Icarus, Electra and Phoenix are now at one of the most known web worlds of the entire net. Here, millions of users, chat, exchange pictures, news, messages and digital gifts. The high security virtual world appears in the form of a vast night club. The colossal virtual structure is divided into thousands of levels. Every level is almost unique, plays different kind of music and even has the look the visitors chose for it. Some are colorful with happy tunes playing out loud and some are dark, almost scary places.
It's a virtual world where everyone can have some fun while connected with friends from all around the world. Visitors share the same variety since most of them don't appear in their true world form but use a virtual avatar. So it's pretty common to see characters from movies, monsters and robots hanging out together. Simple hand drawn characters talk to animals standing on their back feet, while above almost anyone's head glowing messages from 'U R GAY' to 'Knowledge is Power' make it all looking even more colorful and bizarre.
In the center of the night club a huge round bar is serving small groups and lonely visitors. Programs called shots emulate the taste of actual drinks for a reasonable price. On the bar one can also find virtual terminals for users to communicate via text messages or search for friends and contacts in the vast web world. Every terminal is connected to a big transparent vibrating sphere that floats above the bar. Inside this sphere a few hundred thousands symbols, profile images and numbers are constantly moving, merging, some vanish and some new ones appear. The movement and activities of the web world users are monitored and projected into an ever moving, colorful, evolving piece of digital art. It's an eye catching spectacle and a welcome distraction for the web world visitors. Electra points to one of the terminals suggesting a member search.
Icarus is slowly walking between the crowd. He never liked such places and rarely visits them. He thinks that there is only one way to meet and hang out with friends and it definitely doesn't involve circuits, processors and an internet connection. Moreover you need to be logged when visiting such web worlds and it can be very easy for the Chocolate Fighters Group to trace him within a couple of seconds. He knows that and he only hopes it won't take them long to find Gray and make some short of contact. He is wrong.
"Can I buy you a drink?"
Icarus slowly turns towards the familiar voice. He sees a man in his mid forty's with gray hair and trimmed beard. A pair of small hawk eyes is in almost perfect fit with his aquiline nose. An evil, sardonic smile is painted on his thin lips. He looks very fit in his tight uniform. The man stands between two enforcement programs, known as MK, appearing with their famous impressive robotic form. Icarus throws them a calm look, from top to toe, before talking.
"Doctor Menos? Chocolate Fighters Group must be really mad at me to send you here in person. I'm flattered."
"It's my job Icarus. Do you think I enjoy running after scamps like you?"
"Such a kind, nice person. Do you have a profile here? I bet your friends list is full."
"Can we cut the crap Icarus? I don't know what you're up to but I'll soon find out. Give me your data now, and we'll split peacefully. It wouldn't be wise to fight me?"
MK units make a small step forward and fix their cold eyes on Icarus. People watching the scene, sense the trouble and take a secure distance from those involved. Electra slowly approaches Icarus and whispers with a worried voice.
"Should I panic now?"
Icarus turns his head; the famous yellow smiley appears on his face for a while.
"God, no? You'd better go to one of these terminals and start searching for our friend."
Doctor Menos seems to be losing his patience.
"What will it be Icarus? You choose."
"Well? Giving you my data means you'll have access to my personal info and my actual location. It also means you'll be able to copy and reuse the code of my virtual body. I'll be honest with you doctor; it's not a fair deal."
"The only thing we want, Icarus, is to make sure that you won't cause any trouble from now on. I promise I'll do my best so you won't get arrested in the real world. The fact that we'll know your real info and location will make our lives and your own, easier. Safer? I give you a second chance, a deal I almost never do. All this, will of course happen, if you give me your data... Now. Your virtual body will also not be wasted. I have to admit that you've done a wonderful job with it."
"I'm glad you like it. It would be a shame though to get it without knowing what it's capable of. Allow me to make a brief demonstration for you."
Icarus tightens his left fist until a dry metallic clank is heard. In less than a second his virtual robotic body changes dramatically. He grows taller; his shoulders become wider and his arms seem to almost double in strength and volume. Hundreds of thin metal strips are fired from his spine and hug his chest with incredible speed, offering extra protection and durability.
His opponent surprise gives him the little time he needs. He makes one daring step and lands his left fist on the belly of the first MK. Its protection plates break into hundreds of pieces and internal components soon follow. The robot's spine, responsible for the unit's stability and data transfer breaks in half unable to stand the furious hit. Icarus right hand grabs the second MK from its head lifts it a bit and holds it firmly in place, while his empty metallic head is fixed on Dr Menos face. From his arm a bunch of cables show up and plug into the MK unit who's struggling to get free. After a violent contraction Icarus opens his hand and lets the enforcement program fall to the ground like a soulless rag doll.
Dr. Menos is surprised but his face shows no fear.
"Piece of crap? Never put a program do a coders work!"
The rough skin on his faces stretches as he takes a wild expression filled with anger. With his right hand's open palm he gives a swift blow to Icarus chest. Although the hit doesn't seem to be too strong Icarus body is violently thrown a few meters back.
Dr. Menos turns to Phoenix who watches the battle not far from them.
"Useless! Like the flying junk you have here. I'm pretty sure it's as worthless as it is ugly."
Icarus slowly gets up whispering words that never reached his enemy's ears.
"That wasn't smart doctor..."
Phoenix begins flying nervously, almost teleports from place to place. Its voice changes significantly along with the speed it executes orders.
"Checking current web world? Simulation secure. Automatic block of uploading unregistered file larger than fifty kilobytes. Uploading single force field, file size thirty-eight kilobytes. Force field type: Wind. Power set to fifty-five. Resizing. Thirty-eight kilobytes. That's all I need ... And a bit of good old copy and paste."
Dr. Menos is now facing a big fan made out of a few simple lines. He begins to laugh until the fan blades begin to move, and then he realizes what this small object is capable of. He is thrown back like he's made out of paper and takes a couple of the bar's stools with him. He only stops when a similar fan is hitting him from the opposite direction. Two more wind force fields appear from the sides, while the bigger one hits him from above.
The virtual fans hit Dr. Menos from every direction; he is trapped into an invisible prison. He falls on his knees as the wind's force is violently hitting his body. He ends up putting his palms on the floor too.
Right before the eyes of the surprised and frightened guests of the famous website, Icarus hastily approaches Electra who seems stuck with a puzzled and angry face on a terminal screen. She managed to locate a user named Gray, but the profile is pretty odd. First, the owner never disconnected since the profile creation, approximately five years ago. Second, there is no virtual avatar and the friends list is empty. No images, comments, gifts, or contacts. A five years old profile that looks like it was made just yesterday if not a couple of minutes ago.
The only thing she could find in this strange, empty profile page of a user named Gray was a blue button. Visit Me. Electra clicked it since there was nothing else to do, but all she got was a strange question wit
h an empty field waiting for the right answer below. What was my first word? That was the question or riddle she was trying to figure out.
Icarus approaches her and looks at the terminal screen. The question draws his attention too.
"Any progress?"
"What do you think? What could be the right answer? I've tried mama, daddy, mommy, papa; you name it? None of them seems to be right."
"Wait a minute. If we're at the right profile, and I really hope it's the right one; what makes you think the Gray we're searching for would use the first word of a human infant?"
"Damn! You're right! Gray is an artificial intelligence that was born and raised in and by the world web?"
"Exactly Electra. I got an idea!"
Dr. Menos slowly raises his head. He looks at Icarus and Electra and screams like a furious beast. He then seems to whisper some orders and suddenly gets up. He walks towards them; the force field fans doesn't seem to affect him any more. Icarus turns his head and sees him getting out of his virtual trap with no effort.
"Absolute power Icarus. Bending the virtual -natural- laws isn't so hard for me. Take gravity for example."
Dr.Menos lifts his hands and big pieces of the night club's marble floor along with bar stools and a couple of terminals follow his moves and float right in front of him. He then slams his hands and the floating objects violently hit each other. Icarus looks like he is awaken from a bad dream. He knows they're next.
"Try LO for an answer Electra! Now!"
Electra hears him, fills the empty field and clicks the confirmation button. Shortly before connecting to the virtual world of user Gray, Icarus sees Phoenix squashed between two big marble floor plates.
Icarus and Electra are now in a long, well-lit, narrow hallway. Its top half is white and the bottom one is black. As the passage progresses, white and black fade into one another and merge in a single color. In the end of the hallway they see a gray door. Hoping they're at the right place they begin to run towards the only exit. They only stop when they here a clear, calm voice.
"No one can follow you here."
They immediately stop running and take a few deep breaths. Electra turns to Icarus; now that the danger has passed, she feels the need to satisfy her curiosity.
"How did you find the answer to the riddle?"
"Wasn't sure about the answer you know; now that I think of it I'm guessing it was a disguised knowledge question. To be honest it would be hard to find it without your help?"
"What do you mean?"
"Do you remember telling me that Gray is an artificial intelligence that was born and raised in and by the world web?"
"Yes."
"It appears that Gray with it's insight of the world web and its strong connection to it? Well, it might think it IS the World Wide Web. Ever heard of the Arpanet?"
"I don't think I get it? Hmmm, Arpanet is, or was one of the first big scale networks for communication and data transfer, right?"
"Exactly. The ancestor of today's internet, or to be precise one of the web's ancestors. Speech is a form of communication, isn't it?"
"You're confusing me Icarus; we were talking about the first big networks."
"In nineteen sixty nine, if I'm not mistaken, the first web message was sent from one computer to a distant one. To be accurate terms like web and internet didn't even exist back then. Rumors say the first message was a simple word, some say it was the word login others say it was love or something. What matters is that only letters L and O reached their destination before the first ever message crash occurred."
"The first communication attempt? The first word of the world web."
"Exactly."
Icarus opens the Gray door.
Chapter 4: Fade to Gray