"Come in," A voice called when Sky knocked on the door.
The two girls entered. Using the GPS hadn't been as useful as it was supposed to be, since it had assumed that they were a car. They ended up J walking a grand total of five times and nearly getting run over four.
"You're back." Baira smiled at them. "Thank you all so much for your help."
"I'm guessing that this means that the anti-virus Glacier gave us worked?" Sky asked hopefully.
"It did." Baira stepped out of the way so they could see Roken sitting up in his bed, looking fully alert.
"That great!" Sky beamed.
Kayla nodded her agreement. Seeing Roken back to normal lifted a heavy weight off her chest she hadn't known was there before.
"Thank you all for you help," Roken said. His eyes flicked to Kayla briefly before quickly moving back to Sky. "If it wasn't for you, Baira and the other would probably be ripping Link VRAINS apart looking for Glacier."
"That reminds me," Sky jumped in. "Glacier says hi."
"Does she now?" Once again, he looked over at Kayla. "That's interesting."
"I thought so too. Do you think that you all know each other in real life or something and she somehow managed to find out your identity?"
"Doubtful. I don't know anyone her age." He shrugged, taking his eyes off Kayla.
Kayla tried not to panic. He knew. She was positive that he knew, which meant...
Oh, gosh.
He would probably tell Yusaku and then she would have to explain everything to him, and then he would end up telling SOL Tech because he worked with them now and then...
But he hadn't told them about Playmaker's real work identity, had he? Unless he had and they were just keeping quiet about it...
"That possibility might help us narrow down our search," Baira said. "It could also be that the user is much younger or older and just using that look and voice because that's about the age you all look like when you go there. "
Kayla tried not to sigh in relief when Roken agreed.
"We should still keep trying to hack her account though," Roken added.
It was all she could do not to groan.
Sorry, Snow. She thought bitterly. Wish I didn't have to give you more work, but at least it's summer.
They left not long after that. Sky decided to walk with Kayla back to the square since it was on the way to her house. Kayla was grateful, since she didn't remember how they had gotten to the hospital in the first place, and she didn't like to be walking around alone in the city. It made her feel like she was being watched.
"So are you going to enroll in Den City High School next month?" Sky asked.
"Uh, I don't know. Yusaku and I haven't really talked about it yet." Never mind Snow. Looks like it won't be summer for long.
"You should come. Yusaku, too. There's a Duel Club that I joined and they're all really fun. There aren't very many people either, so you don't have to get to know a bunch of new people. Besides, it might be nice to get out and do something."
"It definitely would be," She agreed. "Kolter's hotdog truck is the only place I've been in the past few weeks besides the store and home."
"No way." Sky stopped walking. "Seriously?"
"Yeah. Why? What's up?"
"I have to show you around. It might not look like it, but there's a whole lot more to do around here than virtual reality. What days are you free?"
"Um, every day?"
"Great." Sky pulled out her phone. "Here. Put in your number so we can find a time to get together before school starts."
"Alright." She fished out her own phone and the traded.
The quickly typed in their information on the way back to the square. When they reached the hotdog truck it was open again and Kolter was taking an order from a customer while Yusaku worked on something on his computer. Neither looked very pleased, so she got the feeling that they had stumbled into Snow's trap.
"Did you turn out not to be about to have a huge breakthrough?" Sky asked hesitantly.
"Yeah." Kolter sighed as his customer walked away. He scowled down at the hotdogs he was cooking. "There is now a virus in our computers and we can't use them anymore. I would get rid of them, but if anyone found out how to fix the virus we could have big problems since they would have full access to everything that's on there."
"That would be bad," Kayla agreed. "What are you going to do with them instead?"
"Keep them, I guess. Try to figure out how to fix it. I assume that's what you're doing, Yusaku?"
"Yes, but I'm not getting very much headway." He looked up. "Did the anti-virus work?"
"Yep." Sky smiled. "Roken's awake and looking a lot better. Baira suspects that Glacier might be someone he knows and found out his Link VRAINS identity, and that's why she said hi to him."
"That makes sense. I also did a little research into who Snow might be, I hacked into the government's files and found out that twelve girls lost their older brothers in car accidents two years ago when they were ten."
"That's horrible." Kayla's eyes widened. Twelve girls when they were ten? She hadn't been able to understand what Snow was going through before, but now that she had lost her parents she could, and she had hoped that no one else would have to go through it.
"I agree. But here's the most interesting part. None of them are recorded to have high grades in their computer classes except for two, and one of those two skipped from sixth to ninth grade this year and is currently enrolled in Den City High."
"I was just asking Kayla if you all were going to go to school," Sky said. "Do you think that you are?"
"Most likely we will be now that we have a lead on who Snow is outside of Link VRAINS." Yusaku looked back down at his computer.
Sky sighed. "Always Link VRAINS with you, isn't it?"
"There are three reasons why this is a good idea."
"I'vegottogohomenowseeyouguyslater!" Sky said in a hurry. With that, she quickly left.
Kayla didn't really blame her. While Yusaku's three reasons thing was useful, she didn't see why he would want to use it, and besides, it wasn't like you could change his mind when he put it to something.
"We should probably go home soon," She told her brother. "We've been here for five hours."
"Has it really been that long?" Yusaku gave her a sidelong glance.
She sighed. "Yeah. You all were in Link VRAINS for a while."
"Interesting. It didn't feel like that long."
"It never does with technology." She sat down on the chair next to him, preparing to wait a long, long time.
AN:
Wow! Chapter 20 already! Probably mostly because of how short the chapters are, but still. I'm not usually able to write this fast. I really hope that you all are enjoying it. Feel free to message me or post on the comments.
YOU ARE READING
Ice Flower
FanfictionWhen Yusaku hears of his parents' sudden deaths, he can't be more surprised. But what surprises him most is that his younger sister, Kayla, is coming to live with him. They haven't seen each other in years, so he definitely doesn't expect to see a m...
