…how an ordinary schoolgirl became an

INTERNET VOYAGER!

Dot looked at Deirdre's screen. It was hard to understand what it was supposed to be showing her. Wiz looked too and gave a little sigh.

"How on earth are we going to find Adrienne and Mr Mouse in the middle of all that?" he said.

It was hard to know. The screen was covered in a mass of tiny dots - all swimming round each other, darting backwards and forwards. One of the little dots was flashing red. Just one.

"What's that?" asked Dot. "And what are all those dots?"

"Well the flashing red dot is Adrienne and Mr Mouse, 'cos that's who we asked our computer to find" said Deirdre. "If I tap that dot with my little pen here" - Dot saw a silvery little stick in the feathers in her wing tip - "you'll be able to see what it's showing us." Tap tap she went. Ping-ding went the screen. "Encoding V873-98H" it said in its quiet little voice. "Encoding V873-98H."

Then the screen changed and a picture appeared - like a drawing, just an outline really, but Dot could tell what it was straight away - Adrienne's search engine! Her heart jumped as she saw the friendly shape of the little red train appearing on the screen. Then the "drawing" started going round and round, so you could see it in lots of different ways.

A kind of glowing shape appeared in the middle of the "drawing" - no, two glowing shapes sitting next to each other where the cockpit of Adrienne's search engine was. One was much smaller than the other. Of course!

"It's Adrienne and Mr Mouse, isn't it?" said Dot excitedly, pointing with her finger.

"Yup - that's them!" said Ron with a grin. "Bet you that Mr Mouse of yours is arguing about something!" And it was true - the smaller of the two shapes was moving about. Dot even thought she could see one arm waving - the way her cheeky mouse friend did when he was "going off on one" in an argument (as her Uncle Ron Thomms would say.) Suddenly she missed him. Without thinking, she put her fingertip gently on the screen where he was.

"Ping-ding!" went the screen. "Course correction!"

The van lurched to one side. "Oops sorry!" said Dot.

"Oh no worries" said Ron "We were gonna have to do that soon anyway to keep going straight towards where ol' Ade and Mr Mouse are - it's just that if that screen's in charge and makes the change for us automatic-like, it all happens in a rush, not nice and gentle like when I control it. Leave it to Ron next time duckie!"

"So... what are all the other dots?" said Wizzie - the screen had gone back to the first picture.

"Well" said Deirdre "That's all us Mopples at the muster. Hundreds of us. I wonder" she said thoughtfully "if Jenny Blue Jay will be there with Corinne... she's still got those earrings I leant her for the Mopple Fun Fashion Show last time..."

"Well you'll know soon enough" said Ron. "Look!"

Dot and Deirdre took their eyes off the little screen and looked through the Mopple van's windscreen. Dot gasped.

Ahead of them was what looked like a huge flock of tiny birds - wheeling and diving through the Search Zone sky. They could see the "birds" clearly because behind them the sky was bright, not the usual dark blue of the Search Zone at all. It was orange and gold, streaked with a beautiful pale blue - but a pale blue which suddenly turned dark, then became turquoise, then a greeny-bluey colour like the Windows desktop colour... then back to pale blue again. And all the time the bird-like shapes swooped and flew across it, as if they were looking for something.

They were!

"It's the Full Muster!" said Deirdre excitedly.

"Yeah an' it looks like that Open Port virus is taking some catching!" said Ron seriously. He tapped quickly across one of the little screens in front of him and the engine note of his van became higher and louder as it increased speed. "If they're having to do chase-search like that, means the blooming virus must have got out somehow!"

"But why couldn't they catch the virus like... with Deirdre's bucket, er sorry Deirdre, Overload Reclamation Facility, the... the...ORF?" asked Dot. The "little birds" that were really the Mopples all gathered together were getting closer now as they zoomed along - she could make out some of the van shapes already.

"They'll have tried" said Ron. "But sometimes the ORF gets overloaded itself, and then the viruses start to leak out. An' when they've just been in Open Port, they grow very quickly till there are hundreds of 'em! Hundreds! So they're out of those search engine computers all right, but if the ORF can't handle 'em and theydo get out, then they're flying free and you've got catch 'em before they can get into someone else's computer and mess that up. All you can do then is - well look! There's Yushio Sakamada on chase-search now!"

They were close enough now to see what was going on. The Mopple van Ron had pointed out was on the edge of the Full Muster - and it was zooming along at top speed, coming straight towards them. It was much cleaner than Ron's and brand new, all painted black and silver. Dot could just see the driver; he was a little pug dog wearing an old-fashioned flying helmet, his eyes wide open and fixed on the virus he was chasing.

It was an Open Port virus. It looked a little paper dart covered in green and yellow spots. It was trying to get away, you could see that, but it was flying in a straight line.

Wizzie bark-bark-barked, his tail wagging like mad. "Bet I could catch that!" he said. "Why doesn't it try to go off to one side and stuff like that?"

"They can't - they can only go in a straight line thank goodness!" said Deirdre. "We'd never catch these beastly things if they could dodge about!"

Then suddenly a thin shiny wire shot out from the front of the Mopple van. It came out in a straight line too, unrolling ahead of the search engine just like the amazing long tongues some chameleons have to catch flies. Closer and closer it got... and closer... and them with a little black flash, it caught the virus in the last roll of its "tongue". As soon as it had done so, the "tongue" started to roll back, firmly holding the dart-like virus in its grip - just getting back inside as Yushio went past Ron and Deirdre's van, which was still zooming along towards the Full Muster.

Ron waved and gave the little pug a thumbs-up sign as he shot past. "One down!" he said. "But there's plenty more to go!"

And there were too!!