Chapter 8: Keanu

"Who’s he?" Mer pointed at the guy on one of the hundreds of TV screens surrounding them.

The room was highly weird. All white and every wall was filled with hundreds of plasma TV screens. It must have cost a fortune: it was something only Warner Bros could have thought up.

A black swivel chair spun around: in it sat a wizened old man, smoking a pipe.

"I am the Architect," he said. "I work with Bill Gates and destroy cities daily."

There was only way for Mer to respond to that. "You try messing with our city," she said threateningly, "and we’ll have you drowned in computer viruses before you can say Microsoft!"

"Yeah," Kitty chimed in. "Anyone tries messing with Writer’s Realm, or Mer’s Moat... they will die!" To add weight to the meaning of her words, she held a can of mace in her hands.

"I remove anomalies," the Architect continued. "You writers are anomalies and undermine the system me and the Oracle devised."

"Shut up," JD said boredly. "You’re trespassing on private property."

"What?" The Architect stared at JD. "No I’m not! I found this place. Finders keepers, losers weepers!"

JD reached into his pocket and brandished the property deeds for this room. It declared clearly that this secret lab belonged to Jdiehljr.

"So git!" JD finished.

"But..." the Architect blustered, "don’t I even get to keep the TV screens? Or the swivel chair?" his voice turned more pleading. "Even the stash of cookies? Or the clones?"

"They’re my clones, my cookies," JD said sternly, "my TV screens, my cameras and my chair. Git!"

Looking infirm, the Architect got up shakily, eyes brimming with tears. At the door, he froze. "Not even the first aid kit?"

"I’ve had enough of this," Kitty said disgustedly and whipped out her mobile phone, speed dialled.

"Hi, Keanu," she greeted brightly. "The Architect’s off his medication again, can you come and get him back to the nursing home?"

Keanu hung up.

Seconds later, the door opened and the hunk came in, along with Legolas from Lord of the Rings. He gave everyone a grin and pushed back his white-blond hair, took an arrow from his quiver.

"Oh, it’s only Granddad," Keanu told him impatiently, pushing Legolas’s hand down. "He’ll be fine once he’s had some medicine."

He gave Kitty a kiss on the cheek and shook Graehstone’s hand. Legolas kissed Mer, shook Phantom and JD’s hand and they both left with Granddad Architect, who cried at leaving the TV screens.

"JD," Mer turned sternly to him. "Have you registered this secret lab? Why is it linked to Mac’s secret places?"

JD shrugged. "I’ll register it by the end of this month, Mer." His eyes didn’t meet hers, though. There was a reason that the sign over the door read "JD’s Top Secret Lab."

Phantom wandered through the lab, "hey, have you got the football channels?"

"I’ve got every TV channel," JD said grandly, then clapped his hand to his mouth, realising that from now on people would be breaking in to watch TV. I’ll have to transport the secret lab somewhere else...

"Let’s go and get dinner," JD suggested elusively.

Mer shook her head, determined. "No, what else have you got in this secret lab?"

JD’s eyes slid towards the door at the other side of the room. It had ‘Clone Labs’ painted on it. Sidling to a wall, he pressed a button and a hologram slid over the wall, hiding the door with a Picasso painting.

 Chapter 9