The Search for Snoink

**So, I'm sorry if I'm wrong about getting what Grif said. Correct me if I'm wrong*

The six girls stood there in the middle of the park. The wind blew their hair all around as they thought.

Well, Evi and Rosey just put a lot of pressure on me.

“I-“ Cat started, but was cut off by a member running up to them.

“Hey, are you the YWS Reporter?” He asked, gasping for air.

“Yes,” Cat replied cautiously. “Why?”

“I tried looking for you at the news bureau, but no one was there. I’ve been looking all over for you.”

“Okay, so now you found us. What do you need?”

“I overheard some of the SPEW officers talking about something.”

All six of the girls’ eyes flashed to the member as soon as he said that. This was some important and new news.

“What’s your name?” June asked right before Cat did.

“Boltage.”

“Would you mind telling us what you heard?” Cat asked in a calm voice. She felt like she was going to start jumping up and down. She was on to something.

“Well, I only got to here a little bit. Something about a funky energy orb that came from space or something. They think it’s supposedly connected to Snoink somehow. So Areida, Grif, and Dono are going out through the orb or something to try to find Snoink.” Boltage smiled as he finished.

JC, Rosey, Demeter, Evi, and June all looked stunned. Cat was so surprised that her mouth was hanging open.

“Th-th-that’s a little bit?”Cat stuttered as she stared wide-eyed at Boltage.

“Yeah. Is it that okay that I told you?” He asked.

“It’s perfectly fine. Thanks.” Cat, still a little stunned, walked over to the nearest bench and sat done. The other girls sat down next to her.

“I can’t tell everyone this. One, they’ll think I’m crazy. Two, this is big.”

“But Grif, Dono, and Areida are going by themselves?” June looked concerned over the three mods.

“Maybe some of us could go running after the three of them,” Evi suggested.

“But what about looking at Snoink’s old posts?” Rosey asked, looking a little crestfallen.

Cat was stuck here. She wanted to do both, but how?

“Let’s split up. Half of us run after Grif, Areida, and Dono before they take off; the other half stay here and look around.” June smiled as the plan began to unfold.

It seemed that the main goal of the meeting had been accomplished so Nate called it to an end and Kitty15 hurried out of the headquarters with Jabber at her side.

"It's time, isn't it?" Jabber asked a little nervously. Heather nodded grimly and they strode forward together, side by side. They came to a hallway that forked, one path to the left and one to the right. Jabber began to follow the left fork, treading firmly on a purple carpet while Kitty15 went the other way, running her fingers against a blue wall. Both stopped. They turned and walked back to where the two paths met.

"Both take one?" Heather suggested. Jabber grinned and nodded. They turned again and followed the paths. Both veered around the corner and out of sight. Kitty15 approached the blue garbed security guard who was shuffling her feet.

"Hey Timea," Kitty15 greeted her. She reached into her pocket for a badge.

"Hi Heather. Uh... you'll not need that. They're sort of not here." Kitty15 hesitated. A few more words passed between them and then she dashed back around the corner, almost running into Jabber coming from the opposite direction.

"They can't have got far unless..."

"They've taken a ship?"

"Great. Now we're looking for the purps and blues as well as Snoink."

Wondering if the Purps and Blues even had meetings, Jabber ran back down the Purp hallway and asked the new security guard, Hannah. (Jiggity resigned.)

"Was there a meeting here?" Jabs asked.

"There was one scheduled," Hannah said with a shrug, "but no one really showed up. Kylan and BigBadBear did as well as a couple others. They left after a short while; who knows if they discussed anything."

The Blues' meeting must not have been successful either, then. Jabber ran back to her meeting spot with Heather. She had just returned from speaking with Timea. "Did the Blues have any meeting?" Jabs asked.

"Not really, no. I assume the Purps didn't either?"

"You assume correctly," Jabber sighed, slouching. "They both tend to just wander though. They like to do their own thing."

"And the Mods don't," Heather said, shaking her head. They both burst into giggle-fits.

After a breather, Jabber said, "Well, we can ask the guards for their input. I like running back and forth," she added sarcastically.

"As much as you would like to, I think the more reasonable response is to find them," Heather said as if she were always reasonable (and that was no sarcasm). They started walking to the front door of the building and into the sunlight, exchanging more words and plan-suggestions.

Finally, Jabber had a rare burst of intelligence. "Well, let's go find them!"

"Good plan, Mind Reader!" Heather said. "Let's go check the YWS hangar and see if and how many ships were taken out for a ride. Maybe there'll be clues."

"And maybe we'll run into someone on the way," Jabber said, nodding. "Hopefully someone's been doing some detective work before us."

"Haha, who could know about Snoink missing? Only the Mods know."

"'So naturally the whole [world] knows.'"

"One more thing!" June said as everyone rose to leave, "Who's going where? I mean, who do you think is best to go with the mods, and who do you think should stay?"

"I want to look through Snoink's posts," Rosey said decidedly, "but I guess if you need me, I could come..."

Cat shook her head. "You probably should look through those posts. June and I will go after the mods." She looked at June with a look that suggested 'you will, right?'

June nodded. "Besides, someway or another, you'll probably have to go into the greeter headquarters, right? So, if you, JC, and Demi go, you should be good. Demi, you still have your Greeter pass, right?"

"Oh sure I do," Demeter said, reaching into her bag, "and I'm sure I have a few spares in all of these wallets I've collected..."

"Demi!" Cat cried, "so much for not getting into trouble!"

Demeter shrugged.

"Where do I go?" Evi asked, looking at Cat hopefully.

"You come with us. I'm sure your good skills will come in handy in the long run, right June?"

"Right." June glanced around; there were no members to be seen as far as her eyesight reached. "I wonder where everyone is," she said, "and I wonder just how Bolt was able to get that information."

"We'll find that out," Cat said, finally rising from the bench. "And we'll find out a lot more stuff, too. For now, I think it's about time to make a news report, even if we don't mention Snoink or any other sinister happenings. We don't need the members thinking that something happened to the news reporter."

"Right," June and Evi said simultaneously.

"So, we go to wherever-you-make-your-reports, then find the mods?" Evi asked.

June nodded in response.

"Not so fast guys, we need food, too. Who knows when the next time we'll have easy access to food will be."

All six of the girls nodded, and headed for The Tavern.

The Tavern was pretty empty. Even Nate wasn't there. The six girls just got food from the under-age part of the Tavern and wen their own ways. Rosey, Demi and JC headed to the Archives to find some of Snoink's old posts.

JC coughed. "It's so dusty down here! How many do we have to look through?"

Demeter shrugged. "Lots. Do you know how far back Snoink's posts go, Rosey?"

"Depends. If the plot device theory is correct, then not far. But if we want to look at all of Snoink's posts, we're going back four years."

"Four years?!" Both of them said in unison.

Rosey nodded. "Yep. She was one of the originals from TYWC."

JC looked puzzled. "TYWC?"

"The Young Writer's Club." Rosey and Demeter said at the same time.

"Oh. Still, what are we looking for?"

Rosey flipped through some old files. These must have been before the YWS interface change... "A clue as to where that plot device will be, I guess. Or where she might be headed after that."

"What about this?" Demeter held up a file. "It's her first novel. But there are only critiques, and a stray chapter."

"Let me see that." Rosey took the file. "Hmm, one of these is a whole critique. But I don't think I'll download it. That will take too long. And, it's sci-fi."

JC took the file in turn. "Doesn't that give us a clue, though? Like where her newest plot device will take her?"

Rosey sneezed. "I would say so. I found her latest novel. Lets get out of here before we choke."

The trio arrived at the portal.

"Grif, open that crate and pass the teleporters out. Each of us gets one. Dono, pass a probe through the portal and see what's on the other side," Areida said. Grif found the teleporters, they were surprisingly small, but would be invaluable for replenishing food and supplies wherever SPEW went.

"I'm getting the feed from the probe. Adelaide?" Dono asked.

"It looks clear to me. Conditions are earth like, it is raining. Analyzing the structure of the portal now. It seems fairly stable, I recommend we proceed through in a single file, if all three of us were to rush in, we would risk collapsing the portal," Adelaide said.

"What are our extraction options if the portal collapses?" Areida asked.

"We can link the teleporters together in order to teleport the entire group. For three people it should be fine, but these things tend to become more unstable the larger they get," Adelaide said.

"Right. Let Nate know we're going in. Dono, lead the way," Areida said. Dono disappeared through the portal. Grif entered the portal and found himself covered in light. The light disappeared and he found himself with Dono. Areida arrived moments later, emerging from a beam of light.

"Okay, let's find out what around," Dono said, launching a recon drone. It flew up high and fed video of the surrounding area.

"There is a town half a mile west of our position. Looks like we're in fantasy fiction," Grif muttered.

"We're on an island. About two miles wide, five miles long. That town has a harbor connected to it."

"Okay, lets get going," Areida said.

"I'm picking up an energy pulse from the portal. We need to-" was all that Adelaide said. The commandos were sent flying as the portal exploded outwards in a fountain of light.

The air was thick with dust, muddy with it. Dreamer wasn't allergic to it, but then, you didn't have to be. The older the post, the thicker the dust, until the files were coated in a hard layer of it that took time to scrub off. Her throat felt like it was coated with peanut butter, and her eyes were watering from her latest coughing fit.

The problem with coughing in that situation is, in order to cough, you must first inhale. Deeply. It was a seemingly endless loop that, by time it ended, convinced her it was time to get out of Snoink's posts. Unfortunately, after so many hours of digging, the way out had become unclear. The plan had been to start at the beginning, thousands of files back, and work forward from there.

Ugh. And she had thought the dust bad near the door. still, it had seemed like a good plan at the time. Start with the worst, save the best for last? And it would have show the development of events as they had occurred. Right at the beginning, everything that lead up to her disappearance, all in chronological order.

Which, in her opinion, was much better than alphabetical.

Someone sneezed. Her step skipped and halted as she listened. Snoink? Hiding in her old posts? Whoda thunk the ex-mod would be hiding in the past? After a quick moment of debate, she started off in the direction of the sneeze, only to freeze again.

"I would say so." someone (probably the sneezer) said, "I found her latest novel. Let's get out of here before we choke."

She knew that voice! And it wasn't Snoink. But it was someone she knew, talking to other people, who were going to get out. Which meant they had the way out. She started running again, dodging stray files documenting the P.E.M. that apparently hadn't effected Snoink's post count much at all. She caught herself just before she wished the Post Eating Monster had spent a bit more time here.

"HOLD UP!" she shouted when the group of people came into view. They all spun around to stare at her in surprise.

"Not Me?" Demeter asked incredulously, "What in the world are you doing down here?"

"Dying." she wheezed when she caught up, her hands on her knees as her lungs fought for air that wasn't there. "Got the way out?

3:21AM, Saturday March 28Th
SPEW Headquarter
Operation: Magical Mystery Tour

No one was inside SPEW headquarters. All the terminals were locked down making Reyus job all the more difficult. This truly was a hard days night.

Reyu walked up and down the office space of SPEW Headquarters, glancing at each computer in turn. There was Grifs personal PC, modded out to look like a Mech-Warrior. Kitty15 had a lovely work space, filled with tons of kittens and stuff. The most unique personal work space had to belong to Nate, thought Reyu to himself as he sat in the administrators chair.

"Comfy" Reyu spun around a couple times then tried to open the desk, which was locked. Reyu tapped it a couple times, gave a little wiggle and just like the Fonz it opened up.

"A banana... Duct tape... Loose change..." Reyu was mumbling to himself.

"Bah, nothing useful here." Reyu turned on Nates PC and waited. It blue screened and text appeared.

ATTENTION:
You are not allowed on this computer Reyu. I have a full database of fingerprints. Main SPEW alarms will sound in T-15 minutes.

It was almost time to panic. Fifteen minutes...

Reyu darted from the room, hopped over a few cubicles until he was at Grifs PC and back-doored it. Reyu started opening files randomly, wasting five minutes. Frustrated, Reyu pulled out a portable hard drive and began to download all files and folders and text documentation with the key words of 'Snoink' 'Secret' 'Meeting' 'The Beatles' and hit enter.

[Download 1% estimated time: 9 minutes.]

Reyu had to find Snoinks office and he only had nine minutes. It was easy to find. She had a corner office, after all. The door wasn't even locked. The room was a pink explosion with cuddly looking stuffed pigs everywhere. Her computer was even pink. Reyu approached the computer, noticed it was a Mac, and hesitated... Reyu had no idea how to work a Mac.

"Curse you Microsoft for being superior!" Said Reyu. There was no time to fiddle around. From within his coat pocket Reyu retrieved a small case with various sizes of screwdrivers and opened the Mac case and removed the hard drive. Once completed Reyu went back to Grifs desk.

[Download 88% estimated time: 2 minutes.]

"George Harrison! This is taking forever." Swore Reyu.

"Who's in there?" Came a startled reply.

Reyu hit the floor and rolled under the desk, grabbing the portable hard drive as he did. At last glance it was at 99% anyway. Reyu heard footsteps approaching and in the last seconds before the mysterious person approached; Reyu wheeled the chair under the desk, so it was harder to see him.

"Just Griffy-poo leaving his PC on again." Said a female voice. A few clicks and a tap and the computer was off and the footsteps with it. Just then the alarm went off. All Reyu heard was a distant squeal of alarm at the loud noise suddenly going off. Reyu didn't remember much after that besides running and leaping from a desk, out the window of the fifty story building and deploying his parachute to glide safely down to the street below.

Twenty four hours later: 3:21AM, Sunday March 29Th.
The Reyu Cave
Operation: Yellow Submarine

Reyu had finished analyzing the data on Grif and Snoinks HD. Reyu now knew everything except for the corrupted document, when he was forced to take the portable HD at 99%. That was not a major concern, Reyu had all the information he needed for operation Yellow Submarine. Everything.

They were about half way to the YWS hangar when the security alarm burst into life and both their bleepers went off simultaneously. They looked at each other, pulled them out and read the short message:

Intruder identified as Reyu

"Drat! That's the SPEW alarm system then," Heather moaned.

"Think we should check it out?" Jabber asked. Both girls thought about it but Heather shook her head and Jabber said: "You're right. If it's Reyu, he'll already be gone with or without whatever he wanted."

"This is bad," Heather said. "What if it's a plan from the inside?"

"You mean... one of our members could have taken Snoink?"

"That's exactly what I mean." They stood for a moment, thinking through this most awful of thoughts and then they carried on walking quickly. They reached the YWS hangar without further discussion and discovered that only one ship was missing.

"So they're still around YWS," Heather said. "That's a relief. Well, shall we go over this while we grab some food?"

"You read my mind," Jabber said with a grin. The two girls headed down to the tavern and found it vacated but there were signs of people having walked through recently. They grabbed some food and sat down at one of the tables, drinking none-alcoholic beverages. Heather had apple juice. Jabber had hot chocolate.

"If we were them, where would we look for Snoink without leaving YWS?" Heather wondered. Jabber frowned and looked about to answer when an audible click was heard and then the faint rattle of machinary in the background as Cat started one of her news sessions.

Jabber and Kitty15 listened to the broadcast.

"Can you hear..."

"Voices in the background?" Heather finished. "Yes, it sounds like June and Evi." They abandoned their meals and hurried out of the Tavern.

Jabber didn't realize how delicious her hot chocolate was 'til they left their meals behind. Compliments to the chef, thought Jabber. Maybe she could get one to go before they left the Tavern entirely.

Heather and Jabs followed the sound of running film into the back room of the Tavern. It was an office, not quote oval-shaped. Cat sat behind a desk directly in front of a camera. On the camera was a the smallest of labels, and Jabber had to get closer to the camera to read it.

Property of Post Your Pic

"Um... Can I help you?" Evi whispered, laughing. Jabber jumped and saw Evi standing behind the camera.

"Apologies: I didn't see you there," Jabber said, backing up.

"Only you wouldn't see the camera-woman." She waved to Heather, mouthing a hello, then returned to the camera.

"Wait, wait, wait," Cat said, stopping mid-sentence. She stood up and rushed over to Jabber and Heather. "Come on, you two! Tell the viewers what's been happening." She pulled them onto the set and into the two seats next to her desk. "Do you have any leads as to Snoink's whereabouts?"

"No, we don't," Heather said. "We're working on that."

"We can answer these questions?" Jabber Teh Mod N00b asked.

"Of course!" Heather leaned over to Jabber and added silently, "It's called 'dodging the question'." She winked.

"Ohhh!" Jabber said loudly. Cat looked at her, Jabber flushed, and the interview continued.

"What are the Mods doing about the situation?"

"Can I get some hot chocolate?" Jabber asked and grinned at Heather, giving a thumbs-up. Heather smiled and shook her head.

"You're dodging the question," Cat said, brow furrowed.

"No, I'm not! I was just asking for a drink."

"The Mods are dealing with the situation," Heather said. "We would hate to tell you exactly what and risk crushing your hopes. And can I have an apple juice, please?"

Cat rubbed her temples. "Commercial break!"

“You two are frustrating,” Cat said, rubbing her forehead. “Why are you two dodging the questions?”

“Why did you make us sit down here and try to answer them?” Kitty15. “You know we wouldn’t.”

“Because the people listening could hear ya’ll when you came into the room. The door is making a creaking noise that I told Jack about, but he still hasn’t fixed it.” Cat paused and wrote down, Remind Jack about the door again.

“So you weren’t really asking us about Snoink? Or what?” Jabber asked, confused.

“Of course I want to know more about Snoink, but I wasn’t planning on telling anyone in YWS City until ya’ll said I could. Since they heard the door open, I just saved all of our butt’s because they would be bugging us on why I didn’t ask ya’ll questions about Snoink. I knew you would dodge the questions, so all three of us would be good,” Cat tried to explain.

“Okay,” Kitty15 sighed as June and Evi nodded along with her. Jabber sat in confusion.

“Huh?”

“It’s all good,” Kitty whispered to her.

“Oh, okay. Good. Now can I go and get some chocolate milk?”

Cat sighed. “Sure, why not?”

“Yay!” Jabber stood up and rushed for the door.

“Wait a minute!” Jabber stopped and turned around to Kitty15.

“What are ya’ll three going to do?” Kitty15 asked, looking at June, Evi, and Cat.

“Uh...”

“Tell us,” Kitty15 looked and gave all of them her evil eye.

“Fine!” Evi broke down first, being the n00b. “Okay! We’ll tell you what you want!”

“Evi!” June and Cat gasped.

"But... but... she's a mod!" Evi protested. "We have to tell the mods... don't we?" June and Cat shifted uncomfortably as Jabber nodded encouragement. Evi hesitated.

"Oh, well if you really don't want to tell us, that's okay," Kitty15 said. She toned down her glare to a look of motherly disapointment.

"It is?" Jabber asked.

"Yes, we already know everything that's going on of course. I just wanted to see if we could trust these guys for the secret mission." Heather sighed dramatically. The three squirmed. Jabber caught on.

"These three? I thought we were getting greeters," she hissed loudly. Almost immediately there were looks of rage on the faces of June and Evi.

"The greeters?" June demanded.

"You already knew we were going after the mods to find Snoink?" Evi asked.

"Secret mission?" Cat added. Heather and Jabber grinned.

"Then again," Heather said to Jabber. "We might need a few secret agents to dig up information for us."

"We do, don't we?" Jabber said with a small smile (and by small, it's rather noticeable).

"The YWS Reporter is just what you need for information!" Cat put in. "You can't get any better than us three."

"And you might as well send us since we already know about Snoink," June said. "You wanted to keep it on the down-low, right?"

"These are all very true," Heather said, nodding. She exchanged a pleased look with Jabber. "Cool, Jabs and I are headed... no where, really."

"Should we check the YWS base for clues?" Jabber asked.

"Clues? What happened?" Cat asked eagerly.

"Ah, someone just broke into the YWS iComputer and took some non-confidential files from the non-important mainframe thingy by switching this doodad and typing in these stuffs... No biggie," Jabber said with a shrug.

"Oh, that doesn't sound like anything," Evi said. "It's not like YWS is going to blow up."

"But perhaps a white screen of death, dear," June warned. She was worried after hearing Jabber's spiel. "We should look into that."

"I'm not sure you folks are allowed to," Jabber said. She looked to Heather's shaking head to make sure she was correct. "Well, maybe you can. You can go through the fantastic security system. They just now installed it into their HQ. JMs, of course, were the guinea pigs."

"Fantastic? As in... fantastic?" Evi asked. Cat was frantically writing it all down in her notebook.

"Yup. As in uberly-epically-fantastically-cool fantastic."

"But I do think checking it out is a good idea, Jabs," Heather said. "Shall we split up again then?"

----------------------

[s][I have school. Sorry it's so puny. I'll beef it up later if it's not too late.][/s]

EDIT: Beefed up! ^_^

"Right. So, just to avoid any confusion and trouble, who's going where? Do we three (she motioned at Cat and Evi as she said this) go one way and you two go another?" June asked.

Cat tipped her head to the side as if to say 'It's obvious, isn't it?' However, the look on her face was quickly replaced with a look that suggested 'or is it?'

Cat picked up her pen again and started scribbling on her note pad.

"What are you writing now?" Evi asked, rolling her eyes. "A news report?"

"Mm," Cat shook her head and continued writing, "I'm keeping track of all the-- there we go! Done."

"Cat, you really don't have to keep track of anything other than critical news, dear. I mean, I don't think anyone will actually be needing to remember all of this, right?"

Evi nodded in agreement, probably because she wanted to hurry up and move onto to the action. Or whatever.

"Actually, I kind of do, June. This would make a good storyline, or in a few years, it would be in the archives; something that people who meet Snoink will be fascinated to read, if she comes back."

"Snoink will come back, though, right?" Evi asked, her voice sounding slightly shaky, "I mean, she said she will, right?"

"She hasn't actually said anything, you know?" Jabber said, "If she had said something, it would make this whole thing so much easier."

"But of course she'll come back," Cat said in a cheery voice. "Snoink loved YWS, as far as we're all concerned, so she will come back, definitely." Even as she spoke, Kitty 15, Jabber, and June could tell that she wasn't so sure herself.

"We need to get a move on," Heather said, obviously trying not to worry about Snoink herself. "Judging from everything else, I'm pretty sure that the mods will be moving quickly. We'll need to double our pace to reach the headquarters in time. Are we ready?"

The girls -- all four of them-- nodded in agreement and prepared to leave the room, forgetting entirely about making a news report to send out to the rest of YWS.

*reviving. You cannot let it die now. I bring the action*

"So, how’s instructing, you three?” Jabber asked as they walked.

“I’m not an instructor,” Cat grumbled. “I just hang out with too many of them.”

“Oh,” Jabber said. “Sorry.”

The five of them stopped infront of the infamous Mod Hall. Heather and Jabber looked uncomfortable as they looked at us three.

"I'm still not sure we can let them in," Jabber whispered to Heather. June and Evi looked curiously at the two, while Cat looked off and saw OverEasy. She looked stressed and worried as she paced.

"Hey Tiff!" She called out to her, startled OverEasy. Heather, June, Evi, and Jabber looked curiously at Cat as she walked over to where OverEasy was.

"Hey Cat." She still looked nervous, but tried to hide it with a fake smile. "What's up?"

"Are you okay?" Cat asked. "You look kinda nervous."

"It's Dono. He had to leave because-" She cut off, looking at Cat suspiciously.

Out of no where, Heather's phone started ringing. She looked at it, and answered.

"Heather, where are you?" Nate's voice came blaring out on speaker. "Something has gone terribly wrong! I can't get a signal or anything from Areida, or even Adelaide!"

Heather looked wide-eyed between the five girls, while OverEasy screamed.

"What about Dono!?!"

"Don't worry!" Heather yelled, and raced for the Mod Hall. Jabber, June, Evi, and Cat all went racing after her.

"Are you sure we can do this?" Evi asked, concerned as they neared the door.

"You are such a n00b! We have to do this!" Cat yelled as they entered the building.