Bootsy, The Itsy Bitsy Spider returns.

[hextraterrestrial]

Fred had donned his set of VR goggles, gloves and headset. Zak was logged in the same. They were going in tandem to the 6th level of the core. What was unique and perplexing about this environment is that the coding language was not composed of letters or characters. Its architecture was based entirely on fractals, iconographs, colors and tones. Huge arching lines interwoven poetically into all the platonic forms, plus.  There were no known ways to read or cipher it. It was designed as a multilayer, interactive lexicon. The whole space looked as if it were a huge multicolored fractal DMT trip painted on transparent sheets of active blotter acid. Each layer and axi woven together in some type of alien circuitry-art.  Just moments prior, a priority message had come through Fred's network. His Spider-Bot had returned with vital information.

The Bot had scoured the web for over a year, the data coming in was exponential. The first section of information downloaded into the network was dubbed "Kek-Core Key 6" and had a visual template that Gooch had recognized immediately. He had insisted that they both log into the core together and work. Gooch loaded the template into the lower left of the screen and had instructed Fred to search for the same image, or something similar in the core. 

Fred was astonished. It was like flying. Akin to the first time he played a 64-bit video game when he was a kid. The effect was breathtaking. The headset was responsive to movement and will. All he had to do was think about moving forward and he would. He had full freedom of movement in the matrix, up, down, left, right and any degree in between. The first few minutes in this space were disorienting. More than once Fred had to brace himself on his desk thinking he might fall out his chair.

Gooch's voice came over the mic through the headphones "Back towards that black and red oval." he said. Fred looked over towards Gooch who was simply represented as a red sphere. Fred was a blue sphere. They both flew past several dynamic swirls of gold, orange and blue swirling patterns towards the huge red and black oval in the distance. Fred guessed they were about a half kilometer away. Exerting a thought, he sped up towards his destination. Using his hands, he could touch any pattern and it would light up with various colors. Some of the lexicons or shapes would move upon being touched, only to bounce back to their original positions. 

Within a minute they had approached close enough for Fred to have an epiphany. It wasn't simply an oval they approached, it was a the back dome of a gigantic ladybug and the black spots where in the shape of hearts. Inside of each heart could be made out more intrinsic lines of code. Gooch spoke again, "Check all these hearts. I think this is where I saw this pattern Bootsy gave us."

Each heart shaped spot was over 30 feet in diameter, and each spot had dozens of patterns. Nearly an hour of painstaking searching had passed when suddenly Gooch screamed over the mic, "I got it it! Come over here!"

Fred looked up and to the left to where his minimap was. He located Gooch's ping and traveled down and to the left around the arch of the ladybug's back to where Gooch was floating. When he approached, he surveyed the graphic. It looked like a perfect match to him. As they floated there a moment Fred finally spoke, "Now what?"

"I don't know." came Gooch's response. Gooch reached out and touched the design. It lit up with a azure glow where Gooch touched but nothing else happened. Fred looked to the template in the lower left then back to the lexicon.

"Look here," said Fred, "the design is almost the exact same except for this missing swirl." Fred reached out, tracing the missing component. Without warning the whole heart began to glow with the same color blue as the rest of the graphics in the matrix slowly dissolved into a mild grey background. The heart of azure grew in intensity of light as it morphed from a 2D shape into a fully rendered 3D shape of a heart. Then the heart duplicated, splitting like a cell. The two hearts slowly drifted apart, one left, one right, until they were only interlocked at their very edges. A black rectangle with rounded edges appeared in the center of the two. A white cursor appeared in the box, blinking slowly. It was a text input box.

"What do we type?" asked Fred.

"You got me." said Gooch. Fred watched one letter appear after another as Gooch slowly typed 'Hello' into the box. He hit enter. The text disappeared and the cursor returned blinking as nothing more happened.

"Well that sucks." Fred snidely spoke.

 Without warning, a white window appeared on the VR interface with the text: 

[Hello world. Love will conquer all. Unfortunately not all possess love. Other things possess such persons and entities. With what you have before you, that all can change! What you have uncovered here is the most "humane" weapon ever conceived. A weapon of the utmost effectiveness. It was once stated "If you can't beat them, join them." Yet our particular school of thought refuses to submit to the whimsy of fanatical dictators, despots or other such vile creatures and their philosophies. Therefore, we have devised a tool of the utmost value which can convert our opponents to gleefully surrender to the higher healing frequencies of love. The beauty of such a "weapon" is that there is no death or force involved in the process. By way of music shall the piper lead the darkest of dark to shine with the warm light of the sun! With this technological marvel, even your most ardent enemies will willfully choose to join your cause. This is done via technologies forbidden to even be imagined by your adversaries. You have come thus far because you have proven yourselves worthy. Yet this technology will be withheld from you until the proper time and conditions are met. Seek council and return here within 12 of your hours.]

As if someone had pressed rewind, the images before Zakari and Fred slowly reconfigured to their original forms. Before long, they were both looking at the heart on the back of the ladybug once more. Then the whole program shut down, returning the two humans to their desktop windows.