The next morning, I woke up. For a moment, I forgot why I was on the floor until I got up and spotted Bea on the bed. She was sound asleep and looked so beautiful, with the sunlight splaying on her face.

Though I really hated to, I went over and gently shook her. “Bea, you need to wake up,” I said, “We have to be at school soon.”

Bea moaned. “Whoa,” she said sleepily, “That sunlight is bright.”

“Ahem.” I turned around, to find mom standing in the doorway.

“Mom, there’s a perfectly good explanation for this,” I said, “We were doing homework last night and it was late when we finally finished. I thought that Bea shouldn’t go back to her house with it being so late, so...”

“It’s all right,” mom said.

“Like the true gentleman that he is, Lucas slept on the floor,” Bea said, "Nothing happened.”

“I believe you,” mom said, “Breakfast is ready, you two.”

“We’ll be down in a few minutes,” I said. Mom nodded and walked off towards the stairs. I turned to Bea. “I’ll go outside and let you get dressed.” I walked out of the room, closing the door on the way.

Bea sighed and got dressed quickly. She slung the backpack over her shoulder and put the nightshirt in a deep pocket. She came out of the room a few minutes later and I stepped in, quickly got dressed, and then went downstairs, where she and my mom were eating.

I sat down and fixed myself something. When I was finished, Bea and I walked to school.

Later on that day, we were given our real report cards. We all did good without the virus messing things up.

After school, I was reading when my wrist computer went off. Luckily, I was in my room, and there was no one around.

I hit the communications button. “Go ahead, S-1.”

“A powerful virus has infected cyber sector twelve,” Samurai-1 said.

“Right,” I said, “Servo’s on the job. Call Bea only in case of an emergency, all right?”

“Understood.”

“Uplink: Servo.” I was sent spiraling through the net to the place where the virus was. I used the expansion program to grow. The virus looked a lot like... “Kilokhan?”

“Gigatron actually,” it said, “Why haven’t you called upon your partner? I believe her name is Spryte.”

“She only wants to be called when there’s an emergency,” I said, “Now to rumble. "Si-kyahh.” I leapt at Gigatron and started grappling. Within minutes, he kicked my butt. "Sword.” The sword appeared in hand.

“That’s not a sword,” Gigatron said. He called upon a huge saber. “Now this is a sword.” Our two swords clashed. Gigatron wasted no time in disarming me and kicking my butt again.

A chirping sound grabbed Bea’s attention. She hit the communications button. "Go ahead, S-1,” she said.

“Servo needs your help,” Samurai-1 said.

“I’m on it,” Bea said. She hit the bigger button. “Uplink: Spryte.” She was sent to the cyber realm. She used the expansion pack, grew, and saw me getting my butt kicked royally by Gigatron.

“Spryte, meet Gigatron,” Servo said, “Gigatron, this is Spryte. Now, with all the formalities out of the way...” I jumped to stand right next to Spryte. “Let’s kick some gigabutt.”

“Si-kyahh.” That was the cry from both myself and Spryte as we tore into Gigatron. With two working together, we easily kicked its butt.

“He who lives and runs away,” Gigatron said, “Lives to make new viruses another day. Au revoire.” He disappeared.

“That was strange,” I said, “Gigatron had the basic build of Kilokhan, but that voice. It sounded more like...”

“Sounded more like Galvatron, from Transformers,” Bea finished. She followed me out through my computer when we were finished fighting.

“Well, that’s obviously our real enemy,” I said, “If its like Kilokhan, it can bring virus monsters to life.”

“You’re correct,” Samurai-1 said, “But, to get them to work, he would need a human to design them for him.”

“Just like Malcolm,” I said, “On the show. You know, there is one person who acts a lot like Malcolm at school.”

“Yeah, I know,” Bea said, “Jackie. But it can’t be that obvious, can it?”

“I guess not,” I said. I stretched and winced. “Ouch. I didn’t realize the extent of the beating I got from Gigatron.”

“You’re hurt?” Bea asked. I nodded. “Where?”

“My ribs mostly,” I said, “The other wounds just feel like bruises, but my ribs feel like I might have cracked a few.”

“Poor baby,” Bea said. I thought that there would be sarcasm, but there wasn’t. “S-1, he can’t go to school tomorrow like this. People will talk. What should we do?”

“In Servo mode, you have advanced healing,” Samurai-1 said, “You should go back and stay a few hours.”

“Right,” I said, hitting the main key. “Uplink: Servo.” I was sent into the cyber realm.

“Uplink: Spryte.” A few seconds later, Bea was with me. “Want to go exploring?”

“Sure,” I said. We flew off down a tube nearby. “S-1, is there anything fun in the cyber realm?”

“There’s the VR sector,” Samura-1 replied, “Once there, you can simply make any changes by voice command.”

“That’ll do wonderfully,” Spryte said, “Open us a tube there.” A tube appeared of nowhere, and we flew into it.

On the other side, we were out of our armor. “Whoa,” I said, “We’re our normal selves.”

“Just while you are in VR,” Samurai-1 said.

“This place is awesome,” Bea said, “Can Gigatron come here?”

“That is unknown, without proper information,” Samurai-1 said.

“I hope he can’t, or just hasn’t found this place out,” Bea said, “Well, anyway, let’s have some fun. VR, lookout point, sunset.” We found ourselves sitting on a mountain like place, overlooking the ocean. “I’ve always loved this place, especially when there’s a sunset.”

“It’s beautiful,” I said. Actually, I wasn’t looking at the sun setting. I was looking at Bea. She looked at me, and I turned red at being caught staring. “Sorry.”

“It’s all right,” she said softly. She scooted closer. “Lucas, how do you feel about me? Truthfully.”

“You’re a super friend,” I said, “A good team mate...” I finally felt like I could tell her the whole truth. “And I’ve been in love with you since the first time I ever saw you. You never seemed too interested in me beyond friends, so I worked hard to get you to be happy, setting you up on dates and stuff like that.”

“I feel the same way,” Bea said. I looked at her, shocked. She cupped my face in her hand and ran her thumb over my lips. She leaned over and kissed me. I eagerly returned the kiss.

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