Sunday, 27 April 2014

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.”

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