon's face. Tomasi blinked, then exhaled. Some blood trickled out of his mouth and so did some teeth. Zilch smirked. "S'funny. I don't like your face either. That's why I rearranged some of it for you."
Rollo looked ready to avenge his brother, but Lean raised his cane. Electricity crackled. "Don't start anything, boys. Now isn't the time. You'll get a focus for your rage soon enough."
They found a group of people trapped under a beam. Zilch moved to help, then stopped. He looked at Lean. "You gonna help?"
The virus looked at him for a moment, then sighed. "All right. I'll do the Good Samaritan thing."
"Sir," Johnson said, "we have somebody outside the Principal Office. Somebody on a hoverbike."
Quinn blinked. "What's that? Can we see?" He skimmed over to Johnson's console.
"Sure, just a second." Johnson tapped a few controls and a vid-window opened. A female sprite with long black hair and dark gray skin flew by on a hoverbike. Quinn blinked.
"Niente? What's she doing here?" He looked at Johnson. "Can I talk to her?" Johnson obliged by tapping another control. Quinn spoke: "Niente?"
She stopped and looked at the vid-window on her end. "Quinn? You okay?"
"As well as can be expected," Quinn replied. "You were worried about me?"
"Of course!" Niente said. "Your our friend. So those bureaucrats didn't do anything to you?"
"Nah," Quinn said. "Just tried to bruise my ego. Didn't work that much."
"Oh," Niente said. She appeared relieved. "Okay."
"Why don't you go check on the kids?" Quinn asked. "Blank and Zip's school was near the D-Nine ground zero, Mid-Level."
"Right," Niente said. "I'll do that. Take care, Quinn."
"You too, Niente," he replied. She nodded and whipped her bike around and sped off. Quinn closed the vid-window. He turned to see everyone in the command center looking at him. He scowled. "What're you looking at?"
In the Mid-Level of Sector D-Nine, Blank and Zip huddled with the other troublesome kids at their school. The lights were flickering on and off. The ceiling was considerably lower than it had been, and a gaping hole filled the floor.
There was no question that Miss Sangborn was dead. A beam had pinned her to the desk. She hadn't moved since then. Several of the kids were crying, out of grief or fear or both. Blank and Zip just squeezed each other tighter and hoped someone would come rescue them.
Zilch, Rollo, and Tomasi grunted from exertion as they held a massive beam up. Lean was pulling people out from underneath and generally being helpful for a change. "Hurry up, man!" Zilch said. "I can't keep this up for much longer!"
There was an insistent beeping from somewhere in Zilch's coat. The biker blinked and looked down at his belt. "Ah, crap. My comm. Lean! Answer it for me, will ya?"
Lean blinked and then plucked the comm from Zilch's belt. He slipped it open and answered. "Hello?"
"Lean?! What the hell have you done to Zilch?!" came DaVinci's voice.
Lean smirked, then turned to Zilch. "It's for you." He held it up to Zilch, who spoke into it.
"Yeah, D, is that you?"
"Zilch! Thank God! What has Lean done to you?"
"Nothing, actually," the biker replied. "We were both caught in the explosion, and he helped me get out of the rubble. (grunt) Right now, we're helping a group of tourists out. Can I call you back later?"
"You're trusting Lean? You sure he hasn't infected you?"
"Positive, D," Zilch assured him. "I'm keeping an eye on him. Trust me."
"All right," DaVinci said. "Catch you later."
The comm beeped and Lean closed it, replacing it on Zilch's belt. "Your friend was worried about you."
"Yeah," Zilch grunted. "That's David for you."
Niente plunged down into the Mid-Level of Sector D-Nine and weaved between buildings toward the school. She didn't have much time. She could already tell the school was in bad shape. From the looks of things, it would fall into the Depths soon, and if that happened, no one inside would survive.
She put her bike in safe mode and leapt onto the roof of the school. There was a hole from falling debris from the Surface, so she could get in that way. Niente lifted herself down to the floor inside and crept along as fast as she could toward Blank and Zip's class room.
"Blank! Zip!" she called.
Silence answered her. Then, faintly, she could hear: "Help us, Niente!"
She dashed that way. She reached a debris-blocked door. Niente just lowered her shoulder and rammed the pile from the side. With a terrific crash, the debris clattered down the hall and left the door free to open.
The building shook violently for a moment. Niente steadied herself against the wall. "Shit," she muttered. "The building's gonna fall."
She yanked the door open--pulling it off its hinges in the process--and stood in the threshold. "Kids?!" she called.
At once, a cluster of children began to call from the other side of the room. Niente blinked at the hole blocking the way. "Don't worry, kids!" she called. "I'll be right back!" She turned and dashed back the way she came, the kids screaming for help behind her.
One kid turned to Blank and Zip. "Your older sister left us here!"
Zip glared at him. "No she didn't! When she says she'll be back, she'll be back!"
Sure enough, in less than a minute, the doorway smashed open. Niente sat on her bike. She nudged it forward, over the hole, and said, "Hurry up! Climb across my bike, then run!"
Blank and Zip sent their friends first. Niente picked up the kids as they reached the handlebars and set them behind her, where they could climb across to the other side. Blank and Zip started for the front of the bike--
The building rocked as a piece of debris from above smashed into it.
The floor beneath Blank and Zip gave way. Niente lunged forward, trying to grab them as they started to fall, but for all of Niente's speed, she was a fraction of a second too late. Her younger siblings shrieked as they fell into the dark Depths of the Resonate System below.
"Nooooo!" Niente screamed.
She blinked once, then collapsed against the handlebars of her bike and sobbed.
Quinn had moved outside in front of the western entrance to the Principal Office and looked at the ground zero there. He glared at it hatefully. "Damn whoever did this. Damn them straight to hell."
He skimmed forward, then stopped. There was something a bit out of place on the ground. He bent forward to pick it up. It looked like an ordinary stylus pen. But there was something about it that seemed familiar. Not that it was identical to styli he'd seen before, but something about it.
A sudden flash of memory struck him. Phantom pains tingled in his legs. Quinn gasped and looked at the pen in horror. There was only one person who could have designed the technology. He recognized it now.
He knew who the bomber was.
Zilch, Lean, and Rollo and Tomasi descended into the Mid-Level of Sector Avi. Lean insisted. "The bomber is down this way, I'm sure of it," Lean said.
"Right," Zilch said. "Like you were sure about Dr. van der Waals."
Lean wolf-growled at him, but let it pass. "Make all the jokes you want, but remember, Mr. Aught, that once I've killed the bomber, you're next."
"You've got it backwards, Lean," Zilch said. "Once I've killed the bomber, you're next."
They pressed eastward. There weren't many people left in this area. The Mid-Level of Sector Avi was largely a commercial area, and it was past business hours. But there were three other people down there. As luck would have it, they encountered Zilch's group.
"Lean!" DaVinci roared, quick-drawing his pistol. Nada, still in Surf-garb, drew her own. Only Naught, still blind, didn't do anything.
"DaVinci!" Lean called mock-cheerfully. "What a pleasant surprise!"
"D, don't shoot him!" Zilch said. He stepped forward. "S'okay, D, I'm all right."
DaVinci looked the racer over. "You're not infected."
"You sound surprised," Zilch remarked.
"I was sure of it," DaVinci said. "But it's good to see you, buddy. Now move out of the way so I can shoot Lean."
"D, he got me out of the rubble," Zilch told him. "And we've both promised not to kill each other until we find the guy who did this to the Resonate."
Surf, the voice of reason, spoke up. "That sounds reasonable, DaVinci."
"I know that!" DaVinci snapped. "I'm loathe to trust Lean Il Lupe."
"The feeling's mutual, DaVinci," Lean said.
The argument continued for five minutes, before Zilch and Surf convinced DaVinci to bury the hatchet for the moment. He put his gun away, glared at Lean, then helped Naught stand upright. The hacker-sprite was having trouble standing again.
"Let's go," DaVinci said. "Lean, you lead."
The virus blinked. "Why me?"
"Because I don't trust you enough to have you behind me. Go!"
With some grumbling, the virus did so. He moved along, blasting rubble out of the way with his cane, but then he stopped and turned, scanning the vicinity. Rollo and Tomasi, sensing the storm signals, tensed. Zilch and the Flip Side Felons drew their weaponry. DaVinci stepped up next to Lean. "What is it?"
"Shhh!" Lean said. "Someone is close by."
"Good observation," a voice called.
Everyone tensed. The voice seemed to be coming from everywhere at once. It also had an accent to it.
"Vell, it's good to see all of you again. So nice to have ze opportunity to annihilate you again," the voice continued.
"I recognize that voice," Naught shivered.
"So do I," Tomasi said. "It's--"
The speaker finally stepped into view. He stood in the doorway of a ruined building. He wore a white lab coat. The man was approaching the end of middle-age, and his skin was pale. Clutched in his left arm were Blank and Zip, both squirming. The man held a compact laser pistol in his other hand. He smiled wanly.
"Van der Waals!" Lean screamed.