Chapter 4: Level TWO
Ada didn't like viruses.
She didn't like wolves, either.
She most definitely did NOT like big green wolves that had been infected by a hackerVirus and looked like they wanted to rip your throat out.
But, alas, Ada was known for having the worst luck ever.
So, that is why she was facing a big green wolf that had been infected by a hackerVirus and looked like it wanted to rip her throat out, in the middle of the night.
Oh, why did these things always happen to her?
...Maybe, not always, but constantly.
Like the time the teacher called on her to share her answers on the one day she forgot to do her homework.
Or the time she accidentally bought a box of cookies and they were all crumbled up and broken.
Or like the time... Well, none of those held a candle to the green Viruwolf in front of her now.
The Viruwolf (that's what Ada assumed the green wolf was when Liz whispered, "What's a Viruwolf doing this close the bunker?") snarled at the girls and Ada thought she would pass out. From fear or exhaustion, she didn't know. Ada looked at her friends.
Liz seemed to have forgotten about the huge predator in front of them and was looking at the sky ("Wow, the stars are so pretty"). Aisha was rummaging frantically through the pack. She gave a pocket knife to Ada.
"Here, in case you need it. We probably won't, but still... Just in case."
Ada's trembling hands took the knife and held it unsurely in the direction of the Viruwolf. It looked like it was on the verge of pouncing on Liz, who was distractedly picking bark off of a tree. Carrying out Ada's worries, the Viruwolf jumped towards an unsuspecting Liz. Ada wished she could say that Liz skillfully moved out of the way and restored Ada's faith that the girls would get to the underground bunker without a scratch on them, but in reality, Liz saw a white butterfly and as she reached out to try and grab it, she lost her balance and the wolf run into a tree (the same one that Liz had been picking bark off of earlier) narrowly missing the blonde. Ada looked at an Aisha who had dumped the contents of the pack and was furiously searching through them. Then she moved her gaze to a Liz who had somehow managed to get back to sleep and was resting against a stone boulder and finally to the Viruwolf, which had its ginormous fangs stuck in the trunk of a tree and was struggling to get itself unstuck.
Ada felt a sudden burst of courage and decided that she need to do something. She couldn't wait for a tipsy Liz or frantic Aisha. Ada did not want to die. She still had so much life left to live. She had a mission to accomplish, a sister to save, and parents that she just couldn't leave behind. Plus, people in movies and books did stupid things that almost got them killed, but everything was always alright, in the end. Filled with a load of confidence (and a sense of reckless invulnerability) Ada launched herself on the back of the Viruwolf. She gripped her knife tight as the wolf began to struggle like a bull. Ada didn't know what she'd do now. She hadn't gotten this far in her (nonexistent) plan. Should she kill the wolf? Hold it until her friend her safely in the bunker? Lead it away? Ada was considering her options when the Viruwolf got itself free from the tree with a jolt that almost threw Ada off its back. Although she was still clutching the emerald green fur on the wolf neck and back area with one hand, her knife had flown out of her other hand slitting a scarlet line between her thumb and pointer finger, across her palm and was stuck upright in the dirt, staining it red. Ada held on to the bucking Viruwolf with two hands, her bloodied one turning the green fur into a rusty brown color. Things definitely weren't going according to plan. Not that she had one... Ada wasn't sure how much longer she could hold on. Her fatigue was catching up to her and her eyelids felt as if they were being dragged down with heavy weights. Her fingers were immersed in sweat and blood. Ada felt them slipping. How did the characters in books and movies make rescuing people and fighting monsters look so easy?
Aisha looked up from the ransacked pack she was sifting through seeing Ada on the Viruwolf's back for the first time.
"Ada! What are you doing up there?" Confusion laced Aisha's voice.
"Oh, y'know, wolf-riding is a hobby of mine. I do this every week. Now, Aisha, could you please stop playing with the pack and help me come up with a plan!" Ada made sure to enunciate every syllable with the frustration she was feeling on that last sentence, wrapping it all in faux politeness.
"Uh, yeah, sure. In a minute. Hang on,"
Aisha reminded Ada of the customer service people on the phone who would play that iconic but deathly annoying "please hold" music.
"What do you mean 'in a minute'?! I'm almost dying over here and you're over there looking through your bag, not doing anything to help my situation! I mean at least you could-" Ada's irritated speech was cut short as Aisha shouted to Liz,
"Liz, have you seen the chip?"
This broke Elizabeth out of her sleep-deprived trance.
"What? Oh, the chip. Um, I think it was in the pack- wait, no. I took it when I took the map!" she dug through her pockets, "Here it is!" she proclaimed, holding up a USB drive.
"You had that the whole time?" Aisha deadpanned.
"Whoops." Liz kinda-apologized-but-not-really, sheepishly.
"Whatever. Throw it to Ada," Aisha ordered Liz, being their official unofficial leader. She turned to Ada, "Ada, Lizzy's going to throw you a flash drive. There should be a place to insert it somewhere on the Viruwolf's head."
Before Aisha could give further instructions Liz chucked the drive towards Ada yelling, "Catch!"
Ada let go of the wolf with on hand and reached to grab the USB out of the air, only problem was, Liz had terrible aim and the drive fell on the ground. Only to be crushed by the Viruwolf. Great. Just Ada's luck. And to make matters worse, the Viruwolf, alarmed by the sudden crunch of the USB stick, leaped backward in surprise, effectively throwing Ada off in the meantime. There were loads of grass surrounding Ada and the wolf, so Ada figured that she should fall in a soft grassy patch... She was disappointed when she landed in a pile of pebbles and gravel. Fantastic. Extremely frustrated and tired Ada flung a handful of small rocks at the VIruwolf. The small pebbles just bounced off its back. It didn't do any good. Or so she thought... As soon as the stones made contact, the Viruwolf looked at Ada in fear, tucked tail and ran away.
"How did you do that?" Aisha asked Ada. Liz's arm was wrapped around Aisha's shoulders and it looked like the former was asleep, leaning her weight on Aisha.
"Good question. Is 'I have no clue' a good answer?" Ada replied truthfully, "I really don't know what just happened. Luck? Then again, I don't have the luckiest track record."
"Right. Well, you know what they say: don't question good things. If someone gives you a horse, don't ask why, just hop on and ride away."
"Is that really a thing?"
"Dunno. Feng always says it. Anyways, let's go to the bunker. I don't know about you, but I'm knackered," Aisha shrugged, which looked difficult because she was holding up a snoring Liz.
"Knackered?"
"Liz always says that when she's tired. I'm pretty sure that it's British for tired."
"British isn't a language. It's an accent."
"But it has all those weird words like, 'knackered,' and 'trousers,' and 'cuppa'!" Aisha said giggling. Sleep (or rather, lack of it) was getting to her, too.
Aisha and Ada woke up Liz, and with that, the three girls climbed down the ladder to the bunker. Ada didn't complain once.
They snuck into the dark bunker. Ada couldn't help but note how creepy it looked without the lights on. The girls tiptoed through the bunker muffling giggles about things that only seemed funny when they were in a hysterical sleep-deprived mode. Normally, life on the island was more laid back. No one was in a rush to finish their quest, so they usually fanned stuff out to a week or so. With all the hiking through the forest, they did that day added to the hours of searching Key Cove, the excitement with Cloakey, and their latest adventure with the wolf all happening in one day, the girls were more exhausted than they'd ever been. The girls whispered to not wake the boys, as they scuttled to their rooms (even though Liz assured them that, "Even a land mine couldn't wake up those two"). Soon, once they had calmed down and everyone slept.
*
The next morning was filled with tons and tons of, "we thought you were dead!"s, and, "are you okay?"s, and "where were you, what happened?!"s from By and Feng. One or two, "now is not the time for ketchup! Tell us everything!!!"s were heard, but they were directed towards Liz. Exchanging hugs and accounts of the events from the night prior, the group of friends set out to follow up on the lead that Cloakey might be the last crew mate Feng was looking for. This time, however, they unanimously decided to not split up. A Liz who had been drowsily pouring ketchup over her pancakes spoke up.
"I think that I should stay back at the bunker. I wasn't much help yesterday and I doubt today that will change. You already have enough people to overpower Capey -is that what you called him, Ada?- I'll look for Ada's fruit key thing," she reasoned.
"Capey?" Aisha asked, focusing on the wrong part of Liz's speech.
"I think she meant Cloakey," Ada corrected, "that's what I've been calling the kidnapper."
"It doesn't matter," By said, "Cloaks and capes are the same thing anyway."
This sentence took everyone aback and prompted plenty of protests.
"You're joking, right?"
"There's a world of difference between the two!"
"By, yesterday, I was being sarcastic when I said you needed to get your brain checked, but now I'm completely serious when I say this. You need to get your brain checked."
"Villains wear cloaks and heroes wear capes. Simple as that."
"No, Byron. Just no."
"Cloaks have a hood. And they're creepier. But capes-"
Byron raised his hands, imitating a criminal who was surrendering to the police who had caught him in a crime, "Okay, okay, sorry. I didn't mean to offend anyone."
"Back on topic," Liz said, "I think that I'd be more useful here."
"Good call. Plus, with the Viruwolf that came so close to here last night, I think it's a good idea to not leave the bunker unattended," Aisha voiced her approval.
"Was what happened last night abnormal?" Ada asked.
"Yeah," By supplied, "Monsters, especially Viruwolves, usually steer clear of the bunker, even at night."
"Oh," Ada said as she contemplated his answer, "Why are they called Viruwolves?" she asked, as she wrapped bandages around the hand she hurt the previous night, mostly to fill the silence. She couldn't care less what those monsters were called.
"It's a clever spin on werewolves. The Viruwolves are normal wolves during the day, but they turn green on full moon nights. I don't know why, but I assume it has something to do with the hackervirus going around. It's a sort of virus that makes things pixelate and eventually disappear. We think that the Cauliflower Cabinet works using a version of hackervirus. I also think that my brother... left... because of hackervirus," Feng said, mentioning his brother to Ada for the first time.
Ada opened her mouth to say something, but before her brain had the chance of think up an actual response, By jumped in.
"Okay. I think we should head out now, to maximize our use of sunlight. Liz, try not to blow anything up," he said, with a grin.
"I'll try," Liz answered with a mock salute.
"Wait, you'll try to do what By said, or you'll try to blow stuff up?" Aisha asked for clarification in horror.
"Yes."
"It wasn't a yes or no question."
"Whatever. Just get going."
Aisha, Ada, By, and Feng obliged and started climbing up the ladder. Ada wasn't really afraid of climbing it anymore, but she was definitely afraid of what would happen once she got to the surface. She wasn't looking forward to meeting Cloakey again, but when did the universe ever care what she wanted?
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