Zeta peaks outside and is greeted by a black wall with squiggly grooves chiseled in like glyphs. Zeta notes the droplets zooming downwards seem to have a red hue.

"Creepy. It's like the sky's bleeding."

Kiwi's eyes scan the red water.

"Red four-oh-four. If it seeps into your skin, it'll kill your attention span."

Before Zeta asks, Petrock pulls out a dark blue poncho with a neon green trim. Kiwi refastens her boyfriend's "blade" on his back before helping him straighten his poncho. He takes her by the hand.

"Are you ready?"

"With you I'm ready for anything."

"And with you, I feel like I can do anything."

Petrock revs the engine to as a growl. ["Hurry up already!"]

Zeta chuckles. "No need to translate that! Let's go K.K! Hey Petrock! You're free to read the mind keys in my bag, just don't get so distracted you don't catch us on the way down, 'kay?"

Petrock waves them off. The two jump out of the barge and cling to the grooves. They look at each other and nod. They begin to climb. With controlled breathing they climb side-by-side. Placing their hands and feet in the ascending grooves and pulling themselves upward. After climbing for a while, Zeta spots from the corner of his eyewear that his partner is not parallel to him. He twists his head left and sees Kiwi shaking below, her star sticker constantly sparking to keep shocking her awake.

"What's wrong Kiwi? We can't give up now, we're almost to the cloud."

"Zeta. Talk to me. Talk to me. Tell me something. Anything!"

"Kiwi! You're gonna see the sun. I promise you. Just hold on a little more!"

The red rain continues to pour, but Kiwi stops shaking.

"When you were rapping earlier. How was the verse supposed to end?"

"What?"

"You know: 'Now we're heading to the tower, breaking in a dent. And when we're done with that, I'll get Kiwi...' What are you going to get me what Zeta?"

Realizing what he was about to say then, Zeta grips his groove harder than ever.

"Uh... Uh. I was gonna say... 'I'll get Kiwi a present.'"

Completely at ease, Kiwi grins from cheek to cheek and begins climbing again.

"Well, I hope that when you give me that present, it'll be something more fully 'ganic, no borg."

Kiwi looks into Zeta's eyes, now he begins shaking. He can't help but look away as his face turns redder than the crimson droplets beating down on them.

"What are we waiting for K.K?"

With renewed speed, the couple climb up further and further ascending into the clouds, obscuring their vision of each other. Not long after, with hitched breath, Zeta and Kiwi feel the shape of the surface change. It expands outward like a bubble. Zeta takes a long shallow breath and shakes his head to offset a sudden dizziness as he fights gravity.

"K.K! Don't...Don't let go, okay?! Keep your feet in the grooves. K.K?...K.K!?!"

Silence. Zeta then hears a pounding sound and realizes it's his heart.

"Kiwi?!"

"I found it! Zeta, move towards me."

Breathing a sigh of relief, Zeta systematically feels the glyph grooves and after a minute, moves to the left until he sees Kiwi. She looks intensely into a face sized hole in front of her, sticking out from a slight protrusion on the spherical structure.

"In there."

"Huh? What is?"

Kiwi climbs a little further and dislodges her foot from the groove and tries to slip it in the unusual hole.

"Kiwi, what are you-"

Zeta's eyes widen as Kiwi slips in and disappears. After waiting a beat, he dislodges and follows. Hearing the clink of his "blade", he adjusts his shoulders and moves in. Zeta discovers himself sliding forward. The cool rubbery innards of the burgundy tunnel stretch to accommodate his size. A yell gets stuck on the tip of Zeta's tongue as he moves faster and faster into darkness. Before Zeta can start to cry, a feint green light rises before him.


The slick sound of friction slows and fades away and before he knows it, he finds himself able to stand up and move his arms freely. He can tell from the rap his footsteps and the hardness of the surface that he is standing on a metal floor.

Aside from the green glow above him, Zeta sees nothing and hears only a soft hum and the echoing static of raindrops until a familiar voice cuts through the darkness.

"Zeta!"

It is Kiwi. He hurries to her and involuntarily kisses her. Zeta can feel from her warmth and softer clothing that she has removed her poncho. He feels her turn suddenly.

"Zeta, look!"

Zeta looks to his left and sees a square light and underneath it, a smaller grid of lights, slowly fading from red, to blue, to green. Zeta perks up at a realization.

"It's a laptop! That must be the command control where the rain 'gram went on the fritz. Time to shut it down!"

Zeta starts to walk towards the laptop. Kiwi gasps.

"Zeta, wait!"

Before Zeta can even register her words, he hears a tiny splash under his sneaker. He takes a closer look at the laptop and realizes water is leaking from its ports and screen, pooling underneath the solitary machine.

Then without further warning, the laptop rises with the water underneath it and bursts apart, startling Zeta.

"Gah!"


Zeta shields himself with his arms, but after realizing he feels no sting from the burst, he uncovers his sight. He cannot help but watch as the water shifts form, taking the shape of a man. The pieces of the laptop therein take the appearance of a disjointed skeleton with the wires as a nervous system. Zeta crouches into a fighting stance at the final piece of the transformation takes shape. This water being forms a face resembling a smiling theater mask made of a porcelain-like material.