-
Dean drummed his fingers against the smooth glass like surface of the floor while he kept his eyes on Nyrii. It had been an well over an hour since Gabe put her under and half an hour since Cas did something, Dean wasn’t sure what, but it was something. The girl was still sleeping, although the illumination in her circuits had dimmed and grew paler to an almost white color.
He looked up when he heard someone approach the two of them and saw Tron carrying two bottles of that liquid energy. Dean had been worried that a different program would come up to them and try to attack Nyrii despite the fact that her User status had been revealed. Dean heard a few of them grumbling and revealed some scars on their body they had received from Nyrii in the past.
“Any changes?” Tron asked as he handed one of the bottles to Dean and sat down next to him.
“None so far,” Dean said before he took a long swig from the bottle. “Thanks. I really needed it that.”
“I figured we all could use some.” He paused to take a sip from his own bottle.
“Where’s Yori?” Dean asked. He had seen Tron and his girlfriend walk off somewhere to be alone.
“She went to speak with Jolt, Slash and a few others about our next move,” Tron explained. “We did make up for some lost time.” He smiled at the thought and Dean instantly recognized that satisfied smile. No wonder the program’s circuits were glowing even brighter than before.
“Figured you two went off to cyber,” Dean chuckled and stopped when he noticed the confused expression on Tron’s face. “Never mind.”
“Where are the others?”
“Lia dragged my brother off somewhere to talk.” Dean wasn’t sure what it was about, but he had a feeling it was about him. “The angels went off somewhere and the other Sam and the ISO girl decided to try and heal some of the battle damage on the other programs.”
“Your presence had given everyone some hope.”
“Best not to let them know the truth,” Dean said softly.
“About what?”
“Angels have their own agenda. Most of the ones I’ve come across couldn’t give two shits about us humans. They just carry out orders from their father without question.”
“Like programs.”
“And us sometimes.”
“Castiel and Gabriel are different.”
Dean nodded. “They have spent more time amongst us. Gabe is amused by us and kind of grown fond of humans and general and Cas is our friend. He doesn’t fight just for Heaven. He fights for the humans.”
“It seems Gabriel is also fighting for the humans,” Tron said and took another drink.
“And you guys.” Dean took another drink and noticed how Nyrii was shifting around on her table. Her circuitry now was a bright blue shade. “I think she’s waking up.” He set down his empty bottle and stood up.
Nyrii’s eyelids fluttered before they shot back. She looked at the ceiling and to her sides for a second before she screamed and sat up. Her cry of terror had alerted several programs and as they ran towards them she cried out again.
“Don’t scare her,” Dean commanded.
“Scare her?” One of the programs said.
“Wait.” Tron held up a hand.
Nyrii’s head darted in every direction with her wide eyes taking in every thing. She gasped several times before she rolled off the bed. She stood up and tried to back away from the approaching programs but stumbled and fell on the ground.
“What did we say?” Dean asked as he pointed at one of the programs that was trying to approach the frightened girl. “Stand back.”
Nyrii crawled backwards until she bumped into another program. She screamed again as she rose to her feet and tried to run, only to see everywhere she turned there were more programs. She shook as she dropped to her knees and started to cry.
“She’s awake,” Cas said from behind Dean.
“Take off your jacket,” Dean said. He was too concerned for Nyrii that he wasn’t bothered by the angel appearing behind him. “You have the less glowyness.”
“I’ll try,” Cas said and handed her coat. He took a step to Nyrii. “I’m sorry this happened Miss. I know this place can be scary. My name is James Novak, but you can call me Jimmy. What’s your name?”
Nyrii stopped crying and looked up at him. “Darla. My name is Darla Simcoe.”
“Where are you from?”
“Cincinnati,” Darla answered. “Where am I? What’s going on? I was just playing a game.”
“Where are going to find a way to get you back home.” Cas kneeled down next to her and held out her hand. “Everything is going to be okay.” He held out a hand.
Darla accepted his hand and threw herself into his arms. “I want to go home. I want to go home. I want to go home.” Her body shook with each sob.
Dean felt himself boil as he watched Cas pat the poor girl’s back. He glanced up at the other programs. The anger and fear that was in their eyes was now replaced with pity. A few even had tears in their eyes.
Tron himself was shaking with rage. His jaw was set and nostrils were flaring along with his circuitry. “This stops now. I will not allow another User to be used like this.”
“Agreed,” Dean said.
-
Dean needed to be alone once they were able to calm Darla down and take her somewhere where she would feel safe and secure. Cas was trying his best for her to become less afraid around the programs and Dean reminded himself he was going to give the angel a great deal of praise for behaving like a decent and caring human being around the poor girl.
Dean had originally wanted to speak with Tron about the situation but the security program was quite agitated and he couldn’t blame him. Darla was probably an average college student who liked to kick back with a few computer games before she was pulled in, forced to play Luduserus’s games until she lost a few times and brainwashed into Nyrii. Dean wasn’t sure if she remembered everything she had done as the lieutenant or was just scared in general, but he knew she was going to need some form of therapy to deal with the trauma she had received.
“Dean I’ve heard what happened,” Lia spoke to him when he walked past her. “How is she?”
“Scared of everything,” Dean growled as he stared coldly at her. Did she know Darla. Did she give her the same speech about identity disks as she gave Dean and his companions?
“That poor girl,” Lia said in a soft voice and looked down. “If I knew…If I knew what he was doing to them I’d risk deresolution just to get them out of there.”
“Really?” Dean asked. “You say that now.”
“I mean it.” She approached him and stared into his face. “I would risk my own life for them if I knew.”
“How could you not know?”
“I was not informed on what happened to those who lost.” She did not look angry, but sad. “I tried to find where they were taken once they lost their third match. I couldn’t find anything and nearly revealed my real intent twice. I was informed that not even Kruz knows what happens to them. He thinks they are programs and not Users.”
“You said you did everything?”
“Yes.”
“It wasn’t enough.” He stepped away from her and walked away.
“Dean wait,” she called after him.
“I’m done talking.” He squared his shoulders and continued on his way. He wanted to find his brother and then check on Cas and Darla and then speak with Tron.
“Smooth move Ex-lax,” Gabe told him before he jumped in front of him.
“What do you want?” Dean snapped. He did not want to deal with the former trickster.
“I want to smack some sense into you, but seeing how impossible that is I guess we can just talk.”
“I don’t want to talk to you.”
“Too bad.” Gabe placed his finger’s on Dean’s forehead. The scenery around them shifted and Dean found himself on top of one of the digital buildings. “Because we are.”
“Take me down now.”
“No.” Gabe jumped away from him. “Lia did everything she could; the same for me and everyone else who is trying to help. She is telling the truth.” He pointed at his eye.
“You knew by looking at her?” Dean asked in disbelief. “Did you know about Nyrii?”
Gabe sighed and shook his head. “I can only read them when I look straight into their eyes and programs read differently than humans. I had to learn how to read them. You keep forgetting that you humans are different from them. I thought Nyrii was a program and didn’t bother to look.”
“I’m not talking here.”
“Guess what. I’m not taking you down to ground level until we finish.”
“Screw this.” Dean walked around, trying to find a top floor elevator. Frustration grew when he could find none and he looked down near the edge he could see it was quite a drop and the building he was far away from the nearest building that was close to it’s height. There were few shorter buildings that was closer, but even if he could do a Matrix style jump he would still break his legs or worse when he landed.
“Not many options huh?” Gabe said in a smug tone. “Might as well suck it up, Buttercup.”
“Fine,” Dean grumbled. He hated the fact that the angel was right. “What do you want to talk about?”
“Try not to lash out against your allies. Many of them do not know about what Luduserus is or what he is capable of. I’m not even sure what he is capable of now these days.”
“Is that it?” He held up his hands. “You brought me up here to tell me that.”
“Cas is going to have to tone down his power at least until we reach Luddy. That demon is going to sense him the second we step back there. We’re lucky he hasn’t already captured and tortured my little brother, as well as your brother and those other guys.”
“He helped that Jo guy seal him away.” He felt a bit of fear for Cas’s safety.
“Another things is there is something off about Tron.”
“What’s wrong with him?” Dean asked. His concerns about his friend’s health had resurfaced recently when they were sneaking around that large ship. “His girlfriend noticed something was different about him.”
“That’s the thing.” Gabe shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“How can you not know?” Dean asked as he pointed at the angel. “Did you not read him?”
“Never gives me a chance to look him in the eyes. Cas won’t be able to either. He doesn’t know how to read programs properly. It would look like the opening of the Matrix with all those ones and zeroes raining down to him.”
“Fine. Now will you get me down?”
“Sure thing.” He touched Dean’s forehead and once again the scene around them melted away and was replaced with the interior of a building. Sam Flynn and Quorra were only a few inches away.
“You can also teleport,” Flynn said in admiration.
“He’s an angel,” Dean said. This was the son of Kevin Flynn?
“Not to toot my own horn,” Gabe said. “But I can do a lot of things that defy logic.” He noticed Quorra was laughing at him. “What’s funny?”
“Toot your own horn,” Quorra said as she pointed at the chinchilla. “You are Gabriel. You do have a horn.”
Gabe grinned. “I like you.” He turned back to Dean. “I’ll leave now that things are cool.”
“Not really.” Dean scowled at the angel. “I still think you are a little shit, however there are more important things.”
“Try to go easy on Lia the next time you see her,” Gabe said before he walked off.
Dean glared at the angel’s direction, ready to lash out with an insult. He wanted to snap at him to tell him not to tell him how he should act around others or how he should feel, but he held it in.
“You guys are not good friends?” Flynn asked.
“Wow you really are a genius,” Dean said. His voice dripped with sarcasm. “Good things the company is in your hands.”
“Excuse me?” Flynn blinked. “What the hell is your problem?”
“He didn’t do anything wrong,” Quorra said.
“My problem is there is this poor frightened girl who was turned into a living weapon for a demon,” Dean answered. “I was pulled in as a tool for his game. I got turned into a freaking elf which as a character may have been bad ass at one time but now got douched up thanks to a bunch of pretty boys.”
“You are out of your element,” Flynn said. “And this frustrates you. You are used to fighting, but the playing field has been changed and you are lashing out at anyone within earshot.”
Dean was about to insult him again, but the guy was right. He was furious with what had been done to Darla, but his anger was directed at the wrong person. He was taking it out on everyone around him. He let out a low sound, a combination of a grunt and growl before he turned around to face the other two humans, or human and advanced program entity.
“I’m sorry,” Dean said. “I’m sorry I’m snapped.”
“We understand,” Quorra said and grabbed his hand. “You want to help those people. I want to save them.”
“Yeah.” He could tell she was sincere. There was something about those blue-green eyes of her that made him feel better.
“How do you feel?” Quorra asked.
“A little better,” Dean said and stepped away from her. From what he heard she was Flynn’s girlfriend and he didn’t want to make the other guy jealous.
“Everything is a bit stressful,” Flynn said and held out his hand. “I would like to show you the good parts around here. It can be beautiful, amazing and beyond your dreams when it is peaceful.”
“Maybe later. Right now I want to see how Darla is.”
-
The walked down to the level where Darla was resting. A few programs had walked past them, wearing outfits that humans wore. Dean had raised his eyebrows at first and glanced over to Flynn and Quorra and wondered if they knew, but they seemed to be just as puzzled and confused as he was.
“What is that about?” Dean asked. “Why are they dressed like that? Does this place have glitches as well?”
“I’m not sure,” Sam said. “Mrs. Bradley always took great care of her equipment and made sure it’s running smoothly.”
“We could change our outfits before,” Quorra said. “For whatever function that we need.”
“I wonder what the function is,” Flynn said
Dean shrugged “I hope Tron isn’t giving anyone a hard time. He was even more pissed than I was.”
“He knows what it’s like,” Flynn said softly. “He was forced to become a weapon.” He stared at his hands. “I wish I were stronger. I would have been able to defeat Clu, strangle him for what he did to Tron and maybe my father would still be alive.” He lowered his hands and looked up at Quorra when she grabbed his arm.
“I’m sorry,” Dean said softly. He wanted to bring up the fact the he also lost his father, but now was not the time.
They stopped outside of Darla’s room and stared through the glass windows. The room was painted in pastel colors with minimal glowing neon. Most of the light came from the spheres hanging down from the ceiling. There were carpets on the floor in various colors as was paintings and posters on the wall. There were shelves with books and what looked like DVD or video game cases or both along with a few other knick-knacks.
Darla was seated in a large bed with various pillows, a large white teddy bear, a pastel blue stuffed cat and a brown and white stuffed rabbit with a purple ribbon around it’s neck. She was no longer wearing the armor she wore as Nyrii and was dressed in what looked like a hospital gown. She had a flat drawing pad on her lap and she looked like she was drawing or writing something. She paused to take a sip from her glass and instead of energy she was drinking something that was creamy orange in color with several dark spheres in the bottom. Her bright pink straw seemed twice the size of a normal one.
“H-how is this possible?” Flynn asked.
“I changed the appearance of the room,” Cas appeared from behind them.
“You changed it?” Flynn asked after they had turned around. “Actually physically changed it or is it an illusion?”
“I was able to create a setting that would keep her calm,” Cas said. “Everyone who goes in there will receive an outfit change.”
“What’s she drinking?” Quorra asked.
“Bubble tea,” Cas answered. “It’s one of her favorite drinks. I changed some of the energy into it.”
“Cas that is amazing,” Dean said. He hoped he sounded as impressed as he felt. He was going to tell his angel friend to tone down the powers at another time.
-