Looks like Samson can help find Mr Mouse – if he’s plugged into a computer and he’s on the net. But Dot will need Clytemnestra, he says, to do her work as a www.mapper and find a route to him once they’ve picked up his signal on Mousescope. But, Samson goes on, they’ll need help to find exactly where he’s got to, even with that route. Which is where the TricTrucTrackers come in!
“The what?” asked Dot.
It was always like that when she was net-voyaging – she kept coming across things she didn’t know. Even now, as an honoured member of the special group of net-heroes called InterFriendNet * – whose members swore to help each other whenever they were in trouble, wherever they were – she still felt she had so much to learn.
But, it was always fun finding out!
“Of course!” said Fromage, throwing his arms wide, his mousey whiskers twitching with excitement. “Parfait!” Then he frowned. “But are zey not a little… difficile, ‘ard to ‘andle…?”
“Well, yes” roared Samson, looking embarrassed. “We Servers have never quite got them under control, to be honest. But that is why they are so good at finding lost net-folk! They are artists, you see…”
“Ah, artists” said Fromage dreamily. “Like Delacroix… Monet… Gauguin… ze great creative minds of our wonderful painters of France… ”
“In a way, in a way” rumbled Samson, still looking embarrassed. “You have to humour them, you see. Play along with them. If you - ”
“EXCUSE ME!” said Dot very loudly. Really, Fromage and Samson were just as bad as each other – “going off on one”, that’s what Fred their schoolkeeper at St Mary’s Primary always said when someone got carried away like that. This time it felt like these two were about to go off on several!! “What on earth are… what was it… TricTrucTrackers?”
“They are the best searchers of the Net” said Samson, beaming down on his friend. “Where Google stops, they begin! They can find the most hard-to-find things and bring them back. Doesn’t matter what it is – it could be a whole network or just a simple games programme. It doesn’t matter how far it’s gone or where it is – the TricTrucTrackers can find it!”
Wonder if they could find Nan’s glasses, thought Dot. No! No! Concentrate!
“But” Samson went on “You never get to see them in realworld on your laptop or your PC because they can only search within the Net, and they cannot take their information onto any screen! It is STRICTLY forbidden – and if they do, they are sent to Void ** - forever!”
Dot shivered. She always did when she remembered Void – the vast, grey, cold, lightless space, a plain of choking dust stretching away as far as the eye could see, littered with the wreckage of its victims. Very few ever escaped from Void, once they were inside it.
But she had. Just…
“And they can help us find Mr Mouse?” she asked, shaking her head to clear the memory of Void.
“If they can’t, no-one can” said Samson gravely. “Hardware searches are the worst, the most difficult by far. It’s that mixture of realworld and cyberspace you see – very difficult! Very difficult indeed!”
“So where can we find zem?” asked Fromage.
“You can’t” said Samson. “They must find you. Even I cannot bring them to you.”
Dot’s heart sank. “But… but that might never happen” she said sadly.
“There is a way to make it happen” said Wiz suddenly, looking up at Dot with his big brown eyes full of seriousness. “Mr Mouse told me all about it once… I never told you Dot ‘cos it just seemed so… well, so silly… and I never thought we’d need those guys anyway, especially as they’re so… difficult.”
I must find out more about this difficult stuff, thought Dot. But first things first!
“So what do we have to do, Wizzo?” she asked, stroking his head.
“You have to think really hard about how you don’t want them, don’t need their help, don’t want to have anything to do with them” said Wiz. “Then if you really TOTALLY make yourself think that, they’ll come!”
* - See ‘Dot and Lonely Darren’
** - See ‘Dot’s First Adventure’
