Glitched

33 - System Going Down

"No!" Retro retorted. "Absolutely not! It's too dangerous!"

This had been the mew's response for the past ten minutes. Since the second Vector had approached her with his idea she'd begun to panic, pacing back and forth while the group of unown and Switch followed her with their eyes.

Vector leant against the wall beside the door, his arms folded and his mouth turned into a frown. Pixel knew all too well that no matter what Retro said, he was determined and she wasn't going to stop him. The reason he'd run it by her wasn't only just in case she wanted to help but also because her teleportation would have been a quick way to reach the Fracture. If she weren't going to help him then he'd walk if he had to, and Pixel would walk with him.

"None of you are going to the Fracture," Retro said, punctuating with a hard glare right on Pixel and Vector. "You know full well even drones haven't made it back out of that city!"

Vector simply shrugged. "If you're going to ignore my facts, then fine. But I'm going."

"'Fact' is a very naïve way of wording it, Vector," said Retro. "Since you don't know for a 'fact' that you, or Pixel, will survive passing through the Fracture's wall."

"Well, since I'm dying anyway I've nothing to lose, have I?"

Those words struck Pixel like a blade and she placed a paw over her chest, diverting her gaze to a blank spot on the wall. Retro was stunned speechless but recovered quickly and finally sat back down.

"It's still no reason to be so reckless," she said. "Especially not without testing to see if it would work first."

"And how do you plan to test it?" he asked. "Create another much smaller fracture you can stick your paw into? Because you can do that with the cracks and we all know the outcome."

"What worries me," Retro began, "is that you can erase the cracks and the virus. Exposure to whatever antibodies you're carrying only makes us immune to the virus and those cracks. Despite being immune the effects are very different. You might survive passing through to the Fracture, but we might not!"

Vector shrugged again and kicked back from the wall. "Fine. I'll go alone."

Pixel watched him as he moved into the tunnel, then gave herself a sharp shake before following after him.

"Vector, wait!"

He looked back at her, then his attention was drawn back into the room as the computer monitors flickered off, the monotonous whirr from the fans dying down into silence. Every light blinked out, plunging the cavern into darkness.

"What on earth?!" Retro zipped past them, followed by the unown.

"What's going on?" Pixel cried as she ran after them.

"I don't know!" Retro called back.

The mew took the exit to the top of the crag where she darted around in the air, searching the sky for an opening in the cracks. Something was very wrong. Pixel couldn't quite put her paw on it, but something was different.

"If you want to go through it, it's no use," said Switch. "The gaps are too narrow."

"I'm not trying to go through it," said Retro. "I'm looking for a wide enough space beyond it. Ahah!"

The mew vanished in a flash, reappearing as a pink speck beyond the canopy between two black cracks. Despite how far away she was, they could hear her yell of surprise clearly.

It was followed by a deep rumble through the earth, growing with intensity until the very trees shook. Pixel was thrown off her feet, landing hard against Vector and Switch. The unown floated behind them, holding the larger pokemon steady as the ground continued to shake.