The crew walked out the room and found the exit which they exited as quietly as possible as to not catch any attention. They found themselves in the underground parking lot which appeared to be almost entirely filled with sleek black cars. After spotting a few drones entering the building through an elevator connected to the parking lot the team crouched behind a nearby car. As they slowly made their way through the maze of vehicles towards the exit a group of men in black uniforms ran out of the elevator followed by General Murray who looked around for the teens. The teens spotted the man and ducked down behind a large black van.

“Okay why does one of the drones look a little bit too…human?,” inquired Laren as he gestured to the general with a disturbed face.

“I don’t know. But he appears to be talking to someone through a watch phone which could mean two things. The first option is that he’s the UI that was following us or he could be the other option which might be even worse than to be honest,” responded Carmen in a low voice.

“Worse? What could he worse than a tech ghost?!,” exclaimed Enola in a hushed voice.

“Well he could be a user from Cybrim’s defense force.”

The response caused the team to pause for a moment before her siblings started to chuckle softly in an awkward manner as if they were trying to deny the terrifying possibility.

“Defense force? Come on. You can do a better joke than that dude,” responded Enola as she tried to down play her twins response.

Carmen turned to her twin with a solid deadpanned expression devoid of any sign of humor.

“Does it look like I’m in the mood for jokes now?”

“Wait- you’re not lying? Are you for sure? Oh my god we’re dead,” said Enola in a self deprecating tone as she visually deflated.

“A defense force? Why in the world would a virtual technology company have a defense force? And why would they be here anyways?,” questioned Piers as he tried to make sense of the worsening situation.

“I don’t know but maybe they just really want the research that I have for NASA. Or they may also have found out that the way I helped Satoshi was to hack into his users control panel for him,” presumed Carmen which did not help the teams morale lighten up at all.

“So you hacked into somebodies account or whatever. So what?! It was for the right reason. And the only way Satoshi ended up in your care in the first place because someone else placed him here. Sounds pretty unfair to me,” said Keito, exasperated at the fact that Carmen was getting chased for a crime that she had to commit. A hand appeared on his shoulder which caught him off guard a bit. He looked up to see Satoshi giving him a proud smile despite him still looking pretty exhausted before turning to Carmen.

“He’s right you know. Good deeds shouldn’t really be punished,” said Satoshi before he stuck his hand out in front of Carmen for a hand shake.

“I know it may not seem like a right time for this but I never got to thank you for helping me.”

Carmen hesitated for a moment before shaking his hand.

“I never thought it was need at all. It’s my obligation to look after everyone in my world. Even if they’re not my creations,” said Carmen, humbly.

“About the topic of “creations”, they’re is a lot that I need to tell all of you guys but we have to do it some were else. What I can tell you is that I know that guy was the person that was holding me the entire time. His name is General Murray and he appears to work for Cybrim,” said Satoshi befofre he pointed over to General Murray.

This reveal caught the rest off guard in an unsettling way

“I knew it!,” cursed Carmen who glared at the general with rage filled eyes. Turns out her assumption of Cybrim sending a defense force user here was correct.

“Cybrim’s drones help with identifying glitches and stuff but things get more complicated if they find out criminal activity has been done in the Hologlobe. They are also not above doing their own crimes of data theft and bio genetic malpractice. Sometimes they go off into other peoples virtual worlds for UI experimentation which is why I’m here,” continued Satoshi in his explanation of Cybrims inner business malpractice methods.

“And why is that?,” asked Carmen, curiously.

“Because I’m a UI of course. I thought Keito would have told you that.”

The group went extremely quiet for a moment as everybody’s eyes landed on Keito who looked at Satoshi like he grew a second head.

“What the hell are you talking about?,” whispered Keito, puzzled.

“You don’t remember? Please don’t tell they got to you first,” spoke Satoshi in a small terrified voice as he went to touch Keitos shoulder only for his brother to move back a bit in confusion. At that moment Carmen saw a familiar symbol on Satoshi’s jacket that he wore. It was a red lion circling a crescent moon. The symbol for the NASA defense force.

‘Moon Crasher,’ thought Carmen to herself in a moment of total awareness.

The realization of what was happening hit Carmen slowly in a devastatingly painful manner. She felt like she was stuck standing on a highway as a truck speed up towards her. Something terrifying yet inevitable.

“Do you know Phineas Brown?,” interjected Carmen as she pointed at Satoshi who seemed caught off guard by the question.

“Uh yes I was his friend at the Kai-O Foundation. How do you know him?,” asked Satoshi, perplexed.

“Because he’s my mentor. And he told me about a friend he had once named Mr. Serizawa who was a defense pilot on the moon. He told me he had a brother on Earth who always carried around a dagger despite it getting him in trouble all the time,” said Carmen as she chuckled fondly at the memory of Phineas telling her about Satoshi.

Her soft laughter turned quiet as small tears started to well up in the corner of her eyes as she stopped crouching to instead lean on the van.

“Oh my god it’s you. You’re still here.”

The group didn’t know how to respond to this new piece of information.

“He…still talks about me?”

The small voice of Satoshi caused Carmen to turn to him with a warm smile.

“Gods all the time. He tells me that you’re the reason he wanted to go to the moon in the first place. Helped me model the very moon here too,” responded Carmen as Satos went to sit next to her.

It felt somewhat strange to her. Talking to someone you wanted to meet the entire time yet still wishing it was in a different way. She wished she was talking to him in Phineas lab on the moon in real life rather than in a virtual space surrounded by drones. Turns out there were ghosts in her world.

They were juts her friends.

“Does he still hold his win streak in Critter Rush?,” asked Satoshi with a chuckle.

“Yup! Holds it over his brothers head all the time.”

The reminder of Phineas brother, Cole, brought a sense of dread over Carmen. NASA still hasn’t updated the public over Cole and his crew on Mars in over a month now and Phineas was loosing his mind over it.

“Cole. He went to Mars along with some others earlier this year for a research mission. The public hasn’t received an info status on them in over a month. They haven’t told Phineas anything either,” said Carmen which caused Satoshi demeanor to change.

“Then we have to find them,” said Satoshi, determined, before her turned to the rest.

“Look, I know everything might seem terrifying right now but we might be the only people able to save them before it’s too late. The people that attacked us on the moon a few years ago are the same ones that are planning to attack the Orpheus crew on mars. They’re after a powerful item called Harvestar that has a potential to spark a global war. But before we can do anything to stop them we need to get out of here unscathed,” spoke Satoshi to the rest as a reliable leader would do. The team looked at each other for a second before nodding in agreement.

“This might get us killed. I’m in,” said Enola with a grin.

“Me too. The ship has sailed the moment we joined Carmen on this mission in the first place anyways,” said Inez as she raised her hand in agreement.

“I got nothing left to loose at this point,” said Varian as they also raised their hand.

Keito seemed to fiddle with the hem of his jacket moment as he thought deeply before he shrugged.

“I may still be confused about everything right now but I do know one thing at this point,” said Keito before raising his hand.

“I still trust you.”

Satoshi seemed to be on the verge of tears at the statement as he gave him a warm smile before ruffling his brothers hair.

“Well if Keitos in then so am I! Besides, we are super spies aren’t we?,” said Laren before turning to Inez and Enola who gave him a huge smile.

“We so are bestie!,” agreed Inez as she quickly hugged him.

“What best friend would I be if I didn’t follow Laren. I’m in. But just a reminder. I’m terrified of danger and excessive,” said Hoku as he joined the crew before Laren dragged him into the hug.

“If it means sticking with you guys then I’m in. Today was fun I guess. Even if it was dangerous as hell,” said Piers with a chuckle.

“You guys already know my answer,” said matteo as he patted Piers head who looked annoyed at his brothers antics.

“Alright captain looks like we’re on board. Now we jut have to get out of here,” Carmen said as she scanned the area for a possible exit. She soon spotted a bundle of large traffic cones behind the truck they were hiding behind and got a crazy idea.

“I got an idea.”

A few seconds later as the adults looked around the parking lot for any sign of the teens the crew slowly walked across the lot by hiding under traffic cones. They stopped every couple of seconds to check if the coast is clear before moving on.

“This may be the most dumbest and smartest idea you ever hard Carmen. I can’t believe the drones are falling for this,” Piers said surprised by the stupidity of the drones and the Cybrim VSS user.

“Yeah I might have added references from childhood movies that allowed funny circumstances to happen when you use an item a certain way. For instance, the traffic cones have an invisibility feature. I’m just happy that the glitch didn’t affect them yet,” Carmen admitted to the reason why they were getting away from this.

“So you took this from the movie “A Toybox 2”,” Varian guessed correctly.

“Hmmm…maybe.”

After a minute of them sneaking across te lot they maybe it a few feet near the exit gate when they realize that it was being guarded by a group of drones. The general appeared to have made his way over to the drones when the group were busy hiding under traffic cones.

“How are we going to get past those guys?,” asked Hoku as the crew hid behind a large limousine.

“We just need a distraction. Something to draw them away from the exit,” said Laren as he tried to brainstorm a way out of here.

“I guess it’s time we offer our assistance,” a female voice foreign to Laren spoke up from beside him. He quickly turned around to see Feliciti and Ham getting out of their care takers bag and stoof in front of everyone who just stared at them baffled.

“Did your cat just-talk? You know what!? I’m not even gonna try to understand any of this right now,” said Laren who looked exhausted from trying to understand anything at the moment.

“Who cares. Get us out of here please!,” Hoku asked them as he started to panic again.

The drones at the gate stood on guard armed and ready with guns for any strange individuals to come by when they spot a strange small figure walking towards them. They raise their weapons at it only for them to see the individual wasn’t a person but actually a chimpanzee who cradled a cat in his hands. Ham stopped a few feet from the drones and just smiled.

“Seems to just be a random npc,” spoke Genereal Murray into his radio which directed information to the drones.

Ham raised Feliciti to them as if he was showing off his pet.

“Kitty. Nice kitty,” said sam in toddler like speech which caused the general to appear startled.

“The AI seems to have a high level of intelligence. Must be one of the targets creations,” spoke the general into his watch phone which appears to be recording his voice.

“Alert. We have a possible rouge AI in our vicinity,” spoke Genreal Murray into his radio before slowly walking over to sam with his gun trained on him.

“Put that cat down and put your hands in the air!”

sams happy innocent expression chance into one of annoyance as his gaze hardened and his smile turned into a straight line of contempt.

“Okay then If you say so,” sam responded with a much more mature voice. He no longer sounded like a toddler and his quick change of demeanor caught the drones off guard. Taking the opportunity sam threw Feliciti at the guards. Feliciti took out her claws that appeared to glow neon blue and started to hop onto the heads of the drones as if she was playing hop scotch. She soon landed on the head of the general who tried to get her off but failed. After hopping off him she landed on the ground with grace and all the drones including General Murray instantly fell over. They now appeared to be sound asleep.

sam turned to the rest with a grin.

“He told me to put my hands up. Should’ve specified how,” sam said jokingly before walking over to Enola and getting into her bag.

“Don’t worry they’re not dead. Just sleeping. The power knocks the internet connection of drones and users offline for a few minutes. Good luck,” Feliciti told them. Varian opened his bag and the cat jumped in.

The group walked over and looked at the people on the floor with amusement.

“Glad that ain’t me you know what I’m saying,” Laren said while high-fiving Enola.

“Revenge feels so underrated at times,” said Satoshi with light amusement at the sight of his knocked out captor.

“Damm…anyways! Let’s get the fuck out of here,” said Carmen as she ran out of the opened exit gate while the rest followed close behind.