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Katherine was goofing off in her basement, which was a pretty important pastime to her. She had her laptop with her, and seemed to be engrossed in whatever you're engrossed in when you're goofing off.
"Katherine? 'You busy?" Susan poked her head in the basement. Katherine looked up and gave a slightly sleepy nod as Susan dragged a rather unwilling Eric into the basement. "I was wondering if you could help us with -- what is that?"
"Nothing much," Katherine replied quickly as she tried to shut the monitor on the small computer. One disadvantage of having a small computer was that it was easily grabbed away, as Katherine quickly found out. Susan had snatched her laptop up.
"It's an old e-mail," she half-cheered. "I remember this!" She then preceded to read it aloud.
-----
Dear Susan,
We had a nice chat with Katherine, and she has agreed to let us come to the 'states and see the HoloDeck. We look forward to meeting you, and here is your friend back!
Toby Simpson.
PS: Don't worry, we also mailed Katherine's mom a clean bill of health from the 'asylum'. So Katherine is safe!
-----
Eric looked more confused then usual. "Why on Earth are you reading that, and why did you get it in the first place?"
"Don't you know what day it is?" Katherine asked. Blank looks around the room gave her her answer. "It's June 13th! HoloDeck's anniversary!"
"Oh. Well, why did you get the letter?"
"What do you know about the history of the HoloDeck?" Susan answered her cousin's question with another.
"Uh..." he thought for a moment. "I know that real old norn came through first, then she had that purple one."
"Jenna and Karr."
"Right. Anyway ... that's kind of all I know."
"Literally," Katherine muttered under her breath. Susan smacked her on her shoulder before continuing.
"After that, Karr accidentally sent a grendel to Earth. He got into Katherine's mom's cooking booze, and she got kinda mad. Figuring Katherine was pretty close to insane, she had her committed."
"Big surprise," Eric interrupted. "I mean, I always knew that."
"Hey!" Katherine lunged toward Eric, but Susan blocked her.
"ANYWAY," she harshly continued, "we then had to break her out."
-----
Jenna and Karr went out of the bushes, and through the front doors. Once inside, Jenna went up the front desk. "Push yes hand. Get hand. Hand get hand. Jenna push hand," she began babbling.
Karr helped too. "Push hand yes. Run asylum. Get yes hand. Hand push hand. Hand run."
The person at the front desk picked up a Walkie Talkie. "Hello? Security?" the attendant said. "We got a doozey down here."
Meanwhile, Susan and Blip stood outside the side of the asylum. "Katherine's cell is on the second floor, right?" Blip asked.
"Right there," pointed out Susan. "You up to it?"
"Better be." Blip gulped. Susan grabbed onto Blip's base. Blip then carried her up, up to Katherine's Cell. Then, he used a new feature Katherine showed Susan how to make: a laser. The laser cut through the thick metal and through the glass pane. Susan used a free hand to clear the hole Blip made. Inside, Katherine sat, awake. Susan grabbed Blip with Both hands, and used him to swing into Katherine's cell.
"Better hurry, they're going to medicate me soon!" whispered Katherine.
Susan silently undid Katherine's jacket. "Jenna and Karr are keeping the guards busy. Blip is outside. Hold tight to my feet." Susan said. Then, she climbed out the window, and held on tight to Blip. Katherine climbed out the window and grabbed Susan's feet. Blip lowered them all to the round. The trio then tiptoed to the front, looking in the front glass doors.
Karr saw them. "Run!" he shouted. Jenna and Karr pushed through the ring of security guards that had formed around them, trying to figure out what was happening. They joined up with everyone outside, and then disappeared.
-----
"You broke out of a mental institute?" Eric asked. "Didn't think you had it in you, Straightlace!"
"If you had been given the drugs they gave me, you probably would have chewed the bars off."
"After that," Susan once more discontinued an insuring argument, "the authorities tracked us down, and Katherine used the HoloDeck to excape to Albia. We accidentally e-mailed her to Cyberlife, and, after some stuff happened, they e-mailed her back and invited us to showcase the HoloDeck out at Disney, where they were doing a promotion. We kinda got caught up in the middle of a mystery..."
-----
The five had just finished their last presentation of the day in Magic Kingdom. Jack had said that as long as they meet back by the train station after the last firework fades, they had the freedom of going anywhere in the park. The presentation had been staged in Mickey's Toon Town, so they were smack dab in the middle of Licensed Character World. All of a sudden, Jenna got a scared look on her face. "run hand" she shouted. Katherine scooped her up. "What the-..." she started. "Wait a minute. Jenna has no reason to be afraid of either one of us. Right?"
"Right." Susan replied.
"So... Let's find out what hand she IS afraid of. Maybe..." Katherine revealed,
"She'll lead us to whoever's been causing us grief?" Blip answered.
"Yuhp." Katherine sat Jenna on the ground. "push hand" she demanded. Jenna looked at Katherine. Was she totally nuts? This hand had been trying to do her in all week. But she figured she'd better do it anyway, or else she might get smacked. She walked over behind Minnie's house where she saw the hand. Katherine & crew followed closely, until they found the 'hand'. Katherine held Jenna close, and they listened.
A guy in a Donald Duck suit was standing with the Donald head in his arms." Yo, Jasper! Jasper, where are you?"
A guy in a Goofy suit came out, and took his head off. "Right here. Everything set for tonight?"
"Yuhp." Said the Donald Duck suit guy. "Let's review." Jasper stated. "The plan is that we wait for Tinkerbell to jump off Cinderella's Castle tonight. Then we set off these two fireworks. When they go up, they swirl in a blue DNA strand- CyberLife's logo. The fireworks hit Tink, and CyberLife is blamed. Then, the Wolfpack will rule again! And at the same time, our trump card is tied to the fireworks!" Jasper dug in his vest pocket and produced something most people would kill to have-Blueberry, CyberLife's kidnapped norn. "I've been taking care of those pesky kids, their idiot robot, and those 'nerds' all week. They'll be too exhausted to stop us!" They both laughed an evil laugh, then put their costume heads back on and started being whimsical.
"Idiot Robot?" Blip snarled. "I say we kill them."
-----
"Whoa ... then what happened?"
Katherine quickly stepped in, here. "Oh, nothing much, so on, ect. We got Blueberry back, no one was hurt, it was a generally happy ending."
"But Katherine," Susan interrupted, "you know as well as I do that Blip --"
"--came out of it fine! Ha ha!" Katherine nervously laughed, and took a step or two backwards, when one of her feet came to rest on something furry. Turning around, she saw she had just stepped on Lydia's foot. "Ooops. Sorry, there. What'cha need?"
"Katherine," Lydia slowly began, "is it a bad thing when you get your foot stuck in that big white flushy thing?"
Katherine's face briefly showed signs of relief before what Lydia said hit her. "Oh, crud. Be right back..." She left in a hurry.
"Susan? Katherine's lying, isn't she?"
"Sure is. Care to know what really happened?"
-----
Karr was fiddling with Blueberry. Something caught Susan's eye.
"Hey," she asked, "What's that bright yellow thing below Tinkerbell?"
"Blip didn't stop her?" Katherine turned to the night sky. "OHMYGOSH!" She nearly choked. "That's BLIP! He's in the way of the firerocket!"
A million things ran through Katherine's mind. The first time Blip was started up. How hard she worked to make him. When they first discovered Creatures together. The HoloDeck ordeal. Just then, she watched the firerockets shoot up, in a blue spiral. All her thoughts about her best friend stopped, when she saw the firerockets jam in Blip, and then explode.
-----
"What's so bad about that?" Eric had a puzzled look on his face.
Susan gave a grim grin. "What happened after."
-----
Katherine looked at the night sky horrified. Just a split second before, her best friend in the world, Blip, had taken a firerocket for Tinkerbell. She stood there, cold, feeling numb with sorrow and fear. Just then, a voice behind her broke the eerie silence. "What the bloody heck was that?" It was Jack. Katherine turned around slowly. "Blip... He got that ... fire rocket jammed in him..." she choked on every word.
"Is that what hit me on the head?" Jack asked. He held out a chunk of what used to be Blip. It was the part that was Blip's screen, where his eyes were displayed, and a few more circuits and such hanging off it. Katherine grabbed the chunk from Jack's hand. She looked at the backside, where the circuit boards and such were.
"Hey, most of these are OK. Maybe I could..." she started. But she never finished. Instead, she flipped the hunk over, revealing the screen. For some weird moment, there was a glimmer of hope that two green eyes would pop up on that black screen of his. But they didn't. There were only two green lines, that only appeared when he shut his eyes, which just made things worse. She fell on her knees, too totally sorrowful to even cry ... Then he [Toby Simpson] walked over to Katherine and bent over, and placed his hand on her shoulder.
"I'm very sorry about what happened to Blip," he replied "But I think this is yours." He handed her another chunk of Blip. Katherine sat there, looking at the two chunks. They fit together nearly perfectly, and most of the circuitry wasn't damaged. All of a sudden, Katherine raised up.
"Hey-most of the important stuff is still there-The memory, the main startup system, the OS, the emobord... I think I can fix this!"
Jack looked confused. "An emoboard? What's that?"
Katherine leaned toward him. "See that right there?" She answered, pointing to the front half of the dead Blip. "THAT'S an emoboard, short for Emotion Board. It was what allowed Blip to show emotions like he did. Sorrow, joy, sarcasm, it all took place right here."
Toby peaked over their shoulder. "Really? Would you mind to mail us one sometime?" Katherine agreed. As she agreed, the man who was helping Tinkerbell came up to them, carrying Jenna.
"I think this is yours." He responded, and set Jenna on the ground. He then lumbered off. Everyone looked up to the night sky, where the fireworks were going on.
"Jack," Katherine started quietly, "I- I'm not sure I could watch anymore fireworks." Just then, the last one sounded. Toby excused himself, and everyone else walked to the Bus Stop ...
On the bus, Katherine held tight to the two halves of Blip. Susan looked over in Katherine's direction. "Katherine," Susan began. "I've been watching you tonight. And I've been wondering, could you two-You and Blip - be more than just 'lab partners'?" Katherine winced. It was a topic she dare not discuss. She liked to think of Blip as solely a lab partner, a coworker, nothing more. But deep down, waaay deep down inside her, she knew he wasn't.
"Really, you claim you're just 'lab partners', " Susan continued, "But sometimes I think that there's some kind of-friendship." Katherine never wanted to admit it, not even to herself, but Blip was probobly her BEST friend. He always understood what she talked about, they always laughed at the same things, and had the same interests. It was possible that he could have been like that because she had programmed him, but she was six when she created him, and things do change, so it was doubtful.
"No," she replied quickly, "not possible." Susan looked at Katherine with that patented 'one eye's kinda squinted and one eyebrow's raised' look, that meant she was highly suspicious of her, but then turned and looked out the window.
Katherine sat, deep in thought. Was it possible that she really was ... friends with Blip? No, it was totally out of the question. But still, there was a little nagging voice inside of Katherine that told her Susan was right. She looked left, then right, and gave the dead Blip a hug. Realizing what she'd done, she mentally smacked herself and turned toward the window.
-----
"It's probably embarrassing and painful," Susan insisted, "so don't bring it up."
"But it's Katherine!"
"Shut up."
There was a pause, then the computer sounded, "You've got mail!"
"Hey, Katherine!" Susan shouted, as she clicked on the little mailbox then the letter, "We've got mail!"
Katherine dashed over with a rather dripping Ben in her hands. "We do? What's it say?"
Susan adjusted her glasses and read:
Dear Katherine,
It's us, Cyberlife, again. It's time for the annual promotion! Can you come this year?
-Jack
Katherine looked the e-mail over. "I suppose so. You'll come with me, right Susan?"
"Right. Say, maybe we should take along Eric this year.."
"No!" Katherine accidentally dropped Ben, who had enough sense to get out of there quickly. "He's ... Eric! He'll screw things up!"
"Well, thank *you*," Eric snarled.
"We had trouble handling the norns last year, remember? And there were only two of them! How on Earth can we handle six?" argued Susan.
"We handled them back in Albia. And on the farm," Katherine reminded Susan. Then she thought about that. "On second thought, maybe we do need someone." There was another pause. "But he better not screw anything up!"