Attack of the Clones
Chapter 4 – The Kidnapped
Dot Matrix had been sitting in her chair, in her office, when she had suddenly fallen asleep. When she awoke, she found herself tied to a chair. As she struggled, she saw Bob seated next to her, in the midst of regaining consciousness.
Next to him, sat AndrAIa and Phong, who seemed stunned and angered at the perpetrators. Dot also turned and was just as surprised to see the duet standing before them.
“What do the two of you think you are doing?” she exclaimed, watching as her brothers looked at each of them in suspicion.
“Don’t give us none of that,” Matrix snapped, arms folded and using his size to intimidate.
“What’re we doing?” Enzo asked, eyeing his sister. “I’ll tell you, Dot. If that is indeed your real name!” The four looked at in each other in confusion.
“Oh yeah,” the boy continued. “We know about your little secret. So, in order for us to spare your run times, you’re gonna tell us where the real yous are.”
“The real us?” Bob asked. “What are you talking about?”
Matrix walked up to him and stared them all down. “Now, I can be nice,” he said. He then removed Gun from his holster and said, “Or I can naughty. Your choice.”
“What in the Net is this about?” AndrAIa exclaimed, watching as her boyfriend and his little brother went completely off the deep end of the Data Slide.
“This is about you trying to take over the Net,” Enzo said, much to the quartet’s surprise. “Now, I’m gonna go down the line and ask you one by one. And I had better get a right answer.” He started with Dot.
“All right,” he said. “Where is she? Where’s my sister?”
“Enzo, I am your sister!” Dot insisted. “Why would you think otherwise?”
“Hey,” Matrix growled. “We’ll ask the questions around here.”
Enzo quickly pulled an object from off a table, which was revealed to be Dot’s prized organizer. “Exhibit A.” he said, holding it up in the air. “Your organizer. I used to think you were a big geek for carrying this around all second, but now I know the truth.
“You’ve been using it to contact your supreme leaders in order to tell them to bring reinforcements in order to take over the system and destroy the Net!”
Matrix leaned over to his brother. “When did we come up with that scenario?” he asked.
“It came to me while we were tying them up,” Enzo whispered. Turning his attention back to Dot, he said, “Now…I’ll go easy on you, if you tell me what I want to know.”
“Enzo, you listen to me,” Dot said sternly. “I don’t know where in the Great Wide Net you got this idea, but I am not taking over the Net or trying to destroy Mainframe. Now, please. Be careful with that.”
“Wrong answer.” Enzo said. To Matrix, he asked, “Ready?”
Matrix’s hand was on his holster. “What’re you going to do?” Dot asked.
“I wanna see how good of a shot Matrix is,” Enzo said, smiling evilly at his sister.
“You…you…you wouldn’t.” Dot squeaked. She had a lot of important stuff on there.
“You gonna talk?” Matrix asked.
“About what?” they asked.
“Your cloning the sprites of this system in order to take over the Net,” Enzo replied.
“What?” asked Bob.
“You’ll get your turn…guardian,” Enzo seethed. “Now,” he said to Dot. “Where is she?”
“I’m the real Dot!” she exclaimed.
Enzo turned back to Matrix, who was ready.
“Ready?” Enzo asked. Matrix nodded.
“Pull.”
Enzo threw the organizer in the air and like lightning, Gun was in Matrix’s hand. The shot went out and the organizer blew apart in mid air. Dot sat there, jaw dropped, eyes opened.
“I…I…” she stuttered, watching Enzo walk back to the group.
“Now…Bob,” he said, confident. “Where…”
“I can not believe you just did that!” Dot screamed.
“Quiet you!” Enzo said, pointing at her. “You’ve had your turn.” Turning back to Bob, he asked, “Where are they?”
“Where are who?” the blue sprite asked.
“The real yous.” Matrix replied.
“We are the real us!” he exclaimed. “What makes you think we’re not?”
“Matrix?”
“Recent events have caused my baby brother and I to realize you’re not the sprites you claim to be.”
“First…” Enzo started, but Matrix stopped him, not wanting to hear what other kind of conclusions that he wasn’t privy to.
“Just know this,” Matrix said. “We know who you are and what you’re up to. So if you want to save yourselves, I suggest you answer the kid’s questions.”
“This is ridiculous.” AndrAIa muttered.
“Keep your cool, hot and sexy,” Matrix said. “You’re next.”
“So Bob, gonna talk?” Enzo demanded.
“The two of you have completely lost your motherboards,” he retorted.
“Don’t worry,” Enzo said. “We’ve got something to make you
talk.”
“We do?” asked Matrix.
“Yes.”
“Yes, we do.” Matrix agreed. He then turned and looked at Enzo.
Enzo, sensing his brother’s confusion, said, “The vidwindow.”
Matrix formed an “oh” with his mouth and brought up a vid window
of the garage in Bob’s apartment and of his classic 252.
“Oh no,” he said, shaking his head. “Don’t…don’t do it.”
“I have placed a few sticks of dynamite in that car,” Enzo replied, handing a small box to Matrix. “Don’t make me ask you again, Bob.”
“Where did you find sticks of dynamite?” Dot asked. Everyone immediately turned and looked at Matrix.
“It’s amazing what you can find the data dump,” he said, defensively.
“Don’t…” Bob begged. “You guys couldn’t…”
“Where are you?” Enzo asked again. “The real yous.”
“I have no clue as to what you’re talking about!” Bob cried, his eyes going back and forth to the vid and Enzo.
“Matrix…”
The renegade hit a small red button on the box and soon, Bob and the others watched as his car blew up in a cloud of dust and fire.
“NOOOOO!” Bob screamed, watching his baby, his pride and joy, literally go up in smoke.
Enzo next went to AndrAIa. “AndrAIa.” He said, smiling sweetly.
“Enzo,” she said, politely. “Or should I call you the omen?”
“Believe me, we so wanted you not to be involved!” Enzo persisted. “But even your good looks and sexy body were no match for the evil alien Web clones.”
The game sprite just looked at the boy. “Have you been drinking?” she asked. “I know your brother has to be, but you I’m unsure of.”
“Just tell us what we want to know and nothing of yours will be hurt.”
“I want you to know you’re in big trouble right now.” she replied, the others agreeing with her. “I suggest you stop.”
“I don’t believe you’re in any way, shape or form in the position to be making demands, evil clone girl.” Enzo retorted.
Soon, Matrix left and returned with AndrAIa’s bike and placed it in the front of the group. Behind his back, he held a sledge hammer.
“Don’t you even dare,” she said, looking at the elder Enzo.
“Just tell us where you put them and where your pods are.” Matrix said.
“Pods?” Phong asked, speaking for the first time. He was completely and utterly confused as to what was going on.
Both brothers sighed, as though they were talking to children.
“Enzo…” Matrix said with an annoyed sigh.
“The pods are the vehicles in which you’ve stored the real bodies of the sprites and binomes that you’ve cloned.”
The quartet stared at him with dumbfounded expressions.
“My brothers have completely gone random,” Dot murmured.
“Are you gonna talk?” Enzo asked.
AndrAIa looked at him. “What do you think?” she asked, sarcastically.
Matrix smashed the back end of the bike first, denting the metal that the game sprite had spent so hard to get just right. A few more swings to the back and Matrix moved to the front.
Suddenly, Mike the TV rushed in, incredibly excited.
“Mike, what’re you doing here?” the renegade asked.
“Oh man!” he exclaimed, clearly out of breath. “Have I got an exclusive for you!” he continued. “Remember that story the MSN gave out this morning?” The boys nodded. “Turns out it was a fake!”
“What?” they asked in unison.
“Yeah!” Mike said. “Turns out it was a big hoax by some movie studio.” The brothers looked at each other in shock. “You know Dino and his movie crew.” Mike stated.
“Anyways, just wanted to let you before you did something really nutty, like thinking people were clones and stuff! Ha!” Mike shook his head and replied, “Bye guys.” With a wave and a short laugh, he went out the way he came.
Matrix quickly dropped the sledgehammer, which missed his foot by inches. The two made some nervous laughter, while the others just stared at them.
“Well…” Enzo started. “Seems we kinda jumped to a conclusion.”
“Pretty funny, huh?” Matrix said, laughing slightly.
“When you untie us,” Dot began. “And you will untie us…I’m going to delete you.” Looking at both Enzos, she added, “Both.”
“Yes…well…” Enzo said, slowly making his way towards the door. “I think…I think Matrix here would be better for that…”
“No way, dude,” the renegade piped up. He was currently sitting on the floor, trying to take the out the dents in the side wing. “I got a motorbike to fix.”