Cytronica

Seventeen

Wednesday

"I don't know what to do," Diego admitted, his elbows resting on the cool steel table. He sat across from Jiaying and Priya, who looked equally as baffled. Around them was another large audience of teenagers, all varying in age. These lunchtime meetings were seeming to become a regular occurrence.

"You need to do something," Sophie said. "Yesterday was a mess. You saw the way those bots were looking at us. It's only going to get worse." Others in the crowd agreed.

"I'm not logging in anymore," a boy said. "It was fun on Friday with the gravity, but not now. Some guy tried to attack me yesterday in Cytro because he thought I was looking at him funny."

Priya buried her head in her hands. "I'm sorry. This is my fault. I should've stopped Hunter when I had the chance."

"It's not your fault," Jiaying said. "Not at all. You didn't do anything wrong."

"I did," she corrected. "I chose his side because I wanted to have some fun inside the realm. I thought he made a good point, so I went along with it."

"He did make a good point," Beck confessed. "Hunter was right when he said Cytro was boring. We all admit that. Making a few changes is a great idea."

Jiaying smiled at her partner. "And the fact that the teachers don't know makes it a little more exciting. But now it's gone way too far. None of that is your fault though. No one knew how far he wanted to take it."

Priya looked up at her friends, regret in her eyes. "Thank you."

"Alright, so what's the plan?" Diego asked, returning to the more pressing matter. "Hunter will be out here any second. We need to think of something, fast."

"I say shut it down," Sophie suggested. "Tell Principal Ramirez everything."

Jiaying winced. "It's tempting, but we're just as involved. I don't want to get expelled for Hunter's actions."

"True," Sophie said, not wanting any harm to befall the trio.

"But that doesn't mean we can't warn Hunter," Priya said. "We can tell him we'll go to the principal if he doesn't stop taking things too far."

"I doubt he'd believe us," Diego dismissed.

"Probably not. But it's worth a shot."

Jiaying glanced at her surroundings. She couldn't count the number of students standing around the table, but it looked to be at least fifty or so.

Significantly lower than yesterday.

"Why don't you just stop him from editing the code?" a boy mentioned. "Or, better yet, let him log in first and then just change it afterwards."

Priya took the idea on board. "That's not bad," she said.

"That could work," Diego agreed. "There's three of us and only two of him."

"Wait a second," Jiaying interrupted, staring at the time on her wrist comm. "Something's not right. Hunter should've been here fifteen minutes ago."

Priya frowned. "Good point. Where is he? And Zack?"

"And the rest of his fans. No one here is disagreeing with us. Which means ..."

The truth suddenly dawned on the group.

Priya groaned. "He must be having his own meeting somewhere else."

Diego punched the table, causing more damage to his own hand than the metal. "Damn it!"

"If that's the case, where are they?" Beck wondered. "The school is huge."

The admins rose from their spots, standing on the bench and looking into the distance.