Enter RAF

[Cloak]

Excellent, Dino.

[Estelore]

We're really enjoying reading this. ^_^

[DinosaurNothlit]

Thanks, everybody! 

Chapter Nine

"First item of business," Terenia began, breaking the tension that surrounded Richard's appearance.  Richard himself stayed mysteriously silent, apparently content to just watch the proceedings.

"We need to discuss what to do about Pootang," Terenia went on.  Muffled gasps went up through the crowd at the name, although some of the newer members just giggled.  "We've managed to track down Anna, and she is currently down in the basement, but thus far she's had little to no luck getting through to him.  So we need a contingency plan, in the event that that approach fails altogether."

"I volunteer my TARDIS," Aquilai spoke up from the crowd.  "If it escapes, I might be able to go back in time and reverse whatever happened that set it loose in the first place."

"I wouldn't count on that," Cloaky countered, as he strode into the meeting from somewhere outside the Media Board.  "I've sensed that Pootang seems to exist in multiple realms at once.  Or, whatever forms of reality would be the equivalent of 'realms' within RAF, I suppose.  Not websites, but data files perhaps?  I don't know how that's even possible, but if I'm right, its timeline may well be impervious to any alterations.  You would need to alter the timeline of each version separately but at the same instant in time.  Which is not only impossible, it's a contradiction."

"But we still need to come up with some kind of defensive plan," Goom spoke up.  "Tyler, Blue, and Russell are still guarding Pootang at the moment, but we need to come up with an official rotation of guards."

"Nobody wants to stay down there, with that, for long," Phoenix commented offhandedly.  "Trust me, you'd go insane just looking at it."

"We'll want at least one Andalite down there at all times, to make a mirror-wave call to the rest of RAF in the event of an escape," Goom went on.  "Estrid can teach the rest of you how to do it.  And, we should have at least one of our more powerful members down there at all times, too.  Phoenix, Cloaky, Tyler, Parker, and Estelore are some of the most formidable RAFians we have.  An outerworlder would be handy, too, so that if all else fails and the other two don't make it out, the outerworlder could still get out and warn other RAFians."

As he spoke, Estrid looked concerned as she scanned the crowd with her stalk eyes.  <Um, speaking of powerful RAFians, has anyone actually seen Estelore?> she asked nervously.  <They aren't here.  Why wouldn't they be here?  They aren't down guarding Pootang, are they?>

A nervous murmuring went up through the crowd as various RAFians confirmed amongst themselves that Estrid was right.  Estelore was not present.

Cloaky shook his head.  "No, I just came from the basement, and she isn't there."

<I briefly met them yesterday, so I know they're an innerworlder,> Estrid commented, puzzled.

<I saw Estelore,> Dino put forth.  <At least I assumed it was them.  I'd thought I was seeing the sun, but then later on it, well, they, were gone.  But I just assumed that they had somewhere else to be?>  Various other voices in the crowd confirmed that they'd all seen the same thing.

<I'll try another mirror-wave call,> Estrid said.  <ESTELORE!> she yelled out, her powerfully projected thought-speak mentally deafening at such a close range.  <THE MEETING IS MANDATORY.  WHERE ARE YOU?>

There was a tense moment as everyone waited for Estelore's human avatar to appear.  But, the seconds ticked slowly by, and still nothing happened.

<Surely, they just had somewhere else to be,> Dino told herself, although she didn't sound terribly certain.  <Nothing could just . . . vanish a star.  . . . Right?  Does their star stay in the sky when they appear as a human?>

<Yes, actually.  The star was still there when I talked to them,> Estrid confirmed.  <They said that they only use a fraction of the star's mass to create their human form.  So, it couldn't be just a question of having somewhere else on RAF to be, that wouldn't make their star vanish like that.  Unless they went off to a different website.  But, then, why?  And why haven't they come back?  Are they hiding from something?>

"What would a star have to hide from?" Phoenix countered.  "Estelore is one of the most powerful RAFians, if not the most powerful."

<Have my mirror-wave calls reached other websites?> Estrid asked.  Several RAFians from the crowd affirmed that they did, one saying that he'd been on Youtube when he heard the summons, another on Facebook.  <So then there's no way they didn't hear,> Estrid muttered.  <What are they doing?>

The crowd began to hum nervously, as members anxiously chattered to one another, discussing the terrifying implications of Estelore going missing like this.  Were they hurt, somewhere?  Worse than hurt?  Had they been kidnapped?  And by what?  What in the kree could hurt, or kidnap, a star?

"Okay, we need to organize a search," Terenia said, getting down to business.  "You and you, get on Facebook, and you three search their blog," she said, her teacher experience taking over as she pointed out various RAFians and quickly assigned tasks.  "The group of you, the six of you there, find out what other sites they frequented.  I don't know, try Googling 'Estelore,' for starters.  Get back to the rest of us if you need additional manpower for searching whatever sites you come up with.  Everybody else, we'll split up and search all the boards on RAF as best we can.  Perhaps we might at least find some kind of clue about what happened."

<Wait,> Dino said, suddenly sensing that someone was missing who had been there before.  She hadn't noticed anyone leave, but then again she had been fairly distracted by the commotion surrounding Estelore's disappearance.  She looked around, trying to place the feeling, before it suddenly hit her.  <What happened to Noelle?>

[Cloak]

Noelle logged out?  Maybe?

Am I inworlder or outworlder, or just the obligatory mysterious man?

[Estelore]

*claps hands delightedly* ^_^ We are a plot point!

[Blazing Angel]

Just happy to PARTICIPATE!

[radgeek]

The word "kree" was used. 

I have no idea way that made me happy.

[DinosaurNothlit]

Am I inworlder or outworlder, or just the obligatory mysterious man?

Perhaps all three.  That would be mysterious indeed.    J/k, you're actually an inner.

Just happy to PARTICIPATE!

Patience, patience.  You will have a chance to participate-in-all-capital-letters by the end of the story, I promise.  Provided you can show a little patience in the meantime.

Chapter Ten

Terenia rubbed her temples, trying to fight down her feelings of frustration.  Things had been only barely, finally, starting to get on track towards some form of order, but then, in the blink of an eye, everything had just as quickly fallen apart again.

"Okay, then, two groups," Terenia said, amending her earlier plan, raising her voice to be heard over the rising murmur of panic within the crowd now that a second RAFian had disappeared.  "One searches for Estelore, one for Noelle.  This side of the room, you'll search for Estelore.  That side searches for Noelle.  Except for Seal, Steph, and Tony.  And, find Blue once he's done with guard duty, he could help, too.  You four, I want you to work on a list of everyone who is currently active on RAF, and I mean everyone, and we'll see if there's anybody else missing."

"And I can see if I can still access RAF's activity logs, somehow," Goom added.  "Depending on exactly what happened, there may be a record of events on the site itself."

"I'm pretty good with computers," Aquilai added.  "I can help Goom."

"Okay, good," Terenia said.  "Richard, you should help with that, too."  Richard, who had been standing off to the side of the group of staff members, stoically followed Aquilai and Goom as the three of them walked out of the amphitheatre.

The crowd began to disband, beginning the search for the missing RAFians.  Some members blinked out as they crossed over to other websites, while others wandered out of the Media Board towards other areas of RAF.

But then somebody familiar pushed forward through the crowd, grinning as she moved towards Terenia.  Even with everything Terenia had to deal with in the past few hours, she couldn't help but smile back, as she practically ran towards Myitt.

"Tara!" Terenia called out excitedly, opening her arms for a hug, which Myitt eagerly returned.  "Oh my god, where have you been?  I've been so worried about you!"

Myitt paused, as though considering what to say next.  "Sorry, my internet was down all day yesterday," Myitt apologized.  "Some kind of maintenance, or something."

"Okay, so then . . . " Terenia began, but trailed off as another thought occurred to her.  "Hmm, hey, wait.  If that's true, then how are you here?  You are really here, right?"

There was another odd pause.  "It came back up," Myitt said, with an implied 'duh' in her voice.

"That's not what I mean," Terenia said questioningly, looking hard at Myitt, scrutinizing her for some sign of the flat emotionless indifference typical of the other outerworlders.  But she could see nothing of the sort.

After a moment, Myitt raised an eyebrow at Terenia.  "What?"

"I mean, how are you here here.  You are an innerworlder, right?"

". . . I'm a what now?" Myitt asked.

"Innerworlder," Terenia clarified.  "You know, inside the internet?"

There was a long pause.  "What?"

"So, okay," Terenia started, wrinkling her brow anxiously, not quite wanting to ask what she was about to ask.  "Answer me this.  What do you see, in front of your eyes, right now as we're talking?"

" . . . My computer screen?" Myitt answered.  "What are you getting at?"

Terenia stared at her incredulously.  "But, how?" she asked, thinking out loud.  "How is it that you seem perfectly normal?"

". . . I don't know what you're talking about," Myitt answered, confused.

"Look," Terenia said impatiently.  "We're kind of in the middle of a crisis, here, and, sorry, but I really do not have time to play the 'do you believe me' game.  We are inside the internet, we've been turned into our characters, and RAF is a real place and I'm in here, okay?  Now, tell me, what is it that's making you different?"

After another momentary pause, Myitt's eyes widened.  "Wow.  Um, okay, so, all your posts have been you, actually doing the stuff that's described?  That's . . . incredible."  She shrugged, but then looked thoughtful.  "Hey, wait, you mean, like that?  Did I shrug just now?  I just typed 'Myitt shrugged.'  And, well, I've just been describing what my character is doing.  You know, roleplaying."

"Ah, that's the difference!" Terenia said, snapping her fingers.  "You're a roleplayer!  You need to teach that to the other outerworlders.  But, now isn't the time.  Like I said, we're in the middle of a crisis.  Estelore and Noelle are missing."

"Has anybody checked users online?" Myitt asked, and then without warning she suddenly and stiffly walked away, while, in the real world, she changed the web page.

<Oh man.  Terenia?> Ash spoke up from within her own brain.  < . . . I think I have some really bad news.>

<Just what I need, more bad news,> Terenia sighed bitterly.  <Okay, tell me.>

<I had a different tab open, and I was using the member search function on RAF to try to find Estelore and Noelle, while you were talking to Myitt.  Here's the thing, when I type 'Estelore' or 'Noelle' into the search bar, it comes back with a message saying, "Sorry, no matches were found."  I . . . I think that their accounts no longer exist,> Ash said.

<What?  No, no, that's not possible,> Terenia insisted, but her blood was turning to ice.  <That's just not possible.  That would mean . . . No.  No no no oh god NO!>  She wobbled on her feet as she realized the implications of what Ash had said.  Here, within the internet, each innerworlder only existed within their own account.  If the account was gone . . . then where else could they possibly be?

[Cloak]

Nice, Dino.

[radgeek]

Who is Teach using as a host now? She seems to not be using thought-speak the whole chapter.

[Noelle]

I stopped existing?  ;_;

*goes off looking for me*

[Cloak]

*goes off looking for me*

How . . . existential?

[Estelore]

*floating around like so much space dust*

...poof?

[Blazing Angel]

In a roleplay, where my account was canceled after being killed, I ended up on my old Evony account. I say this is what has happened to our friends.

[DinosaurNothlit]

Who is Teach using as a host now? She seems to not be using thought-speak the whole chapter.

Ash.  Since Ash is an outerworlder and thus has no reason to care about the use of her virtual body, Terenia decided to use spoken speech, mainly because that's what she's used to and more comfortable with.

Chapter Eleven

Dino's anxiety made the minutes drag on like hours, as she and Nate wandered deeper and deeper into the Animorphs Board, their assigned search area.  Teams of two had ended up being all that RAF could afford to spare for each search group, there was just far too much area to cover otherwise.

Inside the Animorphs building, it was a vista of patchwork terrains, strikingly reminiscent of the miniature universe from the Andalite Chronicles.  Except that it was much larger, seemingly infinite, and composed instead of scenes from the various books, plus a few other random non-canon hypothetical scenarios.

After having narrowly dodged a screeching truck driver that could only be Marco, the two RAFians now had a momentary respite as they walked through an 'Andalite' area, Dino marvelling up at the asparagus-like trees.  Despite herself, Dino let out a yawn, the relaxing atmosphere of the Andalite homeworld easing her ragged nerves for the time being.  It wasn't late yet, but it soon would be.

"You want to take a break?" Nate asked, giving Dino a sideways glance.  The Australian RAFian, being from a timezone ten hours earlier than Dino, had only gotten up less than an hour ago.  "I can find Pokey and we can take over."

<No, no, I'm good,> Dino said.  <I probably wouldn't be able to think about anything else, anyway.>

It still seemed weird, whenever Dino stopped to consider the fact that Nate wasn't actually there.  He was an outerworlder, so in reality he was sitting in front of his computer, several continents away from where Dino would have been.  He was merely clicking from topic to topic, looking for anything out of the ordinary, while she walked along beside his virtual avatar.  A weird feeling, to consider how different their perceptions of reality could be, when on the surface nothing seemed different between them.

After Myitt had been briefed on the whole internet teleportation situation, she had PMed the other outerworlders a few pointers on roleplaying.  Not that they really needed coaching, though.  All of them were good writers, Steph in particular had plenty of roleplaying experience already, and so all of them picked it up almost immediately, once they just figured out what it was they were supposed to do.  Which made interacting with the outerworlders at least a bit more comfortable, now that they didn't tend to act like zombies.

Dino blew out a loud exhale, frustrated by the utter vastness of the forum, as she crossed over from Andalite grass onto hard grey pavement, a sidewalk in front of a row of suburban houses.  She absently wondered which house might belong to one of the Animorphs, before she noticed the Dracon burned scar on one of them.  Jake's.

She and Nate quickened their pace, moving on eagerly towards the next area, even though it didn't look much better.  A curtain of darkness seemed to envelop the swath of terrain, but Dino sincerely hoped that it was just a nocturnal scene, and not a place underground.

The search for the missing RAFians was going nowhere.  Of course, Terenia had told everyone, via Estrid's mirror-wave call, about the fact that Noelle's and Estelore's accounts appeared to have been deleted.  She had seemed very reluctant to bear that kind of news, but there wasn't much way to keep it hidden, when any outerworlder could easily perform the same search that Ash had done.

But, even though it seemed hopeless, still the search went on, because what else could they do?  Nobody felt right with just giving up on their fellow RAFians.  Dino still stubbornly told herself that they couldn't just be gone.  Perhaps they had just been kicked out of the internet, and were back in the real world again.  That had to be it.

But, then, that didn't explain why neither Noelle or Estelore would answer their phones.  The RAFians had managed to track down both of their phone numbers, and each of the outerworlders had taken a turn trying to call them.  There was never an answer.

So, even if they were back in the real world, they must have been in bad shape, if they couldn't manage to answer back even one of the frantic and panicked messages the RAFians had left on their voice mail.  Maybe the transition back to the real world had gone wrong somehow, and they were lying unconscious somewhere.  But, well, if so, there wasn't very much any of the RAFians could do about it.  Nobody even knew their addresses, so how was anybody supposed to track them down?

The light around Dino and Nate suddenly dimmed, like someone turning off a light, as they crossed through the boundary into the darkened area.  To Dino's relief, it turned out to be a pasture, with cows sluggishly grazing or sleeping.  <Ah, probably book twenty-eight,> Dino commented to herself.  <Wonder if we'll see Ax doing his cow impression?>

Nate snickered under his breath.  "Yeah, well, we're actually in a thread talking about that exact thing.  Heh, we have necro'ed some old threads doing this search!"

<At least we aren't stuck searching Classic RAF,> Dino commented.  <I bet that place is like a ghost town.>

They wandered into a new area, the gleaming metal of the inside of a ship making a bright line against the dark pasture.  Dino's talons clanged obnoxiously against the metallic surface as she crossed over into the new terrain.

Suddenly, standing right in front of her, Dino saw an Andalite.  Obviously, her first assumption was that it was Ax, but it seemed to be female, and beyond that, something was very wrong with her.  The figure was hazy and indistinct, full of static, just a ghost of an image.  And entire square-shaped blocks were completely missing from her body, like a computer image that hadn't finished rendering.  A soft thought-speak mumble of jibberish, nothing more than white noise, accompanied the image, but Dino couldn't make out even a single word.

<Noelle?!> Dino called out, but already the Andalite was gone again, vanishing as quickly as she had materialized.  Dino ran forward, trying to see where she had gone, but she had merely disappeared, like a screen that had been shut off.

"Dino?" Nate asked.  "Did you see something?"

Dino stared hard at the empty air, trying to decide if what she had seen had been real at all.  It had been so brief, just a momentary image, nothing more than a few seconds.  Maybe she had just imagined it.  <I don't know,> she told Nate.  <I don't know.>