So! Dot’s Dad has made a HUGE mistake – he’s let Zapotek the computer fixer take Mr Mouse away to be recycled. Dot is COMPLETELY at a loss – doesn’t know WHAT to do. She can’t even use her powers as a net-voyager to start looking for him without his help getting into the net. But then, somehow, Wiz gets them net-voyaging. First stop – Samson the Server!
“So what has that SILLY Mr Mouse done now?” asked Wiz, his ears streaming back in the net-wind as they zoomed down the digital pathways.
“Well - ” Dot jinked to one side as a bundle of jpegs flew past, flapping and squawking and bleating away about all the colour information in the pictures they were carrying and how long it had taken them to get into the server and how long it had taken them to get OUT again and how it was doing terrible things with their image resolution, they really hadn’t had enough time to get all their pixels sorted out nicely and –
Terrible chatterers, jpegs. They just can’t stop!
“Well” Dot went on, tucking her arm very firmly round Wiz as the glowing, pulsing sides of the data channel shot past “It really wasn’t his fault. Zapotek came to fix the big computer ‘cos Dad couldn’t, and Dad swapped the mouse over with Mr Mouse and Zapotek didn’t think he was a very good mouse and took him away!”
“Oh BOY!” laughed Wiz “Bet Mr Mouse just LOVED that!”
Dot giggled. “Well he was probably asleep anyway!”
“I bet!” said Wiz, smiling up at Dot with his big pink tongue sticking out. “That guy would win a gold medal in the Annual Internetathon if they had a competition for taking naps!”
“APPROACHING – EXIT PORTAL” said a loud but rather sweet and husky female voice from a glowing window that had suddenly appeared in the wall of the data channel ahead of them. “Will you exercise departure options?”
“No thank you Clytemnestra” said Dot. (Clytemnestra was their www.mapper, responsible for making sure that they knew all the journey options available to them once they were on the net. It’s a new system for net-voyagers like Dot. Really nice and handy!) “We will continue to default Samson the Server!”
“Thank you, graceful journey!” said the husky voice, and the light dimmed and disappeared.
“We should be nearly there now” said Wiz. “Wow, look at those Virus Hunters!”
Flying in unison, as tightly together as the RAF’s Red Arrows, a set of dark blue, dart-like shapes shot past, little tongues of white fame flickering from their engine exhausts. With their sharp pointed noses and their under-wing absorption pods (which clean viruses up and push them out to fall and sink harmlessly into the net-plain), they strike fear into the viruses that plague the net.
“Cool!” said Dot as the last of the squadron of six zoomed past. “Those must be the new Vironators! Good luck!”
“Bleep blip!” came the reply from the last of the dart-like craft, accompanied by a smiley face and the message “Viruses! See ‘em – seize ‘em – sink ‘em!”, shone up on the side of the data channel wall.
“APPROACHING – SAMSON” said Clytemnestra. “Will you exercise departure options?”
“Yes please!” said Dot.
TSSST!! ZVIIIIIIIIIIIIIING!
A portal immediately opened in the data channel wall, and Clytemnestra curved net-space and time to land them gently in the great hall that housed their good friend and adviser Samson the Server.
But not, at that moment, just Samson the Server. As Dot and Wiz walked towards the great beaming sun that was the face their friend turned towards Networld, they could see someone else was there, a small person, chattering away nineteen to the dozen and waving his arms about a lot.
It was hard to see who or what it was at first, the light pouring out from Samson was so bright, but Dot shielded her eyes and then she saw it was - a mouse!!
“Could that be - ” said Dot, her hopes rising. But then she heard the little creature’s voice, and those hopes were dashed.
“ ‘E is crazy, my cousin, you know this Monsieur Sam-son” said the voice, in a strong accent that mixed Canadian and French. “I say to him, be sensible, be’ave, but ‘e never do thees.”
No doubting who that was – it could only be Fromage, Mr Mouse’s French-Canadian cousin!
But what was he doing here?
