"OK" said Mr Mouse. "Ready?"
He tucked the fold-up computer keyboard he always carried back into the pocket of his jacket and gave himself a little shake.
"Are you sure you put that URL in right?" asked Wizzie. " 'Cos we don't want to end up in the wrong place like we did when we you meant to put in EDAM for the address and we ended up going to the EDEN Project!"
"Sure I'm sure" grumped Mr Mouse, giving Wiz one of his looks. "Anyways, it was just as well I did, or there wouldn't be any Eden Project would there?" **
They held hands again - Wiz double-clicked Mr Mouse's backpack and ZIIIIISSSHH, they were off again.
Dot looked back as they zoomed away. It felt bad to be leaving Samson when he was so sick, but they had to do what he said - it was the best way to help him.
As they flew along, Dot looked down at the huge plains of the Internet, stretching out below them. It was funny. It didn't look right, somehow.
The colours in the net sky were the same - but they were kind of blurred, like when you take a picture and your camera isn't in focus, if you're too close to what you want to photograph.
The quiet, gentle music was still there too, but it sounded kind of sad and muffled... like someone humming to herself while remembering happy times that had gone by.
And every so often there was a bang and a crackle far away on the web horizon, a sort of electric green lightning flashing across the sky. But it wasn't like the lightning you see in a summer storm - this was sort of twisty-turny, shaped like the corkscrew her Dad would use to open a bottle of wine for Sunday lunch.
And, she suddenly noticed, there were no e-mails or data packets - or anything - flying past them. The Internet sky, usually so busy with the billions of tasks the world wide web did every second of the day, was empty. It was just the three of them up there.
Dot shivered. She didn't like it.
"Hey! What's that?" shouted Mr Mouse, making Wiz and Dot jump. He pointed down, his little mouse paw trembling with excitement.
Down below them, two ghostly white figures were running along the floor of the net-plain - with long robes flowing out behind them.
It seemed to be a boy and a girl, each with long dark hair - but it was hard to see them, because the strange blurriness was in the air of the net too. But from the way they were running, they seemed to be in trouble!
Dot just KNEW she'd seen them before. But where?
"Let's go and look!" said Wizzie excitedly.
You could tell Mr Mouse didn't like the idea much - but Wizzie pointed the three friends down, and down they went, because they were still holding hands.
Thumpety-bump! They were back on the floor of the Net. But as soon as they landed, they had to run - run as fast as they could, because the two ghostly figures were already a long way ahead of them, and starting to disappear in the misty light creeping over the net-plain.
"Wait! STOP!" shouted Dot. "Who are you? Let us help you!"
It was no good - they wouldn't stop. But then something glinted on their clothes - gold! Gold belts!
NOW Dot knew who they were - they were the two children, the boy and the girl who'd appeared from nowhere on her laptop! How could she have forgotten?
But just as she opened her mouth to call again, the two white figures blurred even more - and vanished.
"FOODLES!" shouted Dot. "We've lost them!"
But there was no time to worry about that, because in the next moment the ground shook and a roaring, crunching noise filled the air... the loudest sound Dot had ever heard!
And it was getting louder and louder - and closer and closer!!
** See Dot and The Eden Project - where Dot and her friends stop the cyber rats from destroying the computer that keeps all the plants at Eden alive and well.
