Spider-Bots Rising

Chapter Seven: The World Wide Web

They had entered The Duskmare Forest once again. The path they walked this time was much narrower and much darker. Sometimes it seemed like they weren't on a path at all.

But the Dreamseeker trusted the compass, and this was the way it had pointed. She didn't understand it, but she trusted it.The compass now rested silently back in her pocket. She hoped her trust didn't turn out to be a mistake.

As they walked they had to climb over many logs and large rocks blocking their way. They also had to watch that they didn't trip over stray roots. Sometimes the Dreamseeker could have sworn she felt their grubby tips grab at her ankles.

This deep into the forest, the air was different too. It felt heavy, and thick with moisture – or was it something else? It had the musky smell of a drain with something sweet mixed horribly into it.

They walked in single file, and mostly in silence. The Dreamseeker led the way, followed by Abby, with Chuck bringing up the rear. Something about this place had them all on edge.

They all jumped when Chuck suddenly broke the hush that surrounded them.

"Look!" he said in an excited whisper. He was pointing up into the branches of a tree above them. The other two followed his finger.

Hanging from one of the lower branches was a thin glittering thread. The same kind of thread they had found in the spider-bot nest!

Abby scuttled quickly up the tree and grabbed it.

"Yes, it is the s-same," she said, joining them back on the ground. "The s-same, but different. Different patterns. Different numbers. Same p-p-puzzle."

Abby stored the thread with the first one in a compartment on her side. They kept walking, all of them peering into the darkness for another glint of green.

Ten minutes later, they found another thread twisted between shining leaves. The deeper they went into the forest, the more shimmering threads they began to find. They passed a thick tree limbs wrapped in them from base to tip. There were certainly too many now for Abby to fit inside her compartment.

A little further and the tops of entire trees were thickly cloaked in the threads. All of the threads knit together like a cloudy veil encasing the trees' branches. Streams of numbers and letters flowed through each thread. Together they turned the tree tops into rippling, swirling, dazzles of strange green light.

They had to be getting close now. But to what?

Then the Dreamseeker heard something. It was a high whooping sound coming from somewhere high above the tall tree tops. A bird call.

She looked over at Chuck, his face half bathed in vivid green light. Both his ears were cocked towards the sky, listening.

"Sungbirds," he whispered hurriedly to the others. "Stay very still. If you don't move, they can't see you. And trust me, you don't want them to see you."

The three of them froze on the spot– and just in time. A half second later, two birds swooped down through the glowing, leafy canopy.

They weren't large, about the size of pigeons. The bright ice blue of their heads deepened to a shiny blackish blue at their tail feathers. Their beaks were long, thin, and curved.

They settled on a nearby branch. Their sharp, scrawny talons gripped the tree. They rustled their wings. They jerked their heads around in tiny motions, this way and that. That's when the Dreamseeker noticed that they had no eyes.

Her heart was pounding inside her chest. It was beating so hard that she was worried the force of it would tip her over. She tensed the muscles in her legs and tried to slow her breathing.

"Let's go," one sungbird said to the other. Its voice was high and soft, like a small child's. It felt wrong to hear such a sweet voice come out of such a chilling creature. "This place gives me the creepies these days." The other sungbird let out a purring chirp in agreement.

They took off into the sky again. But on the way up, one of them caught its beak on a glowing green thread. Rather than stopping the bird's flight, the beak simply snapped cleanly off. It fell softly to the ground. The sungbird didn't seem to notice. It just soared higher and higher into the dark sky. Soon the birds were beyond the trees and once more out of sight.

Chuck and the Dreamseeker both let out a large sigh of relief. Abby sounded a few pent up bleeps and blips. The Dreamseeker took a step towards the others.

"I don't know what those little spidey-bots think they're doing," came a voice, suddenly. A child's voice.

Chuck, Abby, and the Dreamseeker all whipped around, suddenly terrified again. The Dreamseeker's mind was reeling. Are the sungbirds back? Have they seen us? Where are they hiding?

Then the voice spoke again.

"I know what WWW stands for! You don't have to tell me," the voice said in a pouty sort of way. "World Wide Web. See? I just think the spideys are up to more than they're saying."

The Dreamseeker looked down in disbelief. The voice was coming from the beak lying on the dirt path in front of them. With every word the beak opened and closed on its own. Sometimes a hot pink tongue came flicking out too. It seemed not to know that it had been parted from the bird to which it belonged. But Chuck and Abby had certainly noticed.

The Dreamseeker looked wildly to Chuck for an explanation. He just nodded his head wearily. "Yeah, sungbirds will...ah...do that," he said.

The three of them crouched around the blue beak as it spoke to its unseen fellow.

"I'm just saying, the spidey-bots are weaving this World Wide Web together, right?" the beak went on, sweetly. "And it's gonna bring everyone in the Dreamscape together, riiiight?" It chuckled with glee. "But I never seen those spidey-bots do anything that wasn't mostly good for them. And bad for everyone else!" The beak began to chant a little song. "Greedy greedy spidey-bots, give a little, take a lot!"

The Dreamseeker was starting to feel sick to her stomach. What exactly was the World Wide Web? How were the spider-bots building it? Most importantly, what was it going to do to the Dreamscape when it was done?

The beak piped up again. "When the spidey-bots are done weaving it, all us dreamies are gonna be the little flies stuck in their big web!" It laughed its disturbing child's laugh again, then stopped. "Hey–" it said. "Did you see where my beak went?"