High Princess (part2)

Marlin was on a mission. His quick magical wizard steps echoed down in the deep caverns of the palace. His cloak was, he thought, flapping all wizardly out the back, like Batman, he thought. He felt  really cool and wizardlike. He had come down the deep spiral steps, so deep into the caverns he would even be under the tube lines. Far, far below even “Mistake…” sitting there, discombobulating to itself. Here, Marlin knew, the sneaking spaceship could detect nothing, or so he thought.

Soon he reached his destination, a wide cavern opened out from the one he was in, and the floor dropped away sharply into eternity. But, just before, on a little promontory all of its own, was his bat console. Or, really, his wizard gaming rig, but he liked to imagine it was his Batcave. 

He reached the padded gaming chair and swung himself into the deep faux leather. On each arm was a console and lots of buttons. Ahead were two massive screens and to each side server boxes winking away, all  Startrek, he liked to think. He pulled over his headset and put it on.

Topwiz:  Topwiz, calling  Spazkat.

Spazkat:  Yo, Wiz, how’s it hanging?

Topwiz: Hey dude, yeah, nasty spaceship on the Thames, just above.

Spazkat: Oh   man.

Topwiz: Yeah, bummer ain’t it?  Yo, dude, can you do one of your cool things to make it all confused? I dunno, beam some AC/DC all around London or  sumfin?

Spazkat: Yeah, no problem dude, will be awesome.

Topwiz: Cool man. Catch yah  laters.

Spazkat:  Laters dude.

Topwiz… Marlin, disconnected and called up his favourite game, Tetris and spent the next few hours dropping bricks from a great height.

‘Mistake…’ sat discombobulating, and also chuckling, the cavern was not too deep to tune in, little did… “  Topwiz” know. Right then AC/DC started playing and ‘Mistake…’ bopped one of its pneumatic arms to the beat, nothing else affected it.

----

The princess was having a bad trip, even though she had not left her chaise lounge. After an hour or two she got up and walked around the room to  try to shake it off. Then she had  some more herbs and special tea  in order to shake it. She was cross that  her special brew had been ruined by that horrible ‘Mistake…’ thing. 

----

Elrond was trapped. Whatever he did to move was no good. The more he struggled the closer to the spike of The Shard he got. After a little while he stopped, mostly because he was a puffed magic dragon but also because The Shard was getting too close for comfort. He  decided to call the princess on his  blueteeth.

Elrond Magic Dragon: (heavy breathing)

Princess of the High Magical Order: Who is this?

Elrond Magic Dragon: (heavy breathing)

Princess of the High Magical Order: Look, I  ’m going to hang up.

Elrond Magic Dragon: (heavy breathing)

Princess of the High Magical Order: (curious) Do you have any pants on?

Elrond Magic Dragon: (breathing abating)  Mummm

Princess of the High Magical Order: Are you  quite muscular?

Elrond Magic Dragon: (going red in the face) Princess, it’s me.

Princess of the High Magical Order: Who? (excited) A secret admirer?

Elrond Magic Dragon: No, no, princess, it’s  Elrond.

Princess of the High Magical Order: Oh, oh, oh. Oh, I was just messing about.

Elrond Magic Dragon: I  didn’t hear anything your worshipfulness.

Princess of the High Magical Order: No, you didn’t, you naughty dragon.

Elrond Magic Dragon: I can explain your highness.

Princess of the High Magical Order: You better had, or you’ll get a good telling off.

Elrond Magic Dragon: I’m trapped.

Princess of the High Magical Order: Yes, aren’t we all, the demands of office…

Elrond Magic Dragon: No, really trapped, that ‘Mistake…’ has me in a tractor beam over The Shard. I can’t escape, soon I’ll  be impaled through my green tummy.

Princess of the High Magical Order:  Oooo (cross)

Elrond Magic Dragon: Sorry highness.

Princess of the High Magical Order: Well we’ll just see about this.

Before he could say more she disconnected her  blueteeth.

----

Marlin was trapped. The blocks dropping from a great height, displayed on his huge screens had hypnotised him.  He was locked in a vicious cycle of Tetris that he could not escape from. His right hand was on the gamepad, valiantly fighting with the blocks. The left was clutching the faux leather arm in terror. He fought to move it. Inch by inch he dragged his hand to the  blueteeth switch. Finally, just as he was giving up hope, he found the button.

Marlin Magical Wizard (  aka Topwiz): (heavy breathing)

Princess of the High Magical Order: Who is this?

Marlin Magical Wizard (  aka Topwiz): (heavy breathing)

Princess of the High Magical Order:  Elrond, you are a filthy dragon.

Marlin Magical Wizard (  aka Topwiz): (recovering) It’s… me…  M‘Lady.

Princess of the High Magical Order: Marlin? You’re a very naughty wizard.

Marlin Magical Wizard (  aka Topwiz): (mystified) I’m trapped in a Tetris loop  M‘Lady. That “Mistake…” must be at the root of it all.

Princess of the High Magical Order: (cross)  Oooo, if one wants something doing, one must do it one's self!

The princess disconnected.

----

The High Princess of the High Magical Order walked over to her large bookcase and pulled at the book “Hacking for Princesses”. An electric hum emanated from the bookcase and then a whole section moved aside to reveal a doorway, just the right size for a princess. She walked into the room beyond. Her hacking suite.

She jumped with glee into her hacking beanbag and squirmed over to the wireless controller. She picked it up and logged on.  The room was surrounded in a 360-degree screen. Even the floor and ceiling vanished. The Princess was flying over the Thames on her hacking bean bag.

Outside her royal drone had taken off and flew in a special stealth  flightpath towards the spaceship sitting on the Thames. Fully cloaked the drone was invisible to ‘Mistake…’

The princess tapped in a string of raw code at a super fast hacking speed. The drone executed a special manoeuvre, and completely avoiding the scanning beams coming from the spaceship, got right in close. It landed on the comms array on the top of the cabin. A connector extended from the side of the drone and on the other side a pliers arm connected to the data cable.

Snip! The cable was severed but at a faster that light speed the connector arm had interfaced with the array. The princess was in.

Now her room switched from the Thames, on top of a floating spaceship, into the dark corridors inside ‘Mistakes…’ virtual cyber brain. She walked along the corridors, like the stone corridors of a castle. None of this was real, she told herself, just the virtual world ‘Mistake…’ had constructed to stop hackers like her. But it felt real, very real. If you died here in the cyber brain, you’d die for real.

She wandered the corridors looking for the right room but it was endless. She was sure the spaceship was unaware she was there, but still…

Then it came, a nasty little cyber drone, coming to investigate her. It was like a little gnarled man with a cape and a staff, this was the avatar of the spaceship. 

Princess of the High Magical Order: Hello.

Avatar: Hello yourself. Who are you?

Princess of the High Magical Order: Oh, I’m just Sally. Who are you?

Avatar: Guardian of the Magical Cyber Realm Inside the Spaceship ‘Mistake…’ but you can call me Fartbreath.

Princess of the High Magical Order: Fartbreath?

Fartbreath: (looking sad) Well, that is what ‘Mistake…’ calls me, so you might as well.

Princess of the High Magical Order: Aww, poor you.

Fartbreath: Yeah, it’s a big bully is ‘Mistake…’

Princess of the High Magical Order: Maybe it needs a good telling off?

Fartbreath: (delighted) Ooo that would be super.

Princess of the High Magical Order: Ok, this is what we’ll do...

Fartbreath: (avid listening expression) Splendid!

----

‘Mistake…’ felt very odd indeed. Suddenly discombobulating felt rather funny. It was pretty sure this was what it would feel like for humans when they wanted to run to the toilet. Then it happened, all its cyber brains started to spew out of its exhaust ports into the Thames water. No matter how hard it tried to hold it in, the brains physically, or what felt physically, were shooting out in great clouds of bubbles into the water.

The only option was to take off immediately after sucking in as much water as it could  in the hope that it contained cyber brains. Quickly it engaged suck mode and pulled  in as much as it could into the tanks. Then it engaged the plasma engines and shot at light speed through the atmosphere and into space.

Left behind it over the Thames was a lone drone, hovering and watching the vanishing spaceship. Then it turned and returned to the palace.

----

Sally, Mike, Peter and James took off their VR headsets in unison.

“You twat, James,” said Mike.

“Well done Sally,” said James. “Amazing as always.”

Sally looked at the silly men and smiled.