Code Nexus

[Location: Earth, Oceanian Continent, Sunrise Island, Crystal Gem’s camp]

“Steven...Steven...” Pearl gently shook Steven in his sleeping bag.

“Mmph...Pearl?” Steven yawned.

“Sorry about waking you up, but there’s a call for you.” Pearl held the computer for Steven.

“Dad?” He read the name of the caller, before accepting the call.

The window on the screen changed form, until it covered a good half of the screen and Greg’s face appeared in it.

“Hey, Shtoo-ball, had a good flight?” Greg asked. Behind him it was evidently evening.

“Hello, Dad.” Steven yawned, his eyes were tired.

“Oh...sorry, Steven, did I wake you up?” Greg asked.

“It’s okay, Dad, I didn’t fall asleep too long ago. The flight wasn’t too bad, even though the last part of it was the worst. How is it going there?” Steven asked back.

“Everything is fine here. I had a pretty good day today, even got some clients. I spent time composing some songs in the evening,” Greg answered.

“Cool! How many did you finish?”

“Two, one about summer and travelling and one about.... uhm... loneliness.” Greg looked away for a second.

“Oh, Dad, don’t feel too bad, we’ll be back as soon as we manage to figure out what’s wrong with this place. And we can still talk to each other through Spyke.” Steven tried to reassure him; he really didn’t want him to feel bad about the fact that he was away.

“I know but it’s not the same thing. And… I have this feeling something bad could happen to you.” Greg was visibly worried.

“Dad, don’t worry, nothing bad has happened yet,” Steven said. “Actually, it seems very peaceful and serene here. And remember in the worst case scenario, the gems will be here to protect me.”

“You’re right Steven, maybe I’m just being a little paranoid. How much of the island have you explored yet?” Greg asked.

“Only the grassy hills and part of the jungle, we even found a cliff that looked like the one in which the temple is carved.” Steven accounted the places they explored first.

“Cool, have you been to the beach yet?” Greg asked.

“We should be heading there tomorrow for an exploration. Peridot wants to take some water samples and run some tests on the sand. In case the –” Steven yawned “– crystals in the sand –” he yawned again.

“You still sleepy, Shtoo-ball?” Greg asked.

“Yeah.” Steven yawned again.

“I guess it’s time for you to go back to sleep.” Pearl interrupted.

“I agree. Goodnight, Steven.” Greg waved at him.

Steven yawned one last time before falling asleep. “Goodnight, Dad... ”

As soon as Steven closed his eyes Greg closed the connection and Pearl put away the computer, fixing Steven in the sleeping bag.

Meanwhile at the surfer paradise resort, the employees were struggling to get some sleep.

“Would you stop pushing your feet in my part of bed Broseph?” Reef groaned as his bedmate couldn’t stay still.

“Sorry, Reef, I'm just trying to find a comfortable position,” Broseph answered.

“Then try in a less annoying way! If we wake up late tomorrow we’ll get a strike!” Reef said.

In that moment Abram raised from his sleeping bag and approached the door.

“Uhm? Hey dude, where are you going?” Reef asked.

“Oh, me? I’m just going to the bathroom, why?” he asked , turning in their direction.

“Ah, number one or two?” Reef asked again.

Abram raised an eyebrow. “One or two?”

“Yeah you know like, which one of the Ps?” Brospeh only seemed to be confusing Abram even more.

“Wha? Oh! You mean if I need to expel solid or liquid organic waste?” Abram asked.

“Uhm, yeah dude,” Reef answered.

“Oh, well then it’s number two. I might take a while, see ya this morning.” Abram walked out closing the door behind him.

“Man, that guy seems like he has come from another planet,” Broseph said.

“No kidding, dude.” Reef rolled back under the covers.

The hours passed and the sun finally started to dawn on the island.

Since their shift started a little later, the senior employees of the hotel took some time in the early morning to surf in some less known spots around the island. A morning exercise they usually performed to get ready for the incoming load of stress.

“Man, the waves on this island are just great!” Ripper said riding a very big wave.

“No kidding, dude. This spot here is even better than any we had back at Sunset Island,” a fellow surfer said.

“Sunrise island for the win!” Johnny raised the fist, before noticing the hour on the watch. “Oh guys, we should head back now our shift begins in twenty minutes!”

“Ah, way to ruin the fun, Mr. Prissy!” Ripper headed for the shore, followed by the others.

“I vouch to name this shore the New Office!” one of them said as they walked through the palm tree grove to the hotel’s personnel entrance.

“I second that, Lance,” Ripper said.

“Hey, guys.” A girl was standing by the door.

“Kelly, what’s up?” Ripper asked her.

“Uh nothing much, except reminding you about that today we have a grom to torment,” she said.

“Uhm, Kelly, I checked his resume, he is twenty-one, he isn’t a grom anymore, you could say he is a newbie though,” Johnny pointed out.

“Potato tomato, same thing for me. He needs to know who is in charge anyways,” Kelly said.

“I agree, after all it’s not like we have got much choice, the only other new one is a girl with a man-eating tiger shark.” Ripper scowled at the memory of the terrible encounter they had the passed day.

“No kidding dude.” Lance gulped a little.

“So what are we waiting for? Let’s wake up the newbie.” Kelly opened the door.

The other members of the summer staff were all gone already, the room was seemingly empty.

“Hey look, he is still in the bed.” Ripper pointed at Abram’s sleeping bag, which presented a large swell.

“One, two, three!” Ripper and Lance quickly pounced at the sleeping bag hitting the swell at full strength.

However they suddenly raised their eyebrows as a loud ‘pop’ emitted from the bed.

“What the?” Ripper said taking away the sheets and seeing a deflating balloon laying on the bed.

“A balloon?” Lance asked.

“What is that thing doing in his bed?” Kelly asked

“I don’t know, probably to make it keep its form?" Johnny suggested.

“Darn! Where could he be?” Kelly groaned.

“We should look back in the forest, he probably knows about the initiations and he’s hiding,” Ripper said.

“I agree, it’s indeed probable,” Johnny said. “Though we should be careful with the time, and –”

“Let’s go get that Newbie!” Ripper went out the room followed by the others, while Johnny rolled his eyes.

By breakfast time, the Rainbooms were enjoying a nice first meal at the hotel’s restaurant.

“Who ordered the dietetic pancakes?” The waiter asked.

“That would be me, thank you,” Rarity politely raised her hand.

The waiter proceeded to serve her the meal, “And who ordered the triple strawberry-cherry cream pancakes with sprinkles?”

“ME!!!!” Pinkie Pie said enthusiastically.

“Alright, that was all. Would you like to pay now, or would you prefer to have it added to your bill?” the waiter asked.

“Well, I don’t think we are going to order anything else, we’ll pay now.” Twilight presented her credit card.

“Thank you. Here.” The waiter put a touch screen on the table and invited Twilight to sign.

“All done,” Twilight said completing the payment.

“Thank you for choosing the surfer paradise deluxe.” The waiter left.

The seven girls then started to eat their breakfast, enjoying the sweet and soft paste of the pancakes.

After some time the pancakes were all gone, as well as the tropical fruit juices they ordered.

“Ah what a breakfast,” Rainbow Dash said.

“Ah agree partner, it’s amazing how they got the apples grinded inside the paste without making it sloppy,” Applejack remarked.

“So girls, now what do we do?” Pinkie Pie asked.

“I’m glad you asked Pinkie Pie, Sunset and I examined the island’s maps during the night, and cross referencing with the data obtained from the scanner, we managed to pinpoint some locations that seem to have the highest amount of magical energy,” Twilight explained.

“We have also assembled some magic spectrometers that should allow us to examine each point. They are in our room now and we can pick them up later,” Sunset explained.

“Good, how long will this take?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“Well,” Twilight explained, “if we stay on the spots for the entirety of the day we should obtain enough data –”

“The entirety of the day?!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed.

“The longer the spectrometers stay in the zones we highlighted, the more accurate the data will be,” Sunset explained.

“But, I mean, all day? When are we supposed to have fun?” Rainbow Dash asked.

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Rainbow Dash, I know we are in one of the most prized vacation sites of the planet. But remember that we are here on a mission, we only have two weeks to figure out what’s happening here.”

“I know, but hey two weeks is plenty of time. Back at school we managed to take care of magic disasters in a snap, a couple days at most.” Rainbow put her feet on the table.

“True, but this time we are facing something unknown, it might end up being something unlike anything we faced before,” Twilight said.

“Twilight has a point, we have to be very careful here and figure out the problem in the shortest time possible.” Sunset supported Twilight.

“Uhm...” Rainbow Dash groaned.

“What are we supposed to do exactly with these machines?” Applejack asked.

“The spectrometers are almost fully automated, you just have to take it with you in the areas we marked, and then activate them,” Twilight explained. “Keep in mind that while they are automated, they need to be monitored in case of system failure and in that case they’d need a reboot.”

“Do we have to move them around? Or should they be kept still?” Applejack asked.

“What matters is that they are kept in the area with the highest magical activity, the rest is secondary.” Twilight explained.

Rarity tapped on her chin thinking. “Where are the points of interest?”

Twilight proceeded to take out a tablet. “Good question, we identified three of them, the center of the town, the grassy hills and the mountains.”

“And it doesn’t matter if they are moved or not?” Applejack asked again.

“As long as you remain inside the measurement zone, everything should be fine,” Twilight answered.

“Then couldn’t we just keep them with us, and still enjoy ourselves without leaving these areas?” Rarity interrupted.

Sunset tapped on her chin. “I suppose we –”

“That could be risky, as I said you need to keep the interface under control in case of a system failure,” Twilight interrupted. “If you don’t operate the reboot in time the data could become corrupted.”

“We could just keep them in sight, I mean it’s not like we’d just leave them laying around,” Applejack said.

“But in case the data got corrupted, we’ll have to restart the measurements, that would cause us to lose useful time,” Twilight objected.

“Twilight, we’ll be careful,” Fluttershy said to her.

“Girls this is serious, every second we waste now might become a serious problem later on!” Twilight gesticulated emphasizing how much she was invested in the mission.

“Twilight… ” Sunset said.

“Yes, Sunset? Can you please explain further how important the mission is?” Twilight asked.

“Actually, Twilight... I meant to say that we can probably afford an amount of daily freetime,” Sunset said.

The answer shocked Twilight a little.

“But Sunset, you know better than me how dangerous magic can be,” Twilight answered.

“Yes I do know that, but I also know my friends,” Sunset explained. “Too much stress won’t help them, and it won’t make the mission any quicker. If anything, I’d say that it would actually have a negative effect.”

“Hmmm, you do have a point on this one.” Twilight tapped on her chin reflecting. “Okay maybe you won’t have to focus all of your attention the devices, but still be very careful.”

“Don’t worry Twilight! Careful it’s our second name! We won’t jeopardize the mission!” Pinkie Pie attempted to make a salute and accidentally hit a bottle of maple syrup making it fly around the restaurant and making it land right on the floor. Just in time for an unfortunate employee to slip on it.

“Uhm…whoopsy.” Pinkie pie wore a sheepish expression.

“Alright, let’s see if the superscanner has picked up anything.” Jeremy was inputting commands in his computer, observing also the diagrams forming on the screen.

The rest of the Lyoko team was waiting in the room as well, awaiting for Jeremy’s reports. Except for Odd, who was listening to the song he recorded yesterday of Aelita and Fluttershy singing together.

“Alright, it seems that there is some high energy activity in the north east area of the island, along with other lesser traces around the grassy hills and the beach.” Jeremy indicated a map of the island on the screen.

“Good, we should go and investigate,” Ulrich suggested.

“Indeed Ulrich, though we might have a problem.” Jeremy superimposed another map to the one already on his screen.

“Part of the north east area of the island is private property and fenced off. While we can attempt at direct observation of the activity around the grassy hills and the beach, we’ll have to do with remote observation. Luckily –” Jeremy proceeded to show a device that looked like a small parabolic dish.“– I assembled directional scanners in cases like this.”

“Why does it look like a directional microphone?” Yumi asked.

Jeremy turned to Yumi. “It’s because they work on a similar principle, these devices can pick up the slightest RF radiation coming from any electronic or electric object. Once they pick up a source they’ll stream the data to my databank here –” Jeremy pointed at a component of the large computer on the desk “– where it will be stored and confronted with the RF radiation from the supercomputer that hosted Lyoko and the ones that XANA used to host the replicas. By this evening we’ll see if any quantum computers are on the island.”

“So we just need to point them at the source of the signals?” Ulrich asked.

“Precisely, the computer is preparing some maps that will work with our phone’s GPS apps.” Aelita proceeded to explain. “They will guide you directly to the hotspots, there you’ll need just to orientate the scanner following the RF trail.”

“One more...one more...one more...YES!!!!” Odd raised from the bed and started to dance.

“Odd!” Ulrich said to him, while Yumi took away his headphones.

“Care to inform the group the reason of this?” Jeremy asked.

“Uhm, sorry, Einstein. I was kinda checking the stats of my latest video. Yesterday during the welcome party, I filmed Aelita along with that other girl, Fluttershy I guess.” He remembered that her friend with the rainbow colored hair called her that. “Their singing voices combined were so good that overnight the video got one thousand likes on Tube Tube!”

Jeremy face palmed, just like Ulrich, while the others just rolled their eyes and sighed.

“Odd...in case you didn’t get it, we are on a mission. We have got no time for Tube Tube!” Jeremy scolded him.

“Don’t worry, Einstein, I was just checking. All that celebration was because if this keeps up, It might land on the viral videos list of the year by next week!” Odd said excitedly. “You know what kind of honor would that be for a Tube Tuber? I might even win a prize!”

Everybody gave Odd a serious stare, and he quieted down. “But...I guess that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, right?”

“Exactly, Odd. Now returning to my explanation,” Jeremy continued. “We will split into three groups of two people each. One group will focus on the north east part of the island, while the other two will search the grassy hills.”

“I’ll be with Yumi,” Ulrich said.

“It’s good to me.” Yumi smiled.

“William and I will be on the same group,” Odd said.

“Whatever,” William said dully.

“Alright, then the last group will be composed of me and Aelita,” Jeremy said.

“Now to pick the destinations, since it’s most sensible area, Jeremy and I will go to the north east site, while you can choose a sector of the grassy hills.” Aelita explained.

“Sounds good to me, walking in the grass is perfect to put on muscles.” Odd said.

“Alright then, everything is settled, we see each other tonight at evening. Remember to keep your phones nearby,” Jeremy instructed. “Especially you...Odd.”

He caught him again checking his Tube Tube stats on the phone.

“Mr Mcpherson? Your breakfast is here.” A waitress knocked at Dexter’s door, holding a large platter with a complete American breakfast.

Some minutes passed after the first knocks, and so the waitress knocked again a couple times more.

The door finally opened, and to the waitress’s surprise a small white and blue robot answered to it.

“Very nice weather we are having,” the robot said taking the platter with its extendable arms. “Here is a tip.” The robot then gave her some one dollar coins. “Have a nice day.” The robot closed the door behind himself.

As the door closed the waitress raised an eyebrow, then she just turned around and continued serving breakfasts to the other guests in their suites.

“Dexter, your breakfast has arrived.” The robot put the breakfast on his desk.

“Thank you, bot. Go back to recharge now.” Dexter indicated the magnetic chargers, before returning to work.

The desk was now dominated by a very large touch screen device, showing a dashboard, maps and diagrams, all arranged in a tridimensional fashion thanks to the very advanced graphical interface.

“Alright, it appears that everything is set.” Dexter inputted the last commands, “Once the Dexsat seventeen will be over the island I’ll be able to obtain a detailed screening of all its particularities. I’ll probably have enough data to deconstruct the circumstances that led to the event by tomorrow.”

He then opened some digital folders and started to examine the contents.

“Though it’s better if I gather some intelligence from the residents. The activities of the Hubberton conglomerate around the islands are suspicious.” Dexter opened another folder. “This questionnaire should be enough to extrapolate any relevant data. Bots.”

The hubberton conglomerate was the second of Dexter’s most arch rivals, the first one being Mandark. In facts it was practically the only company that stopped both the Dexlabs and the Mandark Industries from reaching the top.

“Yes, Dexter?” The bots said in unison.

“I’m uploading an automated questionnaire for the residents of the town onto your hard drives. Each of you will interrogate all the inhabitants of a sector of the town, report also any sign of unusual activities or anything analogous.” Dexter explained.

“Yes, Dexter,” The bots answered.

“Also, in case anything related to the Hubberton conglomerate is revealed, I want it to be streamed immediately to my computer."

“Yes, Dexter,” The bots answered again.

“Now go, do not disappoint,” Dexter finished.

The bots exited their recharge stations and headed for the door.

Meanwhile at the queen oyster hotel.

“Mr. Mandark, your breakfast is here.” A waiter knocked repeatedly on the door.

Some time passed and the waiter decided to knock again. He then heard a grunt, and some muffled words.

“Uhm, sir?” He asked through the door.

The waiter jumped a little as he saw a small robot with a black and red color scheme when the door opened.

“Hail Mandark,” the bot said. “I’ll take that breakfast to my master now.” The bot elongated its arms and took the platter.

The waiter raised an eyebrow but also coughed a little and approached a hand to the bot.

The bot then looked at the hand and then at the waiter.

“YOUCH!!” The waiter could be heard yelling around the hotel.

“Ah! What’s with all this racket?” Mandark asked from his chair in front of the desk.

Mandark’s room was different than it was before. All the golden and orange colors were covered in black and red tint, while some gothic decorations were added to the ceiling and the walls.

“Apologies, Master. The waiter came to serve you your breakfast but wished for a tip. This unit slammed the door on his hand,” the bot answered.

“Good work,” Mandark said continuing his work.

“Once Mandarksat One will be aligned with the island, I’ll be able to gather every single bit of data about it. And then when I crack this mystery open, I’ll have weapons that will be worth their weight in gold!” He smiled evilly. “And above all, I’ll drive Dexter into the dirt once and for all!”

“Uhm, Master?” a bot asked him.

“What do you want?” Mandark replied annoyedly.

“Could we shut down for a while? Our batteries are nearing depletion and–”

“You’ll recharge when I’ll tell you to!” Mandark interrupted. “And now you can’t because I need you to go into town and administer this questionnaire to every citizen you manage to find.”

“But sir–”

“This is crucial to my success. Thanks to these subtle questions, I’ll gather the information I need from the residents of the island.” Mandark looked with a smirk to the screen in front of him. “I mean even though this island is mostly populated by brain dead vacationers it’s impossible that they didn’t notice anything about strange about the island.”

“There would also be the need of consider the fact that the Hubberton conglomerate–”

“Oh right, these darn leeches. They are preventing my company from ascending to the top. Mmmh, I almost loathe them as much as I loathe Dexter!” Mandark punched on the desk.

He then looked at the bots.

“What are you still doing here?” The young CEO asked. “Go out and start asking the questions, leave me alone now I’m very busy.”

The bots quickly saluted and left the room.

“Anybody found him?” Ripper asked emerging from a bush.

“No sign of him over here!” Lance said, checking inside a trashcan.

“He isn’t here either,” Kelly said checking a tree.

“Guys, he isn’t inside the other dorm rooms either, he’s probably somewhere inside the hotel,” Johnny referred.

Suddenly however Johnny’s watch started to ring, his eyes started to widen as he read the hour. “We have to go back, we’re a half hour late!”

“A half hour!? Oh no, Bummer is gonna kill us!” Kelly suddenly panicked.

“Oh man! Why didn’t you warn us before!?” Ripper asked angrily.

“We were busy looking for the newbie, I got carried away,” Johnny said.

The senior employees quickly entered the locker room and furiously changed their clothes.

As they got their uniforms on, they ran for the exit of the room, only to find Andrew Baumer at the door. He was wearing a fake smile, hiding the rage building up inside of him, shown by the pulsating vein of his neck.

“Uh oh...uhm, hello, Mr Baumer.” Johnny bit his lips.

“Hello, Johnny and loafers. Tell me what hour is this?” His expression didn’t change at all.

“Uhm, eight thirty...” Johnny was on the verge of cowering.

“And when does your shift start?” Baumer asked further.

“At eight o’clock.” Johnny admitted.

“Then, why ARE YOU HERE INSTEAD OF WORKING!?!” Bummer yelled.

“I’m sorry, sir! It won’t happen again!” Johnny pleaded.

“It better not, you’ll all receive a strike for this! And remember that after three strikes you are all out,” He angrily said.

All of the employee frowned.

“Now go to your working places! You should take example from the other employees, they all arrived here in time. The new guy, Abram, even arrived here early,” Baumer said.

The eyes of the senior employee’s eyes seemed on the point of exploding.

“Wait a minute Abram was here!?” Ripper was bewildered.

“When did he arrive?” Kelly asked.

“Seven o’clock. Now get to work immediately, before I give you another strike!” Bummer furiously dismissed them.

Twilight and Sunset’s room was mostly occupied by various pieces of research equipment, all relentlessly picking up data and streaming them to some computers for processing and storage.

“Here are the spectrometers.” Twilight indicated the desk in her room, on which were placed seven devices, similar to Twilight’s old magic catcher, though they were smaller and smoother.

“Hmm not a bad design.” Rarity commented, thinking already how to blend them nicely with her dress.

“How do we operate them partner?” Applejack asked.

“The interface appears on the circular touch screen by simply tapping on it.” Twilight proceeded to demonstrate.

As her finger touched onto the smooth glass a white circle appeared around it. As the chip inside the device lectured Twilight’s fingerprint, the word “On” appeared on the screen and then it returned black again, with only a small light onto the side signaling it was still working.

“Every device has been encrypted using your fingerprints as keys, nobody else besides you can activate or access these.” She explained.

“And of course each of us can use any of these,” Sunset added.

“How do we reboot them in case something goes wrong?” Fluttershy asked looking at one of the devices.

“In case of system error, the device will emit a sound and vibrate. In that case there is a reboot button on the bottom of the device.” Twilight proceeded to point at it. “It needs to be pressed with a needle, which is incorporated in the spectrometer itself.”

She then extracted the needle from a compartment on the side of the device.

“Everybody got that?” Twilight asked.

“Yeah, it doesn’t seem hard to remember. When it starts to go beep beep it needs change,” Pinkie Pie commented, taking one of the devices.

“Yeah, you could say that. But be very punctual about it, remember if you are too late to operate the reboot the device will stop working and we’ll lose data,” Twilight warned them again.

“We’ll be as punctual as the crowing of the rooster,” Applejack added, taking one herself.

“Yeah, no problem Twilight.” Rainbow Dash took her own too.

After the others took their devices too, Sunset proceeded to indicate a map of the island on the computer’s screen.

“Alright now to split the groups,” she said.

“Wake up, Steven, it’s time to wake up.” Pearl gently shook Steven in his sleeping bag.

Steven opened his eyes slowly as the light of the day was filtering through the fabric of the tent, helping him to wake up.

“Hmm, hello, Pearl.” He yawned and stretched out of it.

“How did you sleep, Steven?” Amethyst asked, who was lazing on her pile of garbage.

“I had a good night, what about you?” Steven asked.

“Eh, I prefer lazing in my own room back in the temple, but it’s not too bad,” Amethyst answered.

“Oh man, I can’t believe that Percy actually did that!” Peridot said loudly.

The group turned to her, and noticed that she was on the portable computer wearing a headset.

“Peridot? Who are you talking to?” Pearl asked.

“She is gonna say she is talking to Lapis.” Garnet entered the tent.

“Why that’s correct, Garnet.” Peridot rotated the computer so that they could see Lapis in the screen, waving at them.

“Hi Lapis!” Steven waved at her.

“Lapis says ‘hello’. I’m on a super quick Spyke chat room with Lapis, man it’s almost as good as the diamond communicator, even though it works at a much shorter range. You won’t believe what happened during Camp Pining Hearts, Percy has–”

“Uhm, can you hold that thought? We are gonna need the computer soon also,” Pearl said.

“No problem. I gotta leave the chatroom now, see ya Lapis. Keep me updated about the new season of Camp Pining Hearts, please.” Peridot proceeded to close the connection.

“Oh, Garnet, how are you today? Is your vision getting better?” Steven asked.

“It’s stationary,” she answered.

Steven was a bit relieved to know that it didn’t get worse, but still he was worried for Garnet. He hoped that whatever was causing her problem would be stopped soon.

“So today we need to check out some areas of the island. It’s just a preliminary observation so there won’t be any need of staying on site for a long time.”

“Alright, we should split into groups,” Garnet decided.

“An excellent decision, so we’ll manage to cover the most ground,” Peridot agreed.

“There is only one complication, however. We should probably buy some professional trekking equipment, Steven is going to need it.” Pearl started to check out the closest stores for that.

“I have located a store not far from here, it’s inside an hotel. The surfer paradise Deluxe.” Pearl pointed at the screen, indicating the location, which was the closest to where they installed their camp.

“Good. Pearl you go with Steven, once you buy the equipment check out the grassy hills.“ Garnet then turned to Amethyst and Peridot. “Amethyst you go with Peridot, you’ll inspect the mountains and the cliffside.”

“Where will you go Garnet?” Steven asked.

“I’m coming back to the fenced area, then I’ll explore the town,” she answered.

“Alright then, I’d say that as soon as Steven finishes the breakfast we’ll be good to go. Speaking of which…” Pearl proceeded to give Steven a platter full of sweet pancakes, with chocolate, strawberries, popcorn and whipped cream as toppings.

“Oh thank you, Pearl!” Steven smiled, starting to dig in.

Abram was at his post at the front door, opening the door whenever somebody reached for it. Whenever a customer was kind enough to give him a tip, he’d tip his hat politely.

“Enjoy your stay,” Abram greeted a woman wearing an elaborate dress with a fur, who returned him a snobbish stare.

You are welcome, he thought.

“Hey, dude,” one of the employees called him from behind.

“Yes?” Abram turned around and recognized Ripper. “Oh, Ripper, what brings you here, shouldn’t you be at the beach?”

“The beach will take care of itself for a while. Now how did you do that?” Ripper asked further, showing his anger.

“Uhm, did what?” Abram asked.

“You know exactly what I mean!” Ripper barked.

“Seriously, I got no idea what you are talking about, and I’d like to point out that the absence of a life guard can raise the possibility of accident of –”

“How did you manage to get out of the dorms with no one noticing it? And where did you get the balloon that you put inside your sleeping bag?” Ripper inquired.

“I simply woke up soon. I have an alarm clock connected with my headphones. Also my balloon? How do you know about it, did you look through my stuff?” Abram asked a little worried.

“Oh, uhm, well only the sleeping bag. Anyways, let’s say that we’ll forget everything if you come to the initiations later.” Ripper calmed down.

“Uhm, sorry but no.” Abram returned to the door as somebody else arrived. “Welcome to the Surfer Paradise Deluxe.”

“Eh no, it’s not up to you dude, these initiations are a tradition,” Ripper informed him.

“Don’t care,” Abram answered.

Ripper clenched his fists. “For your information, all groms before you went through them.”

“Well, since I’m twenty-one I’m hardly a grom, and I’m against any form of hazing. In my country we have different ways,” Abram answered bluntly.

“You don’t know who you are messing with, we aren’t kind to ‘wise guys’,” Ripper said.

“I’d love to chat some more, but now I need to concentrate. The rush hour is arriving soon and –”

“Uhm, sir?” Steven asked him, opening the door.

“Oh sorry, I didn’t open the door mister. Can I help you?” Abram asked.

Pearl joined them. “As a matter of fact, you can. Would be so kind to point us to the hotel’s trekking shop?”

As Abram noticed Pearl, he seemed like he was starting to turn white. Sweat could be seen streaming from his forehead.

“Uhm, are you okay?” Steven asked concerned.

“I...uhm...yeah, mister. Wh...what did you ask?” Abram asked.

“The coloration of your skin is changing, is something bothering you?” Pearl asked.

“What? No. Please repeat your question.” Abram put on a large forced smile.

“Uhm, yes. Where is the trekking store?” Pearl asked.

“Down that way.” Abram pointed at it.

“Thanks,” Pearl said, getting on her way.

“Dude, what’s your problem?” Ripper asked Abram.

“Uhm, err… that woman’s pearl jewel, it kinda bothered me. I mean it was huge, and under, her skin.” Abram’s eyes were rolling around in his orbits, trying to avoid contact with Ripper’s gaze.

“Oh...good to know.” Ripper smiled in a menacing way.

Alright, he doesn’t want to follow the traditions? Well it’s time for a lesson then, Ripper thought as he went away.

“Hello!!” Pinkie Pie yelled in the air to hear the returning echo.

“Man this is so much fun!” Pinkie Pie smiled.

Rainbow Dash, on the other hand, was looking at the landscape of the island from a cliff. Her waist was secured with a plastic fiber cord, and she had a climbing equipment protecting her.

She inhaled deeply. “Ah! Not as much as climbing up here.”

“You can see our hotel from up here!” Pinkie Pie indicated a large purple building with the statue of an orca on top.

“Come on, Pinkie Pie, remember that the landscape and the thrill aren’t the only reasons we are here!” Rainbow Dash proceeded to turn on her magic detector.

“ALRIGHT!” Pinkie Pie’s voice echoed as she proceeded to active her own too.

“Now, let’s see if we can get higher on the mountain. Whoever gets to the next plateau first, wins!” Rainbow Dash said.

They went through that challenge already to get to their current location. Basically, Rainbow Dash would use her climbing gear to reach the closest plateau, while Pinkie Pie would use her pinkie sense to find the best path to reach it before Dash.

The first time they tried it, it ended in a tie, as both Pinkie and Dash managed to get up at the same time.

This time though, Rainbow Dash seemed in advantage.

“I’m gonna make it this time!” She kept climbing the wall, hoping that she’d get there before Pinkie.

Some minutes later she finally reached the top.

“Here...I...am!!” Rainbow Dash rose her hands over the ledge and took a grip.

“Hey, Rainbow Dash!” Pinkie Pie appeared some seconds later to Rainbow Dash’s horror.

“How...how did you?” Rainbow Dash panted.

“I took the shortcut!” Pinkie Pie smiled as she helped Rainbow Dash up.

“Where? Which shortcut?” Rainbow asked.

“Stonecutters secret...” Pinkie blinked. “Alright, I just passed through these caves!”

At her shoulders there were the exits of numerous caves.

“Arg...anyways, here we are. M,an the view is even better from this plateau!” Rainbow Dash admitted, even though she lost to Pinkie Pie again.

“Yeah! I can see more of the island, and I think that I can even see the other islands from here!” She pointed at a number of islands dotting the horizon.

“Pretty cool yeah.” Rainbow Dash squinted her eyes. “Hey, what’s that?”

“What?” Pinkie Pie asked.

“That.” Rainbow Dash indicated an agglomerate of domes in the distance.

“Oh. It looks like a science lab!” Pinkie Pie remarked.

“Why do you think somebody would put a science lab here?” Rainbow Dash asked. She was starting to have suspects.

“I don’t know. You think they might looking for the same thing we are?” Pinkie Pie asked.

“I’m not sure, though better if we tell Twilight about it. Hey is that a fence?” She asked pointing at black line going around part of the mountain and inside the forest.

“Seems like it. Man, they really don’t want anyone poking around there,” Pinkie Pie said.

“Hmmm. We should probably go there and take a look,” Rainbow Dash concluded.

“Oh! We can reach that side using the cave system! I bet I can use my Pinkie sense to get us there,” Pinkie Pie said.

“Oh really? What does your Pinkie sense say?” Rainbow Dash asked.

Pinkie Pie ran towards some of the cave entrances, and examined each one of them, until one of them made her hair bristle.

“Pinkie Pie?” Rainbow Dash noticed.

“Oh! My Pinkie sense it’s tingling!!!” Pinkie Pie’s hairs couldn’t stop moving. “Something is happening in this cave!”

“Then it’s in there where we are headed!” Rainbow Dash said.

“Man, this place looks even better than the website’s gallery!” Odd remarked as he and William arrived at the hotel’s beach.

It wasn’t a case that it was one of the most prized beaches of the island. It had a very fine and clean sand, as well as an almost sparkling blue water.

What really bought Odd was the amount of ladies in bikini roaming the beach. Actually, that was also one of the reason Odd insisted to go to the beach in the first place, having used to be a ladies' man back when he was at the Kadic.

“Man just like good old times!” Odd said.

“Odd, remember why we are here,” William answered promptly.

“I know mr killjoy. But who says we can’t enjoy the beach for a while?” Odd asked.

“Jeremy told us to concentrate on the mission, and it’s what i’m going to do, and it’s better if you do as well,” William answered.

“Yeah yeah, let’s do this quickly then, so at least we’ll have the evening free.” Odd pointed at opposite directions, taking out his scanner.

William just groaned and carried on.

The two wandered around the beach, seeing if their devices picked up anything. Two hours passed and nothing was found yet.

“Nothing yet, how is it on your end Odd?” William was looking at the device’s screen, showing a straight line in a cartesian graph.

William turned around “Odd?”

Turning around, William could see his teammate trying to hook up with a girl.

“Yeah, I’m a future famous Tube Tuber. Did I tell you I also met Markstache and Jackalieneye in person?” Odd indicated himself.

“Oh wow, that’s cool, what’s your channel’s name?” the girl asked, lying on a recliner asked.

“Oh, it’s ThoughnutOdd99. I make mostly music videos, I think that you’d like my break-break-breakdance-”

“Odd...what are you doing?” William interrupted.

“Who are you?” the girl asked.

“Oh, this is William. He’s a friend of mine, kinda,” Odd answered.

“Odd come on we have got no time for this!” William started to drag him away.

“Hey no wait! Ahem, check out my channel! Send me a message!” Odd said as William dragged him away.

“Ah William, why?” Odd complained.

“Maybe you forgot, but we have stuff to do. You know like looking for a supercomputer?” William asked sarcastically.

“Come on! I think she started to like me. Man, I really hope that she’ll contact me.” Odd said.

“Do you even know which country was she from? It might even turn out that she lived in a whole different continent than yours. Anyways let’s–” William suddenly got covered in muddy sand.

“Hey, what gives!” Odd asked when the sand hit him too.

The two looked at the source of the sand: it was a girl furiously digging a hole, while another one was nearby, overseeing the digging.

“Alright, it should be just a couple feet below.” Peridot was passing her hands on the terrain trying to feel the presence of big pieces of metal.

Amethyst heard and kept digging.

“Hey, what do you think they’re doing?” William asked.

“I dunno, let’s ask her. Excuse me! My friend and I were wondering what you’re up to?" Odd asked them.

William facepalmed. ...why would he think that was okay to ask her...?

Peridot turned around and Amethyst stopped digging.

“Eh?” Amethyst asked. Her head was sticking out of the hole.

“Ahem, Who are you supposed to be? And why are you asking?” Peridot asked.

“Oh, I’m Odd Dellarobbia, the one and only, and I’m asking you because –”

“Because you hit us with the sand you were digging out!” William interrupted Odd just before her could blow the reason they were there.

“Uhm, sorry about that,” Peridot said.

“Yeah, we were just digging a hole over here, like good old times!” Amethyst answered.

“I see.” William looked at them.

“Are you looking for treasures or something?” Odd asked.

“Treasures? Why would we waste our time looking for human artifacts here? I mean, there haven’t been any findings of them around this area, you clods,” Peridot said.

“Clods?” Odd didn’t understand the insult.

“Then you are digging because?” William asked further.

“Because! Because...” Peridot was having a hard time finding a good excuse.

“It’s not your business, who are you the beach police?” Amethyst answered.

“Stop right there you two!” The manager Andrew Baumer came out of it, looking at Peridot and Amethyst.

“Oh great, another clod,” Peridot muttered rolling her eyes.

“Hey what’s the problem, purple guy?” Amethyst asked.

“That is the problem.” He pointed at the hole they were digging. “That hole is way beyond the limit allowed on this beach.”

“Woah. We didn’t know about it.” Amethyst answered.

“It’s just a beach, people dig here all the time,” Peridot pointed out.

“But not something that large. Hmmm, are you guests of the hotel?” the manager asked.

“Well… that’s a… that’s a funny story… ” Amethyst put on an awkward smile.

“I guess you are not. Then do you at least have entry tickets?” The manager fought to keep on a forced smile.

“Uhm, were they necessary?” Peridot asked.

Baumer frowned a bit. “Yes, you have to leave the beach immediately, or I’ll be calling the security!”

“Argh.” Amethyst grunted.

“Hey we are trying to do something important here you clod,” Peridot insulted him.

“I see… security!” Andrew shouted inside a radio in his cart.

“Run, Peri!” Amethyst shouted, running away.

Peridot ran as well on all fours.

“Ah I’m gonna need to have somebody filling this up.” The manager took the radio again. “Jhonny, call some spare personnel to the beach, there is a huge hole that needs to be filled.”

The manager then looked over to William and Odd and noticed that they had the bracelet of the hotel.

“Oh, I’m deeply sorry about this, sirs. May I offer you a warm shower token to get that sand off? And maybe also a complimentary cappuccino?” Baumer asked sporting a very wide smile.

“I’d like the cappuccino,” Odd answered.

“We could use the shower tokens, yes. The cappuccino can wait, Odd,” William said sternly, he then looked at the hole and noticed something strange. “Where did they leave the shovels?”

“Yeah, they didn’t have them when they ran away,” Odd observed. “Maybe they dug it by hand?”

“Isn’t it a little too large? They’d have needed at least a day to dig such a big hole by hand and...and why are there shovel marks around it?” William looked inside the hole.

“Uhm sir, I’d suggest you to stay clear of the hole. The hotel does not wish you to be harmed.” The manager got out of the cart and tried to keep the two away from the hole. “I’ll have somebody from the staff fill this up immediately.”

William still looked at the hole, thoughtfully holding his chin.

Peridot and Amethyst ran through the palm tree forest directed towards the grassy hills.

“Oh great, now how do we investigate that bulk of metal you sensed underneath the beach?” Amethyst asked.

“I don’t know, we might have to organize a plan –” Peridot accidentally stumbled upon an overgrown root.

“Woah, you okay, Peri?” Amethyst asked while helping her up.

“Ugh, I am.” Peridot suddenly paused as she felt something, something very very strange. “What...is this?”

“What’s up?” Amethyst asked.

“There is something underneath this place, deep underground.” She started to push her head on the soil.

“What is it?” Amethyst asked.

“It seems to be some kind of very durable metal, but I don’t understand what kind of alloy it is.” Peridot stood up some moments after and projected a map with her gemstone, signing the location. “We have got to tell the others about this, this has to be investigated!”

“Okay we are online,” Jeremy said upon activating his scanner, which was mounted on a tripod hidden between the bushes.

“Good, I have got imagines,” Aelita said, checking the data coming from it on a smartphone.

Jeremy then proceeded to point the scanner at the fence, moving it from a side to the other.

“How is it going, Aelita?” Jeremy asked.

“There seems to be a peak in RF radiation in that direction.” Aelita indicated it.

Jeremy adjusted the tripod immediately, aligning it precisely.

“What does it look like Aelita?” Jeremy asked her.

“The RF radiation is the strongest in that point, exactly five hundred meters from here.” Aelita observed the diagrams appearing on her phone’s screen.

“Let’s see now.” Jeremy took out a couple of binoculars, pointing them at the fence.

“These trees... It’s like they have been planted there to obstruct the view.” Aelita noticed the difference density of vegetation between the two areas.

“It’s indeed a possibility.” Jeremy started to move around the binoculars trying to find some kind of clue to whatever happened there. However, he suddenly stopped when he noticed somebody else.

“Get down, Aelita!” Jeremy said quickly getting in the bush with Aelita.

“What happened, Jeremy? What did you see?” she asked.

“There is a somebody over there.” Jeremy looked out of the bush carefully pointing at a tall woman with squared hair and thick glasses standing in front of the fence.

“What do you think she is doing?” Aelita asked.

“I’m not sure. It seems she is looking at the fence,” Jeremy observed.

Garnet kept all of her three eyes focused at the fence, trying to get a vision, but still her vision became all fogged beyond two minutes.

“Hmm.” Garnet tapped on her chin, looking around.

Aelita thought that she could have been an environmental activist or something, or some random hiker.

Jeremy kept observing her with the binoculars, while his scanner kept running in automatic.

However, suddenly Jeremy stepped on a loose stick breaking it.

Garnet turned around and aligned her eyesight with the bush the two were hiding into before approaching it.

“We have been spotted!” Jeremy jumped.

“Let’s get out of here!” Aelita suggested.

“Right, let’s move.” Jeremy started to frenetically dismount the tripod, accidentally dropping the scanning device onto the ground.

“Oh no!” Jeremy picked it up quickly, hoping that it wasn’t broken in any way.

“Hello.” Garnet appeared over the bush.

Jeremy cringed upon seeing the very tall woman, and Aelita bit her lip.

“What are you two doing?” Garnet asked.

“Ahem, taking...photos?” Jeremy answered with an awkward expression.

“With what camera?” Garnet observed that the only device they had was some kind of parabolic dish, similar to a directional microphone.

“Uhm, actually this is our camera.” Jeremy indicated the dish.

“That?” Garnet inquired.

“Yes! It’s a new form of photography. We utilize ecomapping to scan landscapes and then we print out the representations!” Jeremy explained.

“Exactly! It’s a new form of art, we got into it as soon as we heard of it.” Aelita added.

“Huh...” Garnet had a thoughtful look.

“If you are done asking, then we’d be on our way. There are a lot of sites to photograph on this island, see yah!” Jeremy quickly took the tripod and the device and took off with Aelita.
Garnet assumed once again a thoughtful expression.

Jeremy and Aelita ran fast through the forest and reached the town.

“That was close...” Jeremy was panting as both he and Aelita finally stopped to catch their breath.

“You think –” Aelita took a deep breath “– she saw something?”

“I’m not sure, but hopefully no, and it doesn’t appear that she followed us.” Jeremy looked behind. “Wow, I have never run so fast...we reached the town.”

“We should probably head back to the hotel, the sooner we review the data the better,” Jeremy said.

“I agree, let’s see where the nearest bus station is.” Aelita took out her phone looking for the GPS.

After locating one, the two went down the street and got a good look of the town.

While it was a very small town, it was quite busy, and the many shops and restaurants showed how much the town thrived on tourism rather than anything.

“One of these days we should go dining out. I wonder how the dishes they make here taste.” Aelita looked at some of the restaurants they were passing by.

Jeremy looked thoughtful; normally he’d not want to indulge in something like that during a mission, but probably some exceptions could have been made. Especially for Aelita.

“We can definitely do something like that, but it will have to wait until we figure out why your father had us coming here,” Jeremy concluded.

“Alright,” Aelita answered.

“Very nice weather we are having...” A metallic voice echoed nearby.

“Uhm?” Jeremy turned around, upon hearing the strange voice. Aelita did so too.

The two could see a blue and white robot talking to a store owner.

“Good day ma’am, I’m a representative of the Dexlabs, I’m here to ask you some questions if possible,” the Dexbot said politely.

“Uh...sure?” The store owner was disoriented.

“Very good, would you want me to refer to you by name?” The Dexbot asked. “In such case, please speak your name and surname clearly.”

“Uhm–” The woman was about to speak, but another robot rudely interrupted her.

“Good day human,” a Mandroid rudely interrupted her before she had the chance to answer. “I come on the behalf of the Mandark Industries: the most advanced research facility in the world, under the control of the brilliant Madark. We have a series of questions for you, and we are confident you’ll be smart enough to answer.”

“I beg your pardon?” The woman asked visibly offended.

“Warning. Bot belonging to Mandark detected!” The Dexbot said.

“Dexbot detected! Competition elimination protocol engaged!” The Mandroid got in an offensive stand and then moved towards the Dexbot with its arms extended.

“Commencing self defense protocol!” The Dexbot raised its arms shielding itself.

The store owner raised an eyebrow and then retreated back to his shop as a slap fight ensued.

Aelita and Jeremy had a similar reaction too.

“What are these?” Aelita wondered.

“Hmm, robots it appears, and quite advanced ones too.” Jeremy looked at them, and finally noticed the symbols on their chassis.

“Dexlabs and Mandark Industries...why do these names sound familiar?” Jeremy brought a hand to his chin thoughtfully.

Some hours later the sun started to set. The working day was finally over the employees of the surfers paradise.

“Have a good evening,” Abram saluted the last customer to leave the hotel before the ending of his shift arrived.

“Woah, this was one productive day. I can’t wait to get some restoring rest.” Abram opened the door to the bunk beds.

As he entered he noticed that Ripper and Lance were looking out the window, and along with them there was also Kelly, who was turned around, looking at somewhere else.

“Uhm, hi, Ripper. How was your day? No hard feelings for the initiation question, right?” Abram asked.

“Oh don’t worry, dude. However could you please come closer?” Ripper asked signaling to come closer.

“Sure, I guess.” Abram came closer.

“A little closer,” Ripper signaled again.

“O...k.” Abram could notice a grin in Ripper’s reflection on the window. “What’s up?”

“I need your opinion Abram...how is my new...LOOOOOOK!!” Ripper turned around and showed that the skin of his face had stones around it, bordered by a red liquid.

“Don’t they look chiiiiic? But they are so paaaainful!” Lance turned around as well, his face was in the same state.

“Implanted stones are great, but I think I did something wrong!!!” Kelly arrived behind Abram, wearing the exact same “jewelry”.

The three seniors thought that Abram would have screamed his lungs out, ran out of the room, or tried to vacate through the window. They even placed some cameras to record everything. But Abram displayed only a bemused face.

“Uhm, hey. Stones in our skin, right here, just like that lady that creeped you out this morning?” Ripper pointed at his biggest stone.

“Ripper. These stones are clearly glued to your body, and even a daltonic could tell that this is fake blood.” Abram touched a droplet of the fake blood. “The consistency is completely off as well as the coloration.”

“Not true! This stuff is real!” Lance said.

“Yeah right, lemme guess.” Abram tasted the material covering his finger. “You used, ketchup, corn syrup and colorants?”

Ripper’s eye wrinkled a little.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Abram said. “Where did you find the materials to do this anyways, the kitchen?”

“Uh...” Lance was surprised that he figured it out so fast.

“Argh! Fine you win.” Ripper ripped off some of the stones he had on his face. Yelping in pain afterwards.

“I really hope you put the supplies you utilized back in the kitchen...” Abram looked quite concerned.

“Why do you care?” Ripper asked.

“Uhm, because if I remember correctly, stealing materials of any kind is ground to get a strike so when the direction will find out–”

Abram was cut off by door slamming revealing a very angered Andrew Baumer.

“Uhm, good evening, sir,” Abram greeted their employer.

“Don’t try to mellow me with some fussy behavior.” The manager pointed at Abram. “I know that you stole some supplies from the kitchen!”

“H...how can you tell?” Ripper asked, trying to hide the stones he took from his face under his back.

“You have got homemade fake blood on your skin, and I have found a whole bowl used to mix the ingredients for it in one of the bathrooms!” The manager snarled clearly furious.

“I can assure you, sir, that I don’t have anything to do with this,” Abram said quickly.

“I’ll be the judge of that, your hands please.” The manager ordered.

“My hands?” Abram raised an eyebrow.

“Yes your hands! Now put them where I can see them.” The manager ordered again.

Abram obeyed and put them forward. The manager then proceeded the smell them both inhaling very deeply.

“Hmmm, you are clean. Even too clean, you kinda smell like disinfectant,” The manager remarked.

“Well...I had to get very clean when I used the clean room back in college –” Abram was quickly cut off again.

“Enough I don’t need the story of your life.” Andrew turned over facing the others. “Now it’s your turn.”

The others gulped and let the manager smell their hands. And much to the senior’s dismay, he managed to recognize the smells.

“Hmmm, corn syrup, tomato ketchup and a hint of chemical colorant,” Baumer said.

“Remarkable how did you–?” Abram was interrupted by the manager again.

“Many years of practice. You will all get a strike for what you did, except for you, Abram, you may go free,” Andrew declared.

The seniors emitted a groan of annoyance upon hearing that.

“Uhm sir, I don’t have to go anywhere. I live here for the moment,” Abram said.

“I was as being metaphorical. And one more thing, the cost of the supplies you stole will be detracted from your monthly pay. Goodnight.” Andrew proceeded to leave the room.

“Well, sorry for you gu–” Abram was cut off by Ripper’s mad expression right in his face.

“I don’t know who you think you are, but be sure of one thing, we’ll make the rest of your summer worse than a school year unless you start respecting the code of this place.” Ripper was almost steaming anger.

“Listen up Ripper, I’m here because I have work to do. I need to get money to finance a project of mine and that’s the only reason I’m here, I have no reason for submitting to your rules, especially if they include hazing in any form. With this, I must leave now. The air is getting heavy in here.” With that Abram left the room as well with his briefcase, leaving two furious seniors and a raging one behind.

“Alright dude, this is war!” Ripper proclaimed.

On the other hand in Dexter’s room, he was consuming his rich dinner. Pondering what to do.

He didn’t expect Mandark would be able to pick up the energy trail of the phenomena, not that fast anyways. His company’s satellite network system was very outdated compared to his own.

“Uhm sir, are you in need of assistance?” One of the Dexbots read his level of stress increasing.

“As a matter of fact, yes,” Dexter answered as he quickly figured out what kind of help he needed.

“How may I assist you?” The dexbot asked.

“Use your direct mainframe link to contact the headquarters. Inform Computress that I want her here by tomorrow morning.” Dexter said, his synthetic assistant would have been a fundamental help with the current situation.

“Will do, sir.” The bot answered.

Dexter then returned to his dinner, thinking more about the events to come. If the mandroids were there, Mandark wasn’t far either. And if he was, then keeping an eye on him was imperative, and by now he probably had learned of Dexter’s presence too.

Meanwhile at the queen oyster, Mandark learned about the presence of his rival.

“WHAT!?” He asked upon hearing the news from his bot.

“We have come in contact with some dexbots while surveying the town. They appeared to be questioning the islanders and the tourists,” the bot explained.

“Hmmm so that skunk of Dexter is here too. He probably hacked into my systems to get the coordinates of this place. My server farm staff is getting fired as soon as I come back.” Mandark stomped back and forth across the room. “But first I need to find a way to disrupt his investigations, this place’s power will be mine and mine only!”

Mandark then sat down and started to reflect, squishing an anti-stress puppet shaped like Dexter.

“Maybe slowing him down will be enough. Yes, slowing Dexter down with some well elaborated tactics, just enough for me to unlock the secrets of this island, then I’ll be able to beat him out of market,” Mandark concluded.

At the camp of the crystal gems on the other hand, Peridot was proceeding to present her and Amethyst’s findings.

Pearl and Steven were unsuccessful, as they found nothing while exploring the surrounding area of the grassy hills, even though Steven had the occasion of meeting some people who were exploring as well.

Garnet referred of the two people she met and described them in the detail, suggesting to keep an eye of them in case they met them again. With what was left of her future vision she knew that Peridot and Amethyst made the most significant discovery.

“As Amethyst previously explained, our metal detection operation was cut off by the interference of three humans, but while escaping from them, I accidentally tripped over the root of a tree,” Peridot explained calmly and scientifically. “Because of this fortuitous accident, I was able to sense a large quantity of an exotic alloy deep in the underground of the island. Approximately at five hundred meters below the surface.”

“Hmmm. What could it be?” Pearl wondered. “I doubt the humans have achieved a knowledge of engineering high enough to built structures at such a depth. Maybe we should reevaluate the possibility of it being a gem structure?”

“Plausible, but I can’t tell for sure," Peridot explained. “The alloy was indeed very advanced, but personally it felt unlike anything I have knowledge of. It seemed to be made of some kind of very strong form of enriched steel, tungsten and carbon fiber, but it felt...off. There were some compounds I couldn't identify precisely which bore a staggering resemblance with organic cell structures, along with trace amounts of elements that I suspect to be mercury, cobalt, gold, silicon and silver.”

Pearl raised an hand to her chin, theorizing about the possible nature of the structure and of the alloy.

“This is a relevant discovery, we have to investigate this.” Garnet reasoned.

“Exactly what I was going to say,” Peridot said. “I suggest we first extrapolate an approximate map of the underground structure utilizing my power, then we can work on a way to excavate all the way to it.”

“If it is five hundred meters below the surface, then we are going to need an automated drill. If there is a mechanic on this island we could gather the parts to build it from there,” Pearl said.

“Maybe we could simply find a hatch, like if this structure was made by somebody they’d need to come in and out through somewhere, right?” Amethyst suggested.

“That’s actually plausible too, and could save us a lot of mechanical work,” Pearl reasoned.

“If there is an access point, I’m confident it’s made of a similar material, I’ll be able to localize it using my power,” Peridot said.

“Then it’s decided, we’ll start the investigation tomorrow from the site of Peridot’s discovery,” Garnet declared.

Meanwhile the Rainbooms sans Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie were in Sunset’s and Twilight for the debriefing.

“So...has anybody uncovered anything useful?” Sunset questioned her friends.

“Unfortunately not, we found nothing around the grassy hills,” Fluttershy said.

“Yup, we found nothin’.” Applejack was laying on the sofa with her hands under her head.

“We found nothing worthy of mentioning. The most unconventional thing we saw was a woman in a strange outfit with a jewel on her head…” Rarity remembered seeing Pearl and Steven hiking in the distance.

“How is it going with the magic-finding-thingies, Twilight?” Applejack asked.

Twilight was sitting at the desk. The magic spectrometers were connected to her computer, and trough an analysis program she was evaluating their findings.

“Hmmm, well so far we have got nothing. This island seems to have a considerable amount of magical energy, but it’s too amorphous and scattered to give any hint regarding the position of the source.” Twilight pointed at the flat graphs on the screen.

In that moment the door opened up with a ‘slam’, getting the attention of everyone in the room.

Pinkie Pie entered and ran to Twilight. “Twilight! You won’t believe what happened to us!!”

“Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, it’s about time you arrived. Where were you?” Sunset asked.

Twilight raised from her seat. “Yeah, our daily debriefing was scheduled one hour ago, we started now because we couldn’t delay any longer.”

“And what in the heavens happened to your hair!?” Rarity asked, seeing that their hair was puffy and spiky as if they were electrified.

“Oh, we got in a magic cave!” Pinkie said.

Sunset's mouth fell open in disbelief for a moment, before curving back up into an excited grin. “Magic cave? What do you mean?”

“I’ll explain.” Rainbow Dash stepped forward. “Alright then, while we were exploring the mountain we discovered a cave system and Pinkie Pie’s Pinkie sense went haywire when she entered it.”

Twilight and Sunset glanced at each other. If something triggered the Pinkie sense it was surely something important. “Go on,” they said in unison.

“So we followed the Pinkie sense, and halfway inside the cave system, our powers reappeared!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed.

Twilight’s eyes widened. “The spectrometers! Give me the spectrometers!”

Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash proceeded to give them to Twilight and she plugged them inside the computer.

“What else happened?” Sunset asked.

“It was sick! I ran with my rainbow speed and crashed into a wall, and it broke!” Rainbow Dash explained.

“It broke!? How fast were you moving?” Twilight asked while trying not to take her eyes off the screen.

“I don’t know, for some reason I moved faster than I have ever did before. But that’s not all, behind the wall we found some kind of awesome cave!”

“Yeah! It was filled with floating crystals!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed.

Rarity snapped to attention. “Crystals!? What colour were they? What were they made of!?”

“Not a good time for that, partner. What was so cool about a bunch of rocks?” Applejack asked.

“Some of them were floating!!!” Pinkie Pie yelled. “And they were electrified, we got these pretty hairstyles when we touched them!”

“Please, Pinkie Pie, stop ruffling them before somebody else sees you.” Rarity could barely tolerate the sight of an afro hairstyle in that context.

“Also, the deeper we moved in, the more our powers got stronger,” Rainbow Dash exclaimed. “It got to a point that I couldn’t even move without speeding.”

“Oh my gosh!” Twilight exclaimed as the data from the spectrometers finished downloading.

“What is it, Twilight?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“Look at these values! They are almost over the scale!” Twilight exclaimed pointing at the graphs on the screen.

“You are right...they are almost as high as the values of Canterlot high!” Sunset Shimmer couldn’t believe her eyes.

The others jumped hearing that.

“WHAT!?” Pinkie Pie yelled. “Oh wait, it was actually pretty predictable.”

“Higher than Canterlot high’s? This has to be investigated!” Sunset started pacing around. “There could definitely be another passage to Equestria in there, or other magic infused crystals like the ones at camp everfree.”

“I have got to prepare my spelunking outfit!” Rarity ran to the closet.

“So I guess that tomorrow will be caving day,” Applejack said, putting her hands behind her head.

Rainbow Dash looked at Applejack confidently. “Yup, and in a magic stained cave...you know what that means right?”

“Superpowers clash?” Applejack looked back at her smirking.

Rainbow Dash nodded.

“We are going to need a more precise instrument.” Twilight started disassembling the devices one by one. “Before we go to sleep I’ll utilize the components of the singular spectrometers to build a more powerful one.”

“I’ll give you a hand with that Twilight,” Sunset Shimmer started disassembling the devices too.

“Anything yet, Jeremy?” Yumi asked her friend as he sat in front of the computer.

“It appears nothing so far.” He looked at the graphs on the screen, in particular to a window in the center showing a wireframe of the imagines that the camera recorded.

“No signs of relevant quantum computer activity,” Aelita pointed out. “That place has either a good shielding or they aren’t researching quantum computers there.”

“You might be right on the latter, Aelita. If the facility was shielded then the scanner wouldn’t have picked up anything, which isn’t the case.” Jeremy pointed at the some of dots on the wireframe of the facility. “Also, I doubt that anyone would spend the money needed to completely isolate a facility of these proportions.”

“Maybe what we are looking for is somewhere else?” Ulrich asked.

“Yeah, maybe there could be another facility on the island,” William suggested.

“Could be, but that would make the research even harder. I haven’t found any other information regarding advanced science facilities on this island, if there is another one then it might be hidden or something,” Jeremy reasoned.

“Hey what’s wrong with the camera now?” Odd asked pointing at the screen.

The imagine changed angle very rapidly and pointed at the ground.

“Oh, this is when we met that woman we told you about, we accidentally dropped the cam–” Jeremy noticed something curious about the imagine when the camera framed the ground. The graphs nearby showed a small peak, a flicker coming from underneath the ground.

“What did you find Jeremy?” Odd asked curiously.

“I’m not sure...” Jeremy was giving all of his attention to the screen, trying to discern whether the flicker was an error or if it was a lead.

After a couple minutes, Jeremy managed to extrapolate the anomaly.

“Alright I can safely say that it wasn’t an error.” Jeremy tapped on his chin looking at the screen.

“That’s an RF signature of some device, but it’s very faint.” Aelita said.

Jeremy looked at the estimated position values. “That’s probably because it’s underground...very deep underground.”

The depth was around five hundred meters below ground.

“Yeah, if whatever is down there can emit a signal that can be traced from the surface, then it must be pretty powerful.” Aelita looked at the screen closely.

Jeremy adjusted his glasses. “Indeed, for even such a small signal to pass through all these layers of rock and soil, the emitting device would need a considerable power source.”

“I think we might have found the hidden facility. Now the question is, how do we get to it?” Ulrich asked.

“Uhm...Jeremy could build an army of Kiwi twos?” Odd tried to crack a joke.

Everyone in the room rolled their eyes and groaned.

“Hardly Odd. Could you please be a little serious?” Jeremy looked at him.

“Come on I was just trying to make a joke, you know brighten up the day.” Odd put his hands behind the head laying on the sofa.
“Anyway...since we can’t reach the computer physically, I guess we could try to find out if there are any connection channels to it.” Jeremy massages his temples as he thought about potential solutions.

“Perhaps we could repurpose the super scanner?” Aelita suggested.

“That’s a good idea Aelita, if we start working now and dine later, we could have it done by tomorrow.” Jeremy started to open some of folders containing the super scanner’s source code.

Meanwhile at the domes.

“Status report,” Hubberton ordered as an image of himself appeared on the wall of a very advanced laboratory.

An old man wearing a lab coat raised from his seat and got in front of the olographic wall. “Mr Hubberton, the results of the research have been satisfying. After many tests in vitro, on plants and animals we are starting to understand how the substance works.”

The lab behind him was quite large and very modern, like most of the domes. The counters all had touch screens on them, and were mostly covered in testing tubes and chemistry equipment. Some cages containing lab rats could be seen, along with other animals. At the center of the lab there was a clean room, containing numerous robotic arms mounted on rails passing on the floor and the ceiling, and in the center there was a large cylinder, containing some kind of liquified metal. Around the cylinder there were some writings and two symbols: one depicting a sphere with circuits running around it and another one depicting what looked like a round cell with a gear around it.

“Show me,” Hubberton ordered. As he said so an interface appeared on the wall presenting a large handprint on it.

“Of course, sir.” The scientist proceeded to put his hand on the interface, and as he did so it expanded to show a screen with a list on it, along with it there was the wireframe of something spherical. Afterwards the scientist proceeded to tap on some other buttons and a progressing bar that read “sending” appeared.

Hubberton reviewed the list and then looked at the scientist.

“I’m pleased to see that you are making progresses,” Hubberton said.

“The substance appears to be an amalgamation of cells augmented with inorganic components, and it can be controlled utilizing a set of signals.” The scientist proceeded to tap on some icons appearing on the wall, displaying sets of images. The images showed different stages of experiments conducted on the substance. “Utilizing radio frequencies, it's possible to encode operations on the cells, causing them to react.”

“I see.” Hubberton watched with interest.

“With the right conditions, the cells can form tissues that can serve different functions or even make reparations at pre existing tissues with extreme precision. The potential applications in the field of robotics are numerous, but also in other fields such as construction and medicine,” the scientist said.

“Excellent, regarding the latter what of the experiments regarding the interaction of the substance with biological tissue?” Hubberton asked.

The scientist tapped on some more icons appearing on the wall. “These are the results of the tests conducted in vitro and vivo. As you can see, the cells contained within the substance remain in some sort of standby mode until they are solicited by a signal.”

Images of petri capsules were shown, but also guinea pigs and various other animals.

“I see,” Hubberton examined each imagine.

“The substance remains inert and remains in the body indefinitely, occasionally recycling dead cells to make reparations to its own.” The scientist explained.

Hubberton looked interested. “What of the possible applications of the substance to medicine?”

“Well we still need to conduct the experiments, but the applications range from fighting tumors to gene therapy.”

“Excellent, you’ll concentrate your efforts on this field then,” Hubberton said. “I expect you to begin experimenting with the activated substance by the next days.

“Of course, sir.” the scientist answered.

“Give special attention to the gene-therapy feature. I’ll even authorize experiments on human subjects if it will be necessary.” Hubberton seemed pretty impatient while talking about that specific topic.

“Experimenting on humans?” The scientist looked quite shocked upon hearing so.

“Think of the potential gain here. What is a little risk in the face of what we could accomplish.”

“But sir… The procedure is still very dangerous. I don’t think we could get enough volunteers.”

Hubberton just smiled and shook his head. Small minds, always worrying about the wrong things. "I'll see to that, there are a lot of ways to persuade somebody."

The scientist clearly still had concerns, but seemed unable to voice them. “Yes… Of course, it will be done, sir.”

“Excellent.” Hubberton closed the call and leaned back in his chair. It wouldn’t be long now. With the resources already at his disposal and what they would acquire on Sunrise Island, he and XANA would be able to bend the world to their will.