Digital Distraction: Part 30

“One phone, two earrings, one ring and a hair band later,” Joey grouched as he picked up a hair scrunchy at the next junction, “And we still...”

“Shush.” Ombre hissed as she dragged Joey back, pressing them both against the wall, just out of sight as she heard quiet voices from further down the stone halls.

“I can’t believe it’s this easy.” One voice, a young female one, was saying. “I mean we were led to believe that this would be difficult, gathering all these strong Duellists, but Harper’s done most of the work for us.”

“Stupid git doesn’t even know he’s helping us.” A second voice, an older, male voice laughed. “Far as he’s concerned there really is a hacking issue.”

“Well he’d be right.” The woman sniggered, “He just isn’t aware it’s from inside the castle.” There was a few taps and something that almost sounded like someone drawing with chalk, then the woman spoke again, “What’s that? Eight or nine?”

“Eight sigils.” Her companion sounded frustrated, “Another five to do. You really need to keep tabs on these things. One too many, or one too few and everything could go wrong.”

Ombre and Joey grinned at each other at that news.

“Hurry up.” The woman complained, “We’ve got to circle the entire castle with this blasted things before they want to activate the ritual.”

“I wouldn’t worry.” The man passed their hiding place, but didn’t see them, They’re not planning on starting until everyone is in the castle, well everyone we’re sacrificing of course. We have our First Sacrifice. Yugi won’t be going anywhere, not after getting hit with enough sedative to knock out an elephant. Even if he does, somehow, wake up in time we still have his brother, he won’t fight us while we have him. Not to mention we have the girlfriend now too. She’s in the dungeons.”

“I still think we’re wasting too much time and effort on one sacrifice.” The woman grouched as she followed him, pausing in the gap as she thought she heard a low growl. “Hey.” She called to her companion, “Wait up.”

“I don’t have time to wait up.” The man grumbled, “Come on. They might wait till we get back, but they won’t wait long.”

“But I thought...” The woman let out a huff and darted after her companion. “Fine, fine, I’m coming.”

“Why I oughta...” Joey growled moving to go after them.

“Yes, actually, I think you should.” Ombre nodded, with an irritated but thoughtful expression, “Let’s wreck that sigil first though.”

Author Note: Camp NaNo April 2014

Well with this update I have officially passed my word count target for April. I have no intention of leaving the story off here, I will be continuing to update this story right up until it's end.

C.N. April 2014: Digital Distraction Part 29

“Hey!” Tea protested as she was shoved into a stone cell hard enough to stumble, preventing her from trying to bolt out before the heavy metal door slammed shut.

“Shut up.” The hooded mook who was locking her cell door growled, his companion limping slightly where she had driven her rather heavy boot into his foot.

“Why should I?” Tea demanded, glaring at him through the small barred window in the huge metal door.

“Because if you want to get out of here, you’ll shut up and do what you’re told.” The hooded creep informed her. “After all, the only people who know you’re here are our men. Your friend’s been drugged so heavily, if he wakes up in time for the ritual he’ll be lucky.”

Tea winced, having been pulled away from Yami, who they had taken to another part of the castle. They needed him. They had only survived the last few hundred ‘End of the World’ scenarios because the Pharaoh had been there to save the day. If Yami wasn’t going to wake up in time, she were in a lot of trouble and so was everyone on the island.

The mook seemed pleased at that reaction and he and his companion stalked off, leaving Tea alone in the dungeons.

She hadn’t expected to get thrown in the dungeon when she had been dragged out of the secret tunnels. She didn’t know what she had expected, but being separated from Yami and dragged down to the lower dungeon level hadn’t been on her list.

She had hoped to at least pass Yugi when she had realised where she was being taken but she hadn’t seen any sign of him which really worried her. She didn’t know if her friends had already managed to get him out or whether he was being held in a different part of the castle, and she was worried that, now they had Yami, they had had gotten rid of Yugi.

Yami would never forgive himself if he survived this and Yugi didn’t.

Tea didn’t bother pacing the cell, instead barging the door just once before spending the first ten minutes trying to get her arm through the bars on the door to allow her to either pick the lock or work out some other way of escaping.

When that didn’t work, she moved away from the door for a little bit to work out another way of opening the door.

She had no intention of being the damsel in distress again. She was sick of it. She had been planning on taking self defence lessons for that exact reason. Annoyingly they had been due to start next week.

Still she wasn’t as helpless as the bad guys thought she was. They hadn’t bothered to check her bag, believing her to be less of a threat then the King of Games. That meant she still had everything that she had packed ‘just in case.’ Including the set of lock picks she had been practising with ever since Marik had kidnapped her. She just had to, somehow, manage to reach the lock on the other side of the door.

She would have picked the lock from her side, except she didn’t appear to have a keyhole she could use to do so.

“I have to have something in here I can use.” Tea grouched as she went through her backpack, “I packed everything bar the kitchen si...ah ha!” She grinned as she pulled a small spool of crafting wire from her bag. “Let’s see if this works...”

C.N. April 2014: Digital Distraction Part 28

“S...Stay away!” Kari stopped mid step at the feminine, frightened yelp, causing Tristan to barrel into her and knock her over. The pair tumbled to the ground, crashing into a tree and ending up in a tangled heap at its base.

“Oh shi...!” A man squawked just before a a bright burst of purple light bounced between the trees. Two men bellowed in pain, and then a girl darted past them, a Duel Monster following her.

Kari recognised the Duel Monster, for all its unusual colouring it looked like a Dark Magician Girl and there was only green variant of that card in circulation.

“Danielle.” Kari called to the player the monster was protecting, wondering what the hell was going on.

The reporter glanced over her shoulder at them, paused, then stopped, her Duel Monster, Maddie, getting between her and them. “I...” She started, frustration obvious as she glanced in the direction she had come from.

“There she is!”

Dani squeaked as a couple of men, these ones dressed much differently from the ones who had tried to grab her on the boat. She recognised them though, or rather their uniforms and she gestured for her Dark Magician Girl to deal with them.

The mooks were prepared, the magician’s attack was sucked into a vortex of wind and disappeared.

Tristan didn’t give them a chance to counter attack, startling Kari by leaving her side and swinging for one of the mooks, taking him out with one powerful punch. Danielle’s Dark Magician Girl blasted the other one, sending him crashing into a tree and making him drop the bleeping object in his hand.

Kari scooped it up, trying to work out what it was. She took two steps back, pacing slightly as she poked and prodded at the touch screen before cussing profusely.

“Kari?” Tristan asked.

“It’s a tracker.” She informed him, showing him the machine, which was clearly tracking Danielle. “I don’t know what the signal’s coming from but...oh...” She turned to Danielle, “The only new thing you’ve got on you is your DimDisk right?”

Dani nodded, taking it off and passing it to Tristan when Kari asked her too. Her suspicions were confirmed when Tristan wandered off and they tracked him down easily only to find he had had to knock out another pair of goons.

“They’re tracking our DimDisks?” Dani scowled, “No wonder I couldn’t lose them.”

“I’m not surprised.” Kari shrugged, “Kaiba’s Duel Disks do the same thing. My boss said it was to ensure that he could find out if any of his players decided to go awol during the tournament or enter any restricted areas.”

“Is it legal?” Dani demanded, angry that she hadn’t known about any of this.

“I assume so.” Kari replied, having wondered that herself and never gotten a straight answer from anyone within the company. “But is this really the time to be asking that?”

“She has a point.” Tristan nodded, “Pass that to me?”

Kari chucked him the tracker and he poked at the screen until he called up the list of Duellists tapped Yugi’s name. The little dot on screen appeared halfway across the island, but not where they had expected it to be. Instead it looked like Yami was heading for the castle.

“Huh.” Tristan showed Kari.

“If Yami’s heading for the castle, we should probably go that way too.” Kari said, thinking aloud, “You don’t have to come with us.” She offered as she looked at Dani, “Since you’re trying to avoid the goons.”

“Oh no, I want to get in the castle.” Dani corrected her, “I just have no intention of ending up as someone’s prisoner again. It wasn’t much fun last time so excuse me if I don’t go for a repeat.”

“Why don’t you stick with us.” Tristan suggested as he started for the castle, Kari in tow. “Though you might want to ditch the DimDisk if you don’t want them following you.”

Dani paused, having not thought of that before now. When she tried to remove her deck from the slot, however, the DimDisk let out a high pitched screech and a metal guard slid up and across to cover the deck, something similar happening to her graveyard, leaving her with only the green Dark Magician Girl available.

“Hey!” Kari yelped when something similar happened to her DimDisk, preventing her from accessing anything that wasn’t in the hand she had already drawn from her deck.

Tristan, who didn’t have a deck and had discarded his DimDisk early into their travels, scowled. “So, just you two? Or everyone?”

“THIS IS AN ANNOUNCEMENT TO ALL PLAYERS.” Kari hadn’t known the island was rigged with speakers until a voice started booming out of them, “WE CURRENTLY HAVE A HACKING ISSUE. ALL PLAYERS MUST RETURN TO THE CASTLE TO HAVE THIER DIMDISK RESET WITH THE UPDATED SECURITY PROTOCOLS TO ALLOW GAMEPLAY TO CONTINUE.”

“Hacking issue my behind.” Kari frowned, “Unless...” She sighed, “Unless my boss is repaying the favour.”

“What do you mean?” Dani asked, well aware that Kari worked for Kaiba Corp.

“I’ll explain on the way.”

C.N. April 2014: Digital Distraction Part 27

Joey nodded and pocketed the earring. Kari had commented on the fact Tea had had her ears pierced during the school year, telling the teen that her earrings looked really pretty. Tea had apparently dropped one of them to give her friends a clue as to which way they were heading. He glanced around one last time, making sure there was nothing else he needed to pick up, then gestured for Ombre to follow him and darted up the tunnel.

“Keep up!”

It felt an awful lot like Duelist Kingdom all over again as he started the landing preparations to touch down on DimSoft island.

He wasn’t foolish. He knew that he was walking into a potential trap. The virus that had hit Kaiba Corp’s system hadn’t been very difficult to hack once he had managed to isolate it. It had been simplistic in its design, almost too much so. There was no way, if they hadn’t been trying to lure him in, that the virus should have led him back to its creators as easily as it had.

Still they were threatening his company and that was something he would not allow. He was convinced he knew why. Their VirtualNet system had the potential to overthrow his Duel Disk System, but only if people could be convinced that his tried and tested system couldn’t be trusted. No one would want to spend hundreds of thousands of Yen or worse, English pounds, on virtual tech that would probably break down within a year if Kaiba Corp could provide the same sort of service reliably with not even a fraction of the cost.

But after the Duel Disk System had gone down for three days while they tried desperately to recover or replace the information that had been wiped, people were looking for other options, ‘just in case.’ They had done that to him, to his company, to his staff who had worked themselves to the bone to try and get everything up and running again.

If it hadn’t been for Ironhide and the backups she had made, it would have taken them much longer, but she had saved them weeks, even months of work by copying everything she had had access to into her backup system. Or rather a backup system he hadn’t even known existed until this point.

He planned on looking into that once he had dealt with Dimension, or rather with SharpShade, who he rather more suspected were the driving force behind the break in, the virus and his horrendous stock prices. The fact that it was a ‘N.O.A.’ security system made him wonder if his half brother, the Gozabora Kaiba’s true son, had survived the decimation of his virtual world somehow.

According to Ironhide it stood for Networked Office Armour security system and had been a part of the system before she had joined the company, but he had asked around. Ironhide was the only department head, temporary or otherwise, who used it. He wasn’t sorry she did, but he needed to know more about it, in case something like this happened again. He couldn’t really afford the three days it had taken to get into it after the breech, nor could he risk trust a system that could have been created by an adopted sibling who had once tried to kill him.

Still for now it had saved his company and allowed him to get everything settled enough to let him come here to deal with the threat personally.

At least this time his brother wasn’t in danger. Just before he had left the grounds of the mansion, he had made sure his brother was securely in the panic room. Mokuba had objected, worried for his brother’s safety and about the amount of work he had to do at Kaiba Corp. Kaiba had managed to talk him round by helping him get set up so he could work right where he was without any trouble.

It was one load off of his mind as the helicopter touched down and a group of suited men gathered to meet him. Despite having no intention of actually testing their game, he had Ironhide playing and reporting to him for that, he was pleased to see one of the men had what amounted to a Duel Disk without the projectors and half the processing power. He wanted to reverse engineer it later and find out exactly how much of their programming was actually his programming.

“Mr Kaiba.” One of the men smiled at him as he slipped on the DimDisk and inserted his deck, “Welcome to the island. I’m afraid you’re a bit behind the others. They all started about an hour ago.”

“I was expecting Harper.” Kaiba responded, not bothering with the pleasantries. “Where is he?”

“I’m afraid Mr Harper is busy at the moment, he was expecting you a couple of hours ago and now the game has started he has details to take care of.” The man informed him, “However if you head for the castle, he will be formally addressing everyone this evening.”

“The castle?” Kaiba questioned, looking at the fortress on the mount in the centre of the island. It looked like some stereotypical evil fortress from some generic fantasy game, just as every evil fortress in a Dimension Software game had. It was reassuring actually. That on some level he was dealing with the same level of inability to design that he had seen from Dimension the entire time. It told him that it was SharpShade who was the problem and if he could deal with them, Dimension would go back to being the hopeless incompetents he was used to dealing with.

“That’s right.” The mook nodded, “If you head there now, Mr Harper will probably be ready to see you by the time you get there.”

Kaiba nodded. If he had had his way he would have landed in the castle courtyard or as close as damnit, but the forest surrounding the castle was too thick and if he had tried that landing in the tiny central courtyard he would have crashed. Still it wasn’t that far to the castle and unlike the last one he had infiltrated he would be able to walk in the front door. He stalked off, heading towards the castle and looking forward to dealing with the issues and going back to his job.

“I hope you enjoy your game, Mr Kaiba.”

C.N. April 2014: Digital Distration Part 26

“Yami?! Tea!?” Joey bellowed, scanning the beach for signs of his friends. He and Ombre had headed that way the moment that they had been dropped off.

The bad guys had been rather thorough in splitting them up. Tea, Ombre and Tristan hadn’t been on the guest list but those who had had been set at different points on the map. Yami had been on this beach, he had been dropped off at the Temple Point while Kari’s start point had been Waterfall Point. They were at completely different ends of the game map.

Which was probably why Kari and Tristan weren’t here yet. At least that was what he hoped as he searched the beach for clues as to where his friends had vanished to.

Ombre was on edge as they headed towards the caves that Yami had mentioned to Kari. She half wished that Yami hadn’t insisted that she and Kari split up. It had been logical, that didn’t mean she had to like it. Especially when there was no sign of the Pharaoh or her light.

“Yami!” Joey bellowed again, making Ombre grimace, wishing he wasn’t giving their location away to any bad guys that might have been in the area. “Tea!”

There was no reply but Ombre didn’t need one as they entered the cave. There were footprints in the sandy floor that led in, but there none leading back out. “Joey.” She murmured, pointing them out.

The teen nodded, worried now for his friends as he followed Ombre warily into the cave system. They followed the footprints further in, until they reached a large empty cavern. As Ombre noted the increase in the number of footprints around, Joey searched around for clues.

“There was a fight here.” Ombre said, scanning the floor and noting the scuff marks where it looked like people had been knocked backwards or sent flying.

“Ombre.” Joey’s tense tone made the spirit of the Orb frown as she joined him over to one side of the cavern, where it looked like someone had hit the floor, hard. “Look.” He said as he scooped something out from under a rock.

She took it from him, scowling at she recognised the wand in his hand. The gold stemmed focus could only belong to Yugi or Yami. It wasn’t hard to guess that it had fallen from Yami’s pocket, or out of his hand at some point, probably when the bad guys had jumped them.

“Crap.” Ombre breathed, scanning their surroundings again. There was another exit to the cavern, one that headed further into the cave system that apparently ran underneath the island. The footprints led in that direction, there were several pairs of almost identical treads, alongside a much different set of prints that staggered as they headed into the tunnel at the back.

Where the prints looked like their owner had staggered, Ombre found Tea’s phone pressed into the sandy floor.

“Guess we know which way they went.” Joey grimaced as she scooped the phone up.

“I don’t think we’ve ever run into bad guys with uniforms before. At least not ones that even included shoes.” Ombre snorted, trying not to be worried that there was only one pair of unusual shoes amongst the footprints, suggesting that they had carried Yami. There was no way that he would have allowed that if he had been conscious, meaning that they had knocked him out somehow.

“First time for everything.” Joey snorted, “Shall we?” He gestured into the tunnel.

Ombre hesitated, glancing back towards the entrance. “Kari and Tristan are heading this way...” She pulled Kari’s phone out of her pocket, having borrowed it from her light. “No signal.”

“I’m going on.” Joey informed her, “If you want to go back and phone Kari, you can catch up but...”

“I’ve got a better idea.” Ombre shook her head, snatching a pen out of her bag and a piece of paper and leaving a note for her lighter half and her chaperone and leaving it by the entrance before following Joey. The teen, who was racing further into the cave system, was miles ahead of her when he let out a frustrated curse.

Ombre barely noticed the fact the floor went from a sandy surface to a solid stone as she caught up to him. The tunnel split into three, heading off in different directions and there weren’t any signs of which way the goons had taken their friends.

Joey swore and kicked the wall, only to start swearing harder and lean against the wall so he could cradle his foot.

“I swear if you break your toes, I’ll have no sympathy.” Ombre grouched at him, trying to see if she could work out which way they had gone. She had hoped to see a trail of sand or something that could guide them. Unfortunately there was sand leading down all three corridors, but not enough to leave foot prints.

They were about ready to pick one at random when Joey spotted something glinting on the floor just inside one of the tunnels. He bent down to pick it up and grinned slightly. “Remind me to tell Tea she’s awesome.”

“Why?” Ombre asked, coming over to look at what he was holding. “Oh you had better look after that carefully.”

Joey nodded and pocketed the earring. Kari had commented on the fact Tea had had her ears pierced during the school year, telling the teen that her earrings looked really pretty. Tea had apparently dropped one of them to give her friends a clue as to which way they were heading.