The Smart Virus Bomb!

Mark set his pace to one of a simple stroll, while walking around the campus of Dentech. He hadn't been in an environment like this in several years, and the feeling of excitement and nostalgia ran over him with each step he took deeper onto the campus. His eyes darted left and right at the buildings, the trees, and the many people. Trent interrupted his thoughts with something so eloquently phrased, "Hurry up and find it."

Mark stopped in his tracks. He was having a nice time merely walking around and enjoying things. A loud, slightly annoyed sigh, was released. "Fine. I'll work my way to where I think the bomb is."

Mark walked into the campus more, following the twisting paths and the long roads in the shadows of the halls and dorms. He was looking for something specific. He didn't know where it was, but he knew that one of the buildings had to match the idea he had in his head for what the clue could be referring to. Finally he saw it.

"Is that where you think the clue is?" Trent said curiously.

Mark had stopped before a large hall, with a large body of grass in the front of it. The facade and front steps of the hall were made from a white marble, and the grass on the lawn was a very strong green, most noted by how well the staff took care of the area. Mark smiled. The bomb should be here somewhere, attached to the side of a column, or the side of the stairs. Or maybe buried in the nearby bushes. Trent nodded in agreement, seeing how Mark was thinking, and prepared himself for the encounter, while Mark turned on the wifi.

Mark walked all around, enough to make a person or two in the area suspicious of exactly what he was doing. But alas, there was no virus bomb here. Nope. Nada.

Mark sat on the pristine white steps of the hall behind him, and pulled him knees up high enough for his forearms to rest on them. Hold the PET close to his face he scrolled through his emails and found the one from GNA, and read it aloud. His eyes focused on each word separately and strongly. "I can't think of what else it could really be. I can see now how this doesn't work because it doesn't fill out the 'collide' part of the clue. Mark sighed. That was one of the only ideas that he had for this clue.

"I take it that wasn't the right idea?" Trent said, in nearly a mocking tone. Mark hung his head a bit lower and tried to think more. If he had gotten this on the first time, it would have been a nice step towards earning a higher standing with his Navi. Mark thought a bit more on the subject, ignoring the interjections from Trent all the while.

Mark shot his head upwards, and moved to the closet map he could find of the campus. By this time, Trent had already turned off his holograph and was ignoring Mark. All the better for myself Mark thought while his eyes returned to to the map before him. "Let's see, Let's see." Mark said. His finger stopped on the building he was looking for, the science halls. To Mark, the best place for an on campus collision was this building. Between the collision of chemicals in chemistry, the collision of various rubber balls in Physics, to him to had to be in that building somewhere.

He set off towards the building with great haste. He ran up the small staircase on the front of the building and hurried inside. He quickly slowed his pace once inside, looking down the various white hallways he knew he wouldn't be allowed inside the chemistry rooms or labs, but maybe the bomb would be near the doors. Mark could only hope as he looked inside the small window of a class room, and turned on the wifi.

And so he looked. And looked. And looked some more. However, the trigger program wasn't nearly strong enough to go off without actually going inside, so peering in a room was going to solve absolutely nothing.

Mark's eyes narrowed and his brow furrowed as the thought of the various places this silly bomb could be hiding. He knew the range was very limited on the wifi, but running into a classroom, brandishing his PET like a weapon in search of its target was a bit of a strange idea for the mission. He couldn't think of anything else at the moment of what the solution could be, his mind was too focused on finding out if this was indeed the correct answer. Did he just need to go....deeper? Deeper into the caves of Dentech known as the classrooms?

He thought so.

However, Mark didn't want to interrupt the current class, so he sat outside, and put on his headphones, turning the volume up to a moderate level. Trent and him did little talking during this waiting period. Labs and classes for college classes normally lasted for an hour to an hour and thirty minutes. They could have a decent chunk of time to burn together.

Still, however, no real interaction other than Mark asking questions of Trent, took place. Trent seemed to not want much to do with Mark, not wanting to give him the time of day. His tones always had a bit of superiority and a business tone to them. Like a cocky coworker.

Finally the class let out, and Mark stepped into the room. He moved back to the lab work areas, in the rear of the room, and took his PET out. He flipped on the wifi and started his search. He moved over to the whiteboard on the back wall. He studies it for a second, before thinking of the clue again. Green markers were Sitting on the base of it. This board was the check out board for the near by chemical container, which held within it, several test tubes and beakers with various colors chemicals in it, some green and white. He held the PET in between the board and the containter, hoping this solution was the correct one.

It was probably impossible to search in any more detail than Mark had done...but no bomb in either spot, as evidenced by the lack of trigger triggering.

Slightly frustrated and finding no leads, Mark turned his attention to the other aspects of the room. There had to be something that it could be. There were green and white posters over the room, green and white objects, but none of them matched the clue. To Mark, the clue had to take place somewhere in the class room, its the only place that made sense to him for where a university clue could be held.

Finally his eyes darted to the front of the room. A large, old fashion chalkboard, hung on the front room. Mark hadn't seen one of those in a while, most of the old boar were replaced by the less messy, dry erase white boards. It seemed out of place enough to have attention drawn to it, and met the requirements of the clues. He walked to the chalkboard in the front, to scan it.

His mind darted on the various reasons why this board remained. Maybe it was an old board from a traditional teacher, or someone who just loved the classic feel of chalk in their hands. Either way, his mind focus only on the bomb once the wifi flicked on, and the chalk dust filled his nose.

Exactly why Mark found the chalkboard out of place was a bit odd, considering it just so happened to be the kind that allowed the user to use their PET to mark on it. Though, on closer inspection, why would it need an eraser if there wasn't actual chalk for it?

PING!

Because it was a virus bomb disguised as an eraser, that's why.

(TO DENTECH NET)

Mark moved back from the chalkboard, the lights from ti deactivating as Trent's PET moved away from the surface of it. Mark hadn't enjoyed that fight, probably less so than the actual fighter. He was nervous the whole time, in a state of indecision, and slightly disturbed by the mental fortitude of Trent.

Trent himself was happy with the fight. He had removed the threats with little damage to himself and whatever was harmed was healed by the totem over the course of the fight. "That was good." Trent said his arms circling around stretching his shoulders. "I hope the next few battles give me as much of a challenge."

"Most of what did that this fight," Mark said while walking out the class, "Was the lack of defense cracking power that we have. We have strong abilities in dropping targets fast and getting out of range, but when a target is defended, we can't get to them. We don't even have chips with any breaking or impact qualities. We should train in those, it would be over all beneficial to your battle strategy."

To Trent, Mark was merely rambling at this point. Which was fine by Trent, he often tuned out the speech of Mark while he rambled on. He did bring up a good point. The reason Trent had to hold his ground and take attacks and be willing to fight through direct pain, was because he had no other means to break the target. No chips to do it, nothing.

Mark kept talking, mostly to himself with nothing more than grunts from Trent, as he got on the train to the beach.

{To The Beach!}