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TWENTY THREE!
versus the tech army
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It had been a few days since the blackout that had wiped the entire city and since the group had been introduced to their new rival, Traeger. They were still shaken up by the situation, which is why they were taking it slow but they were still working together to come up with new ideas on how to take care of him. This is where Harris' new invention comes in handy, security drones. He was currently showing his latest creation to Spyder, Ryan, Hana and Natalie in the robot's lab.
"It's following me everywhere I go." Ryan pointed out in awe, as the drone had continued to follow his every move.
"That's because I added facial recognition software." Harris confirmed. "Now we can search the entire city for Grey and Traeger."
"Yeah but what happens when we find them?" Ryan questioned in confusion.
"It'll tell us where they are and wait for it....." Harris exclaimed. "Oh, heads up." The short boy then pressed a button on his device that had caused the drone to shoot a laser directly at Ryan. Luckily, he had quickly dodged it before it could hit him.
"Stun blast. I get it, I get it." Ryan assured.
"Ok, what happens when Traeger destroys the drones? I mean, he threw the robot like a rag doll." Spyder pointed out.
"Ok." Ryan nodded with a glare.
"There's nothing Ryan could do to stop it." Spyder added to his previous argument.
"I was there." Ryan defended.
Harris then decided to randomly pick up a metal pipe off of the table before taking a harsh swing at the drone. It quickly fell to the ground, smashing into a pile of pieces.
"Dang!" Spyder's eyes widened in disbelief.
"Dude!" Ryan exclaimed.
"Oh, why would you..?" I started to ask.
"No, watch." Harris instructed. The group watched in awe as the broken drone pieces had merged with the other drone. "I added nanites to the drone or little microscopic robots. When one is destroyed, the nanites will carry all of its data to the nearest drone. No matter what happens, we'll never lose any intel on Grey or Traeger. And once it confirms its target, it'll attack." Harris explained.
The newly formed drone than flew over to Ryan and were now ready to shoot him with another laser beam. "Oh." Harris said before quickly typing into his drone system.
"New target accepted." The computer system announced and the drone backed away from Ryan.
"Fly! Find the bad guys and be free." Harris ordered and all the drones flew out of the window and into the city to find Grey and Traeger.
"Alright, so we're gonna be on watch the entire weekend." Ryan confirmed, earning a nod of agreement from the other preteens.
"Yep!" Spyder nodded happily. "No eating, no leaving to shower and gonna go to the bathroom right here."
"We have bathrooms." Harris pointed out.
"I don't care." Spyder smiled.
"Yeah, I'm leaving the room to use the bathroom." Hana spoke up. "I tried peeing in the forest once on that camping trip and I dirtied my pants." The group all cringed in disgust.
Suddenly, Ryan's Mech-Link beeped. "Hey, dingus! Didn't you get mom's text? She wants to see us right now." Mark questioned his younger brother.
"Alright, on my way." Ryan assured his older brother through the Mech Link. "Do not go to the bathroom in here." Ryan pointed that comment right at Spyder before running out of the room to spend some much needed time with his mother.
"I promise." Spyder called out with a nod. "I gotta go to the bathroom real quick." He whispered to Harris, who just handed him a bucket in response. The two girls just turned away as they were not about to watch him do his business.
"Alright, you two can stay in here since Spyder's marking his territory. Natty and I are just gonna be in the lounge room." Hana suggested.
"But Ryan said that we have to stay in here." Harris reminded the Miyazaki girl.
"Yeah but Hana just got the new limited edition Dance Dance Revolution game and we're gonna try it out." Natalie argued.
"The greatest kpop hits from 2007 to now, it's a Japan exclusive. I illegally bought it off the black market." Hana announced happily.
"Alright, let's forget about the part where you illegally bought it and just think of the game itself." Natalie pointed out. "You pick first since it's your game." Hana nodded in agreement.
"Let's go super old school and do, Tell Me by Wonder Girls." Hana suggested, causing the Oliveri girl to gasp in excitement.
"I love that song! Let's go set it up." Natalie agreed and the two girls left the lab to go set up the anticipated game in the lounge room.
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It had been a few hours or Ryan had left to spend time with his family. This meant that the remaining team members were still on Traeger duty. Well, just the boys were. Hana Miyazaki and Natalie Oliveri had spent those last hours, competing against each other in an intense game of Dance Dance Revolution. The girls legit only took breaks to get water, snacks or to use the bathroom but other than that, they were both determined to keep playing until the game was completed.
We both wanted to win but it was difficult. We were in the middle of an intense game when Harris entered.
"Hey, guys." Harris announced, upon entering the room. "We need you guys to help us with the search." He earned a groan from both girls.
"Can't you do it. We're busy, if you can't tell." Natalie pointed out like it obvious, not taking her eyes off the screen.
"You're the navigator." Harris pointed out.
"Yeah but we're in the middle of something." Natalie argued.
"Yeah, I'm so close to beating Natty. Just one more round and I win." Hana exclaimed.
"Not if I get to that 15th round first." Natalie reminded the determined Miyazaki girl.
"How long have you two been playing this game?" Harris asked in annoyance.
"How long has Ryan been gone?" Hana countered.
"3 and a half hours." Harris said.
"Then 3 and a half hours it is." Hana confirmed.
"You two are ridiculous." Harris shook his head as he walked l right in front of the screen.
"Get out of the way!" Natalie exclaimed.
"Yeah, don't make me pause this game to move you because it's not gonna be pretty." Hana threatened.
"Yeah, save yourself, Harris. She's not pleasant when she loses." Natalie warned. The boy did not listen to the girl's pleas and instead, just yanked the cord out of the wall. The entire screen went black.
"Hey!" Hana exclaimed angrily.
"We didn't even save! We have to start over again." Natalie pointed out in annoyance.
"Come on, you two. Let's go to the lab." Harris ordered and both girls groaned.
"Alright." They agreed in sync and followed the shorter boy over to the lab. The group watched as the drones software were in the process of searching for Traeger. This went on for a few minutes before a blurry picture of him showed up with his location.
"Bam! We've got a possible match at the Bay City international airport. It's a distorted reflection but it could be Traeger." Harris explained.
"Or it could be Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau." Spyder pointed out.
"Why would it be Justin Trudeau?" Harris asked.
"Why not?" Spyder shrugged.
"Yeah, he's hot." Natalie agreed.
"Hotter than me?" Spyder pondered.
"Of course not." Natalie shook her head.
"Just making sure." Spyder smiled.
"Should we tell Ryan and Mark?" Hana asked.
"Not yet." Harris denied. "You know Ryan. If he thinks it's a bad guy, he'll bail out on his dad. We need to make sure."
"Ok." Spyder nodded.
"If it is Traeger, we'll just shoot him with trackers and hunt him down with Ryan and Mech X4. I just hope he doesn't feel it when they hit." Harris explained.
"Yeah, I wouldn't worry about that." Spyder assured with a smirk.
"What?" Harris asked in confusion before realizing what the boy meant. He looked down to see that Spyder had accidentally set off the tracker gun and one was now stuck to his pants. They all laughed.
"Dude, not cool. Let's see how you like it." Harris exclaimed before blasting a few shots at Spyder. He took off running but quickly turned around to get a few shots on the shorter boy.
"Not the eyes! Not the eyes!" Harris exclaimed, ducking behind a table. The two girls then decided to join in by teaming up to take shots at the boys. Spyder ducked behind the wall to avoid getting hit.
"We don't have time for this. Let's get to the airport." Harris reminded.
"Come on, there's always time to shoot your friends in the butt." Spyder exclaimed.
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It had taken awhile for the teens to stop shooting at each other with the trackers but once they did, they had immediately rushed to the airport to find Traeger. The group were now silently walking through the airplane hanger, just searching for the man. Harris was the first one to notice him and he quickly pulled everyone to hide behind some giant cargo crate. That's what they were currently doing.
"It is Traeger." Harris pointed out.
"Ok, we should probably go invisible." Spyder suggested. The shorter boy nodded in agreement as he tried to connect to the invisibility ability on the Mech-Link but that plan failed.
"There's not enough power left to go invisible. I asked you to charge these things yesterday." Harris pointed out in frustration.
"I asked you, not to ask me to do things." Spyder shot back in annoyance.
"Guys, focus, we need to figure out what they're doing." Natalie reminded.
Harris silently sat up and decided began scanning the area for anything he deemed as suspicious. He then pulled up a list of their supplies when he sat back down. "Steel girders, PVC piping and some sort of polymide." Harris read out loud.
"Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no, not polymide." Spyder gasped in a fake worry but in reality, he had no clue what the shorter boy was talking about. "I don't know what that is."
"It's an element they use to protect equipment during cold weather." Harris explained.
Unfortunately for the group, luck was not on their side as the silence of the hanger was broken by Harris' phone going off. Spyder and Hana both rushed to turn the boy's phone off but struggled to reach it. The group then quickly ran into an empty crate, moving as far away as they could from the entrance. Harris sat in the very corner with Hana sitting in front of him. This left Spyder and Natalie squished in at the very front.
Suddenly, Harris got up and started to leave the crate. "What are you doing?" Spyder questioned, grabbing Harris by the shoulder to pull him back.
"We need to find out where they're going." Harris confirmed just before leaving the crate.
The group shared a nervous look before followed after the shorter boy. They had ducked behind a bunch of storage bins to look over at Harris, who was currently climbing a pair of airplane steps that overlooked Traeger. The shorter boy then jumped off of the steps, shooting a tracked mid air at Traeger before hitting the ground harshly with a thud. He rolled over in pain just as Traeger had flew away.
The group all rushed to the boy's side as soon as the coast was clear to ensure that he was doing okay but he was clearly suffering from a bad injury. "You'll be ok, you'll be ok." Natalie tried her best to calm the now injured boy.
"Yeah, man, just a little muscle spasm but that's nothing you can't handle." Hana assured.
"Woah! Woah! Hey, Harris! That was awesome! You were like a superhero in an action movie!" Spyder complimented.
"Owie! Oh! Mommy's precious cargo got an owie!" Harris exclaimed, receiving a weird look but he was in too much pain to notice.
"I'm just gonna pretend that I just didn't hear that." Hana admitted in embarrassment.
"When I tell this story, I'll leave that part out." Spyder assured the shorter boy.
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Harris, Spyder, Hana and Natalie had made it back to the robot. The three teens had finished patching up Harris's shoulder and sat down on the couch, just as Mark and Ryan entered the lounge room. Apparently, their day was just as worse as they had to deal with a nanite infestation because of Harris' malfunctioning drones.
"Ok, I am really sorry about the nanite stuff. I definitely didn't think that it could spread to other tech." Harris apologized.
"I still can't believe you took on Traeger." Ryan pointed in disbelief.
"Yeah." Mark agreed, equally as shocked.
"Are you insane?" Ryan questioned.
"It was awesome!" Spyder praised excitedly. "I left the part out about mommy's precious cargo." He tried to whisper to the short boy but unfortunately, the rest of the group had heard him.
"I'm sorry, what was that?" Ryan asked.
"Don't...Don't worry about it." Harris assured in an awkward tone.
"I'm just glad you're ok." Ryan signed in relief.
"So, what's next?" Mark asked.
"We watch this guy's every move and when the time is right, we take this guy down.....for good." Ryan confirmed, earning multiples nods of agreement.
"Yeah!" The group agreed in sync.
★ 𝐋𝐔𝐂𝐈𝐃 𝐃𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐌 ! spyder johnson ★
(© 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗲𝘆𝗲𝗼𝗻𝗯𝗶𝗮𝘀𝗲𝗱)