Fair Weather Fun

Noah was currently doing his second-favorite thing besides cavorting about the internet with his Net Navi: Napping. Unfortunately for him, his navi, Nimbus, had an incredible tendency to want to go cavorting about the internet when he wanted to nap, and vice versa. Of course, Nimbus never really napped, she slept like a rock, Noah simply had a tendency to want to go on the Net just before going to bed.

It was a little after noon when she finally got too bored to stand it. He was taking a nap on a public bench.

"Hey. Hey, get up. Hello, are you listening?"

Nothing. No response. Noah was as heavy a napper as she was a sleeper. So, she decided to try a different tactic. One a bit less subtle and a lot more dangerous. She WAS in his front pocket, after all. Who knew how he would react. She went over to a small station in the Navi's computer. It looked a bit like the cockpit of a tractor. She started up the electric motor inside the PET, which started with a whir.

She then got in the seat and floored the gas pedal. The PET shot out of his pocket, hit him in the chest, then spun around and drove onto the ground.

"Catch me if you can, cyber viking!" This would be easier said than done for Noah, who had woken up due to getting hit by the PET. He made it so Nimbus could go pretty fast. As his PET peeled away along the sidewalk, he ran after it.
The grey and blue PET raced down the sidewalk, occasionally bouncing due to the grooves between plates on the sidewalk. Noah ran about a yard behind it, running hard.

Nimbus was cackling away, having a grand old time running this way and that. The path she was taking him on seemed pointless, as she took far too many turns for no clear reason, sometimes going all the way around houses, but after a while, Noah's sense of direction kicked in and he realized she was taking him home.

"Why... are... we... going... home? It's not... even 2 yet!"

Nimbus rolled her eyes, turning left for the third time.

"Come on, Noah, I want to go on the Net! Sitting around doing nothing is boring!"

Noah sighed. "Fine... When we get home, I'll jack in. "

Nimbus smiled, and hit the brakes to stop. Unfortunately, inertia had other plans. The PET flipped on a rock, landing in the grass. Nimbus herself was sent skidding from the seat.

"Owww.... She looked around, realizing that this was their house: A two-story, greenish-blue hosue.


"Well, we're here."

Noah pocketed his PET and headed into the house and up the stairs. He pulled out a small cord and plugged it into his rather large laptop.

"Jack in, Nimbus, Execute!"

((TO ACDC NET))
[FROM AC/DC NET]

Nimbus.EXE reappeared in her PET, fully healed and healthy. She stretched her arms, walking around a bit out of her Boosters.

"All right, I'm back to full strength! Feels great." She wiped her brow, checking to make sure that the blood data had been erased by her health resetting. Indeed, it had been.

"And clean, too. All right, let's go see what we can find in the city."

Noah sighed, pulling out the jack-in cord for his PET. "You're certainly excited after getting hammered."

Nimbus rolled her eyes. "Look, that was just bad luck. Happens to everyone, to you, to me, to the NetPolice..."

"To the Sharo Football Team?"

"You better believe it, and pray for it. So stop giving me that look, you look like I nearly died out there."

"You did nearly die out there." Noah was only half-right, of course, but that would be getting technical.

Navis can't be deleted on AC/DC, at least the normal, non-freaky part of it. Or most areas. They just get logged out. Navis, unlike people, don't die when they are killed. You know that, and knew that, otherwise you wouldn't have said '10 HP from being ejected', you would have said '10 HP from being deleted'."

"You shouldn't take risks like that, though."

Nimbus huffed exasperatedly and put her hands on her hips, leaning over to stare more intensely at her NetOp. "Listen to you, you sound like your mother's Navi. I have free will, I can do what I want. And while that is normally serving you to the best of my ability - comes with being a Navi - that also involves not surrendering."

Noah stared back at her, not even flinching under her gaze, as she attempted to stare through his soul. Finally, she sighed again and stood up, turning around.

"All right, all right, I'll be more careful in the future."

"Is that a promise?"

She turned back around, smiling confidently at her NetOp. "Yeah. It's a promise."

He nodded, then plugged in the cord to the PET, then into the laptop. "You know the drill. Jack In, Nimbus, Execute."

[TO INTERNET CITY]