Marah was waiting impatiently for her sister, alternating between pacing and looking round. When she saw Kapri running up a path, she hurried to meet her. ‘What took you so long?” she wanted to know.

“Wouldn’t you know this was the day Shane wanted to tell me something good after class?” Kapri said. “By the way, we need to look into clogging.”

“Huh?”

“Long story,” Kapri said. “We have to focus. For CyberCousin. Are you prepared for phase one of Operation: Cat-Can-Do?”

“Yes!” Marah agreed.

“So, which of us does Grandfather like best?”

Marah raised her hand. “Me! Totally me.”

Kapri nodded. “Okay. I’ll take CyberCousin. You know what to do?”

“I so know what to do,” Marah smiled. “Do we meet back here?”

Kapri nodded as she put her open hand out. Marah put one of her own on top of it. Both shouted, “Break!” and took off down separate paths, determined looks on their faces.

Dustin opened his eyes and tried to sit up. But he was pinned firm. As everything came flooding back to him, he realized he was lying on top of Hunter. Who wasn’t moving. “Hunter!” He waited a breath. “Hunter!” Dustin waited again until he felt the body he was wrapped tight against breathe underneath him.

His first concern out of the way, he began trying to move the net. No go there. He had even less wiggle room than before.

“Great,” he mumbled. “What am I gonna do?” He laid his head back down against Hunter’s chest. And then snapped his fingers and started working an arm up to his neck.

Seconds later, he triumphantly pulled his communicator from under his shirt and brought it up to his mouth. That’s when the smell hit him. Like hot copper mixed with burnt rubber. Dustin eyed the device and saw that it was a toasty brown-black. It had been fried when he took Motodrone’s bolt to his chest.

“Hunter!” he tried again. When he got no response, he remembered Hunter patting his left jacket pocket when Cam had asked about the communicators. Dustin started working his arm beneath him and patted down Hunter’s torso in search for the pocket.

He tried for several minutes but couldn’t find the pocket. Hunter was in some position that made accessing it impossible.

“Forget wine, man. My kingdom for one of Cam’s communicators,” Dustin groaned. “So now how do I get some help?”

Shane saw Cam and Tori walking toward Ninja Ops not far ahead. He jogged up. “Hey, guys.”

Tori looked at Shane and he could tell something was bothering her. “Hunter found the thing that caused Blake’s crash. Cam’s got it in Ninja Ops.”

Shane smiled. “We’ve got the culprit?”

Cam shook his head. “No, we don’t. What Hunter caught was a small robot. We don’t have who’s controlling it.”

“But CyberCam just called and wanted to see us,” Tori added quickly.

“I love showing up just in time for the answers,” Shane said. “Where’s Dustin?”

“He went with Hunter to the track,” Cam said. Shane could tell Cam wasn’t happy about that fact. “Hunter was positive someone would try to get Blake again. Dustin volunteered to go with him.”

“That makes me feel better,” Tori said. “If anyone will keep Blake safe, it’s Hunter.”

“And Dustin can watch both their backs,” Shane said. “They’ll be able to handle this crazy stalker of Blake’s.”

Their communicators went off just then. As Cam answered, they all heard CyberCam chirp, “Forget coming in here. I’ve finally pinpointed the freaky seismic readings I was gonna show you. They’re by our lake. Really faint.”

“We’ll check it out,” Cam said. “We’re almost there.”

Marah found Hiro easily. He had adopted a beautiful area of mostly flat grassland for his classes. To enter the glade, she had to duck under branches of the nice, big trees in every direction. A small stream ran through the north side that didn’t feed into the lake. Now that Marah thought about it, she didn’t know where the stream came from or ran to. Dustin had told her about Hiro asking him to bring up some large rocks and locate them in specific locations. In fact, the Earth Sensei was thinking about turning it into a class sometime this week. Just thinking about Dustin put a smile on Marah’s face as she headed for Hiro’s main “chamber”.

Several tents had been set up for Hiro to use as he saw fit. Marah had heard talk of permanent buildings but that would be a ways off. He seemed pretty happy with the arrangements so far.

Hiro stepped out of the biggest tent just as she was walking up to it. He regarded her as she smiled, “Hi, Grandfather.”

He held up a hand and made a disapproving sound. Marah knew what was coming. She decided to speak first before she lost her nerve and jumped in quick enough so it wouldn’t be interrupting. At least, not by the strictest meaning of the word. “Just hear me out?”

When he nodded, she continued. “My sister and I mean no disrespect, I promise. It’s just that we can’t call you Uncle. Because you’re not him. And we don’t want you linked to him in any way, because you’re nothing like him. And we don’t want to call you something that means horrible to us. That’s why Cam’s dad is just Sensei. See?” She took a breath and looked at him with big, earnest eyes. “If you can come up with something for us to call you without that word in it, we will, I promise.”

She could see he was considering, so she bravely kept going. “Though Kapri and I really like Grandfather,” Marah said in a quiet voice as she looked down. She put both her hands in front of her, one in front of the other at arm’s length, and looked for all the world like a school girl waiting for her punishment.

Hiro was shocked by how desperate and important this seemed to the young woman before him. Not that it played across his face. She was obviously uncomfortable and he didn’t want to add to the feeling. He made a mental note to ask Cam about this Uncle that had done something horrible and also made a decision he hoped he wouldn’t regret. “I will allow myself to be your honorary grandfather.”

Marah’s face lit up. “Really?”

“BUT,” he held up a finger, “I must insist it is Grandfather, and not Grandpa… and never Gramps!”

Thrilled, Marah clapped. “Thank you, Grandfather!”

“I trust you will inform your sister of our agreement,” Hiro said. After Marah nodded, he quickly continued. “Now that that is settled, what are you here to see me about?”

Hiro didn’t think it was possible, but Marah’s smile got bigger. “What if I told you that somebody else wanted to join your class?”

****

Shane, Tori and Cam saw something moving on the beach. They slowly approached and tried to get a better look at it. Cam moved ahead of the other two, his eyes narrowed. It was moving in an almost circular manner but every time he thought it had a pattern it moved up or down or diagonally.

He finally stopped, dumbfounded. Shane and Tori came up behind him, one to either side. Silently, all three watched for several seconds.

“We have got to check this out,” Tori smiled. “Go ahead, Cam. Touch the face.”

Cam fixed Tori

“We’ve got your back,” Shane said. “I know you’ve gotta be as curious as I am.”

“All right, all right. I’ll touch the face.”

“Hi, CyberCousin!” Kapri said as she walked into Ninja Ops.

“Hey, hey, Kapri-Sun,” CyberCam greeted.

She giggled. “Can we talk for a sec?”

“I’ve got a full dance card,” he said. “I’m trying to ring Hunter, Dustin and Blake while monitoring Shane, Tori and Bro on a little scavenger hunt. And I gotta pry some secrets outta little robo-creep here.” He motioned to the robot and the metal net Hunter had brought in earlier that morning.

“Oh, it’ll just take a second,” Kapri promised, figuring her CyberCousin could do everything he just said and listen, too. After all, she was on a schedule. “It’s about Grandfather.”

That got the desired result. “What’s up?”

“Well, I think he’s a little sad here.” She started absently messing with the metal net.

“I thought the G-Dad was happy as a clam.”

“Yeah, I know. But I overheard him earlier. I think he’s sad. I’d hate it if he left, you know? I mean, I think our whole family would just hate to lose him when we haven’t gotten to know him. Heck, CyberCousin, you haven’t gotten to know him at all.”

“Well, I’ve been busy out the yin-yang.”

“I didn’t mean it that way. I mean, here he is, somebody who accepts you 100% as alive and stuff, and you’ve barely spoken to him.” She started twisting the supple net around her fingers.

“Hold the phone,” CyberCam looked at her. “He thinks I’m real?”

Kapri nodded and tightened her grip on the net. “Oh, yeah. He was asking Marah and me some questions. About you. And somewhere during all that, he asked why you were called CyberCam. One thing lead to another and he went on and on about ‘life being perception’ and since ‘you had perception, you were alive.’ Cool, huh?”

CyberCam smiled a little. “Way cool.” He looked back up at Kapri. “You think he might leave?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Don’t people leave when they get unhappy enough?”

“What’s got him so bummed?”

She faced him full on, excitement in her voice. “Well, it turns out that he really hoped for at least three samurai students. You know, to make him feel useful or successful or something. And he’s only got two. Cousin and that really cute, really smart girl.”

CyberCam considered this new information as he slowly turned back to the console. “So, why’re you bringing this all up to me?”

“Well, you’ve got tons of time ‘cause you can multi-task so much better than anybody else,” Kapri started ticking the reasons off on one hand, a finger at a time. “You’re one of a handful of people that’ll care if Grandfather leaves. You’ve been looking for hobbies. You need to get out of Ninja Ops more and this is a legitimate reason. You like to spar and never get to. You could spar with Cam or even spar with that really cute, really smart girl!”

He didn’t look at her, but his shoulders did slump a little. “Cuz, you can’t be saying what I think you’re saying. ‘Cause that’s whack! I can’t just wander around campus. What if somebody sees me and Cam together? Remember, you’re part of a very elite organization known as the ‘We Actually Know CyberCam Exists’ club, and W.A.K.C.E isn’t on a membership drive.”

“And, hey, the other two samurai students are also card-carrying members of W.A.K.C.E. So it’s almost meant to be!” Kapri squealed.

CyberCam looked at her. “Earth to Kapri. Do I need to check your hearing? I can’t be seen by any other students!”

She smiled as she let the net clatter to the console. “I guess it’s a good thing that our ninja uniforms come complete with masks, huh?”

A slow smile spread across CyberCam’s face.

Blake couldn’t shake the bad feeling he’d had all morning. As he watched Jesse make a few last minute tweaks to his bike, he scanned the horizon for about the millionth time.

“You seem edgy,” Jesse said over his shoulder.

“I’ve just got a bad feeling,” Blake said.

Jesse stood up and regarded him. “A bad feeling about something different or are we talking about the fear again?” He began helping Blake push his now Jesse-approved bike toward the line. The first race of the day would start in just a few.

The fear. It had gotten better, but Jesse knew he still wasn’t all the way “back” yet. It was weird to be scared of something that’d long been a part of your life, was your career and was something you loved. But Blake was, because his mind would flash back to the crash.

Jesse had told him it was normal. After car crashes, lots of people have serious problems riding in a car or seeing a car come at them. Jesse had even used the old “Get back up on the horse” cliché during one of their conversations. The first race back had been bad, but he’d persevered and even won. The next race was a little easier with the same favorable results. The upward trend continued with number three.

So, even though there was just a small touch of fear at the moment, Blake really felt it had to be something else. He was just going to go out there, get the race over with and maybe try to meditate on this strange feeling.

He pulled his helmet on and gave Jesse a thumbs up. He took a quick breath and reigned in the sensation that tried to poke up inside him. Soon, this fear would be completely gone and that would be great. He really hated being afraid.