Chip's Challenge Level Pack 1 storyline: Difference between revisions

The [[Chip's Challenge Level Pack 1|CCLP1]] storyline was written by [[The Architect]] and distributed through a [[CCX]] file. This article provides a copy of the storyline.

Awareness slowly returned, as a frantic girl's voice cried, "Chip! Where are you?!"

"No clue," he said, squinting blearily at the sterile tiles and plain gray walls surrounding him. "I was hoping you could tell me. Who are you, anyway?"

There was a startled pause; then she replied in hurt tones, "Are you all right, Chip? Don't you know me - Melinda, your friend and fellow Bit Buster?"

"Fortunately, the first ten levels were designed to help recruits do just that. In each of these levels, look for a hint. It will provide you with information on how to get past the challenges in that level and reach the exit square. But be careful! Some things in the clubhouse can be a little...unsafe. Just read the hints and you should be fine.

With a crackle of static the speaker shut off. Feeling very alone, Chip turned his attention to the room surrounding him. Two locked doors of differing colors led into the unknown, and there between them lay what must be the promised hint. Gathering his resolve, he went over to read it. His past lay frighteningly shrouded in mystery; but he sensed that answers waited in the Challenge before him. Could he be clever enough and strong enough to solve the puzzles both ahead and behind? There was only one way to find out....

Flushed with success, Chip strutted into the next level, only to find himself trapped in a claustrophobic corridor facing a green door. Just as he began hunting around for the key, the buzz of a hidden loudspeaker announced the return of the voice he had been longing to hear.

"You made it, Chip! Excellent!" Melinda cried. "I was a little worried; but you clearly have the instincts of a true Bit Buster! Did the tutorials help your memory recover at all?"

"We are," she explained, with pride. "We're the school computer club, a meeting place for some of the smartest people around! And you're one of us, since about a year ago, when you completed all the perilous puzzles in the old clubhouse."

"It'll come back," Melinda said bracingly. "But yes, you were amazing! Your overall score nearly equaled even mine! And," she added tenderly, "I don't know many people who could claim that."

Melinda's voice took on a note of regret. "Well, at our Midterm Meeting, the Bit Busters decided that our old clubhouse was just getting too run-down and decrepit for us to use. Everything was breaking down: teleporters were redirecting, a teeth monster lost itself in the labyrinth, and one clone machine went haywire and flooded an entire level with walkers! So we agreed that it was time to close the clubhouse for good and build a new one."

''Teeth monsters? Walkers?'' Chip wondered. ''Those sound kind of familiar. I wonder if I'll be encountering them in this Challenge?''

As he gratefully exited the the blob-infested ballroom, Chip felt a stirring in his memory. A faint recollection began to surface, of another, distant dance, and him, and - Melinda! ''Is that right?'' he thought incredulously. ''Did I really take a girl like her...to a dance?!'' The more of the memory returned, the more sure he became that it had indeed happened, and a glow of pride filled him.

"I remember now!" he shouted excitedly. "That was how I finally plucked up the courage to try the Bit Busters' initiation! I had spent weeks working up the nerve to ask Melinda to e-prom; but she said she'd only go with a member of the club. So then I decided I had to join, or die trying!" He laughed with joyful relief. "I'm starting to remember! Just wait till I tell Melinda!"

Opening the door to the next level, Chip was greeted with a cold blast of air and a warm welcome, from someone who was not Melinda.

"Greetings, Mr. McCallahan!" a rich, powerful male voice echoed through the large, icy chamber. "And congratulations on completing the first twenty levels of this Challenge. Now - perhaps - you're ready to attempt the levels that are actually hard."

"Melinda is busy with matters of far greater import than your test," was the smooth reply. "She selected me to replace her at the monitoring station. My name is Jude. Pleased to meet you." The urbane formality somehow felt as cold and empty as the room.

As Chip laced up his skates and headed onto the ice, his heart felt a frozen void begin to grow. ''I wish she were here. Here, watching over me.''

Chip approached the next level with dread. He had felt Jude's eyes on him too much in the past several levels. Where Melinda watched over him with concern, offering advice and encouragement, this man's scrutiny was cold, silent and calculating, and it was starting to get on Chip's nerves.

"Well...I didn't want to worry you, while you were dealing with both the Challenge, and your memory loss," she answered quietly. "But the fact is that things are not right with the Bit Busters. We've had security breaches; chips have been stolen; top-secret projects compromised; and - oh, Chip, all the evidence seems to indicate an inside job." Her voice caught at the end, and Chip could sense the pain that she was trying to hide. It was tearing her apart, the thought of betrayal by one of her own friends and fellow club members.

Chip staggered breathlessly off of the endless moving sidewalk, into the corridor leading to the next level. ''I'll do one more before I take a break'', he decided, waiting for the room to stop spinning. But when he had recovered sufficiently to try the door, he was puzzled to find it locked.

''What's going on here? Why can't I get in?'' he thought. Aloud he asked, "Melinda? Are you there?"

No reply. He felt a sinking feeling. "Jude?" he tried again. "Anybody? Is anyone listening?" The only response was silence, as thick and unyielding as the door that baffled him.

His fears were confirmed when the elevator finally slowed to a stop and the doors slid open. Whatever awaited him outside was no part of the clubhouse that he knew - not with all those flames everywhere! The heat was almost unbearable; the sulphurous stench even worse. Chip gagged on the thick fumes as he ducked quickly back into the elevator.

"My name is not important," the voice intoned, "for soon you will name me only 'Master'. But for now, you may address me as Maximus. Perhaps you are wondering why I have brought you here?"

"I have brought you here to be tested," the machine-voice overrode him. "Those who name themselves the Bit Busters are weak, pathetic. Their clubhouse is a challenge for children. All those who would become my servants must face a different, intenser fire. A refining fire that molds them to the image of conformity. And you, Chip McCallahan, have the honor of being chosen for this task."

"You wish to see Melinda again?" Maximus didn't seem interested in discussion. He thundered, "Then you must prove yourself. Melinda is nothing. It is I who controls the Bit Busters, and much, much more. I operate the clubhouse, and all its computers. I control the elevators and teleports. You must now complete my Challenge. Succeed, and all ways will be opened to you. Otherwise, they will remain shut. Forever." The booming voice died away in sinister, metallic laughter.

==#79 - [[Elevators]]==

"That's odd," Chip said to himself, groping his way out of the maze of secret passages. "A teeth monster that calls itself a 'frog', and tries to help me, instead of just chasing me? Wonder if I'll ever see anything that bizarre again!"

"Maybe I've made it out of Maximus's domain!" he cheered, jumping into the nearest car and hitting the blue "L". His spirits soared, along with the rest of him, as the car obediently shot upward.

==#81 - [[Colors for Extreme]]==

"Ha!" shouted Chip as he walked into the next level. "You thought flipping the walls and floor around would stump me, Maximus? This Challenge is a cakewalk! How about letting me go now?" He waited hopefully, but Maximus did not deign to answer. Resignedly Chip turned to examine the huge room he had entered.

"Is that...a rocket?!" he asked, hardly daring to believe his eyes. What was a rocket doing down here?! It didn't matter. The ship was set up for launch, pointing straight up the shaft that could take him out of Maximus's clutches, back to the surface, to home - and to Melinda! He had to find a way on board.

==#82 - [[Launch]]==

"I made it!" Chip cheered as he climbed through the hatch of the rocket's crew capsule. He sat down gingerly in the pilot's seat, examining the complex controls in front of him. "Now how do I fly this thing out of here?"

''I've got to get out of here!'' he thought desperately, throwing away the manual and pushing the large button that read "Auto-Launch System". He was rewarded with a bone-jarring rumble beneath him that intensified as the hatch slid shut and locked. A moment later, the room and Maximus's minions were shooting away at unbelievable speed.

==#89 - [[Chip Grove City]]==

Despite the tremendous fun of exploring new worlds and collecting exotic electronics, Chip was beginning to feel uneasy. It had taken him days just to learn how to take the ship off autopilot, and he didn't have a clue how to make it turn around and take him home. He constantly dreaded what might be happening back on Earth. That computerized creep that called himself Maximus had sounded very dangerous, and Melinda didn't have any idea that he was lurking beneath her clubhouse! Chip was the only one who could warn her. He didn't even want to consider the possibility that he might already be too late.

"Really?" Eddie sounded intrigued. "I'm afraid I don't know of any computers around here more super than myself.... But the area from which you launched the rocket is the ruins of an old Bit Busters lab, abandoned long ago. You'll have to ask Melinda what sort of experiments they did down there. Speaking of Melinda, perhaps we should be heading back now?"

==#90 - [[Bowling Alleys]]==

As Chip entered the busy lobby of the clubhouse, he stopped dead. Everything around him was so familiar. It pressed at his mind, triggering endless half-memories in a chaotic sea of flashbacks. There - the seat where he had waited to take the IQ test that determined whether he could attempt the club initiation. And there - the now-sealed doors that led to the old clubhouse, where he had proved himself worthy to become a Bit Buster. And there - the spot by some potted plants where Melinda, smiling, pink-cheeked and radiant in a silver gown, had met him for their first date at the e-prom. And there - Melinda herself, turning toward him with the same smile. That smile seemed to reach into his mind and flood it with light, driving out the last shadows of oblivion. He remembered.

Basking in the warmth of her presence, Chip nevertheless felt a chill as he described his adventures, from the mysteriously locked door, to the hijacked elevator, to the inferno claimed as the domain of the sinister Maximus. She listened intently, occasionally interrupting with thoughtful questions.

"I don't know," Melinda said quietly. "But I believe it must be the same person or persons that have been sabotaging us. In fact, many of the stolen chips and blueprints had to do with the design and construction of an AI."

"You must mean...the Mystical Chip of Epic Coolness." Melinda looked at him narrowly. "Where did you ever hear about that? It's one of the most closely guarded secrets of the entire club!"

Having left the city and successfully crossed the swamp and the diseased forest, Chip found himself before the main aboveground entrance to the Bit Busters' abandoned laboratory. But the portal itself was hidden within a large, sprawling industrial building. Even if he managed to get safely across the creature-infested courtyard, he would need to figure out a route through the twisting corridors inside.

"Hmm, wonder if I'll be able to find any hints along the way," he thought as he started dodging walkers.

The moment Chip stepped into the underground laboratory, the door clanged shut behind him. Even as he swung around to look, he heard the clicking of bolts sliding home, sealing him inside. He wasn't too alarmed, though; he noticed a card-reader slot beside the door, and had faith that Melinda's keycard would let him out. But, he decided, it might be wiser not to play that card too soon.

"Hello, Maximus," he addressed the air, turning back to look down the long, dimly lit passage.

"Impressive," Maximus noted coldly as Chip emerged into the next room. "Your deductive capabilities exceed my most optimistic estimates. You are solving my puzzles far too quickly; I fear you will interfere with the precise timing of certain plans."

With a jolt, Chip's surroundings seemed momentarily to blur as he stepped out of the time-suspension field. "Ha!" he shouted. "Finished already! It wasn't even that hard."

"You begin to irritate me," Maximus growled. "I have more important things to do than babysitting your pathetic attempts at puzzle-solving. Good luck finishing this next level! I'm flooding it with every creature in this facility. You can wait here for the grand culmination of my plan; or you can go be eaten. I'm off to take over the world!"

He opened the door cautiously. His gaze was immediately arrested by the row of teeth monsters waiting for him. Their enormous jaws were open, and they looked hungry - but they gave no sign of movement. It was working! Apparently the field generated by his wrist-device was strong enough to stop time completely, for everything caught inside it. Quickly he slipped into the level and began hunting for the exit, amid rows and rooms of eerily frozen creatures.

As Chip left the "impossible" level, the faint humming of the band on his wrist abruptly ceased. Now it felt merely like an ordinary, lifeless plastic wristband. He removed it, somewhat regretfully.

There was no sound from Maximus. Had he really gone to carry out his plan? If so, Chip didn't have much time. On the other hand, he did now have a perfect opportunity to sneak into the AI's command center and learn its plan.

Chip slowed and frowned as he rounded a corner. Here was something new: an huge doorway filled with an enormous, reinforced steel door. The thing had to weigh tons! And Chip couldn't even begin to count the number of complex locks and bolts that secured it in place.

"This must be either Fort Knox, or - Maximus's command center!" he figured. "Next step...getting inside!" That was obviously easier said than done. But as he examined the behemoth of a barrier, he suddenly noticed the card-reader fixed to the wall beside it. He knew just what to do.

"Melinda, you're awesome," he declared as he took out her keycard and slid it through the slot. With a beep, the card-reader's light switched from red to green. The bolts on the door all flew back with a crash, and the door itself grated ponderously open. He was in!

Next moment, he dodged as a couple of tanks rolled by. Fortunately, like most tanks, they could only see in front of themselves, and so failed to notice him. But they weren't the only creatures present. The vast room was alive with Maximus's minions. They scurried busily to and fro, in an organized fashion, apparently carrying out various command operations. It looked like he had found the right place.

But what sort of place was it? The odd shape of the room seemed familiar, and there were colorful markings all over the floor...with a start, Chip realized he was looking at a map. The entire room was a giant map of the state of California! Now that he knew what to look for, he could easily pick out the markings that represented Chip Grove City, over near Silicon Valley, and the Bit Busters Clubhouse, and the entrance to this facility.

He had found it. Chip now knew both Maximus's master plan, and the evil AI's connection to the saboteur among the Bit Busters.

They were after the Mystical Chip of Epic Coolness.

He had found it clearly marked on the giant map: the location of the secret vault, how to reach it, how to get inside - everything. Whoever was behind all this, they knew what they were doing. They had all the answers; they had an agent among the Bit Busters; they had Maximus's army and technology; and soon, they would have the MystChip.

''Not if I can help it!'' Chip promised. He had to get this information to Melinda as quickly as possible. First, however, he needed to find a way back to the surface.

Finally! Daylight! Chip scrambled eagerly out of the elevator, somewhat surprised to find its exterior disguised as a simple metal shed in the middle of a huge wheat field. The scene rang a bell in his memory, but there wasn't time to think about it. The buildings of Chip Grove City were faint in the distance, and he had to get to the cluhouse post haste.

A short while later, having managed to hitch a ride into town, Chip ran through the Bit Busters' lobby and burst into Melinda's office. "Melinda, I'm back!" he shouted. "And I found out what -" He stopped short as he realized that the person sitting behind the desk was not Melinda.

"Good day, Mr. McCallahan," Jude said pleasantly, allowing a sardonic smile to slide across his face. "May I be of assistance to you?" He was lounging back in Melinda's chair as though he owned it - tall, powerfully built, all smoothness from his expensive-looking suit to his slick, dark hair to his smugly complacent expression.

''San Franchipsco?'' According to the map in Maximus's command center, that was the city nearest the location of the MystChip vault! "I have to get there, fast!" he declared. "I have an urgent report I need to give her."

...only to be awakened some time later by the sound of hysterical screams. Jerking up from his seat and staring wildly around, he immediately saw the source - gelatinous green masses that oozed slowly but relentlessly down the aisles and over the seats, strangling passengers. Someone had let a bunch of blobs loose on the plane!

Chip and a few other brave passengers finally managed to herd the last of the blobs out through the plane's emergency doors. But while they were checking for any stragglers, they discovered that the nasty creatures had forced open the door to the cockpit and suffocated both pilots. "Does anyone know how to fly this thing?!" Chip shouted desperately.

"But I've got to get to San Franchipsco as soon as possible!" Chip groaned in frustration. "The fate of the world depends on it! I've got to see Melinda!" ''Melinda''...her name sparked something in his mind. Then suddenly he remembered. The parachute!

It did contain passengers, but not the paying kind. Chip had a horrible, sinking feeling as he recognized the creatures running around inside. "Those are Maximus's minions!" he exclaimed. "Maximus must be using this train to transport them to San Franchipsco. They've set out to steal the MystChip!"

Chip leaped off the runaway train just in time. As he tumbled down the railroad embankment, he glimpsed the locomotive failing to negotiate a sharp curve. The ear-shattering roar of the subsequent derailment and explosion followed him down the steep hillside and into the water-filled ditch that broke his fall.

"Whew, that was close," he exclaimed, shaking off muddy water and wiping his glasses. More explosions boomed down from above while he limped out of the ditch. ''At least I took out part of Maximus's army'', he thought. ''I suppose it's too much to hope that Maximus himself was on board.... But now how am I supposed to get to San Franchipsco?''

Then he noticed where he was. The ditch he had fallen into was actually a storm sewer, and just ahead of him it flowed into a ten-foot-high pipe burrowing through the hill. ''That must empty into San Franchipsco Bay'', he realized. ''It's a perfect shortcut!'' He felt a rush of nervousness at entering that impenetrable blackness, and facing whatever might lurk within it. But for Melinda's sake, he had no choice. Gritting his teeth, he groped his way into the sewers.

The suffocating darkness of the sewers gave way to a vista of sunlight and fresh air. The sparkling waters of San Franchipsco Bay spread out before Chip, and his heart lifted as he breathed deeply of the fresh salt air.

"Melinda!" he gasped, spinning to face her. "And just when I thought this harbor was the most gorgeous thing here!"

Chip hesitated, a coldness creeping into his heart as he remembered his conversations with Maximus. "I got in," he replied carefully. "And I found out some very important things. Melinda, Maximus is working with, maybe controlled by, the Bit Busters traitor. They're both after the Mystical Chip of Epic Coolness, and they know exactly where to find it."

"Oh, no," Melinda said. "I think I know what he meant. Oh, Chip, I should have told you sooner." She looked away, flushing. "There was someone I dated, a long time ago. You've met him. Jude."

"There's only one other person who knows it well enough to have used it this way," Melinda replied grimly, "and that's the one who helped me design it. I don't know why Jude would betray us - he understands the dangers of using the MystChip just as well as I do. But it all fits. Who was in a better position than him to hack our computers and steal our secrets? Who was in a better position to place those blobs on the plane he knew you would take? Chip, I have a bad feeling about all this. I have to get back to the clubhouse and find out what's going on." She hesitated, looking distraught. "But meanwhile, our enemies are speeding toward Isla Mystica. And it seems likely Maximus himself is leading them. What if they make it into the vault before I can send reinforcements? I don't know which way to go...!"

After navigating the large, complex harbor for a while, Chip finally found a ship that looked large enough to transport him to Isla Mystica. He hoped its crew would take him aboard. "Hello?" he shouted up at the figures moving around on deck. "May I speak with your captain?"

Chip hurried ashore at a sheltered cove, then turned to thank the captain. He saluted the crew with a raised fist and his very best "''Arrr!!''". They loved it, shouting and waving their cutlasses back at him.

As Chip moved warily into the forest, he noticed a strange sound that pervaded the air all around him - an oddly familiar, chomping sound. Then he saw a flash of movement behind a tangle of tree limbs. "Teeth!" he exclaimed. The carnivorous monsters were all around him! Fortunately, though they were trying their best to reach him, the dense forest hindered their movements. ''I'll just have to be careful not to clear the branches too close to them'', Chip told himself.

Chip slowed as he emerged from the jungle of Isla Mystica. The building ahead of him was far larger and more important-looking than any of the trap-filled ruins he had encountered in the forest. Was this it? The secret vault of the Mystical Chip of Epic Coolness? And if so, where were Maximus and his minions? Chip had seen no sign them during his journey from the coast.

"Welcome back, Chip," grated the unmistakable voice of Maximus. "I knew you would come for me." The room was alive with his minions - tanks, rolling back and forth in every direction. Their constant motion was dizzying to look at, and the floor was rumbling with their relentless precision.

"The strategy that your primitive mind has clearly failed to observe, even after I integrated you into my plan," Maximus stated with cold sarcasm. "It was I who deployed the amnesia gas that wiped away your incriminating memories. I was there at the exit when I filled your loudspeaker with static and took away Melinda's interference, further weakening you. I locked the door in the clubhouse, installed my buttons in the elevators, and tricked you into entering my domain. I allowed you to launch that rocket; and my programming of the autopilot kept you away long enough to distract Melinda, so that one of my servants could steal from her the protocol for unlocking the MystChip.

"Now it is within my grasp. I will use it to become even greater - attaining true self-awareness. After I have destroyed you, and the Bit Busters, and anyone else who would stand in my way."

"Wait, what are talking about?" Chip demanded. "You're just a computer! You're not really alive. How do you attain self-awareness?"

"Gotcha!" Chip exclaimed triumphantly, shoving the block into place. "I know one of Melinda's blocks when I see it. Not even a tank can get through! It's over, Maximus. You can't steal the Mystical Chip of Epic Coolness while stuck in this corner!"

"Yeah, who else, Jude?" Chip asked, unimpressed. "Forget about him. Melinda's dealing with him right now."

"Work it out. She made me; she admitted to it herself. She used to work closely with Jude, and continues to trust him in important tasks for your ridiculous little club. She helped create the MystChip, and knows as much of its secrets as anyone. Why did she tell you nothing about it when she sent you to protect it? She values intelligence and knowledge, which may be had from the MystChip. Put it together. Use what limited intelligence you possess. Your precious, faithful, virtuous Melinda is trying to take the MystChip for her own."

Memory turned back on itself, and flashes arose from his past; not in a rush, as when he had seen her after returning from the stars, but in distinct, vivid images, one after another. Melinda, ''passing him in the hallways at school, always with a friendly demeanor, always willing to help those struggling with precalculus or organic chemistry''. Melinda, ''refusing his awkward, terrified invitation to the e-prom; but then extending him her own invitation, to join her elite computer club''. Melinda, ''giving him encouraging smiles and helpful hints as he faced the club's initiation Challenge''. Melinda, ''proudly presenting him with the trophy that meant he was now one of the Bit Busters''. Melinda, ''helping him solve ever more complex puzzles and increase his overall score to rival even hers''. Melinda, ''the voice he had trusted as it guided him through the beginning of his current journey and the darkness of his amnesia''. Melinda, ''so worried for him when he disappeared into space, so joyfully relieved to see him return''. Melinda, ''preparing him perfectly for his subsequent adventures''. Melinda, ''love and trust in her embrace, as she told him that he was a better friend than anyone else she knew''.

It was odd. Maximus's minions were well ahead of him, but Chip could still feel the ground quivering slightly, like it had done inside Maximus's bunker. He hoped the island wasn't prone to earthquakes. He also noticed that it seemed to be getting warmer.

Coming out of the trees, suddenly he could see the whole central part of the island below him. From the conical mountain behind him the ground sloped down into a deep blue lagoon, ringed by sandbars and reefs. On the other side, the island rose up again, though not as high. That half of the island appeared to be covered with jungle as well. But at the very top of the hill, standing out among the trees, a large stone structure was clearly visible. And so were the rows of tanks parked around it.

Chip had finally made it around the lagoon. But as he had progressed, the air had grown hotter and steamier, and clouds of vapor accompanied him up the slope to the far side of Isla Mystica. The ground was trembling worse than ever, and the once-placid waters at the center of the lagoon were beginning to roil like an enormous stockpot. Chip had a very bad feeling about the tension building around him. He paused on a ridge to look back.

At that moment, the center of the lagoon exploded. The very ocean geysered upward a hundred feet in a massive column of water and fire. The throbbing rumble crescendoed into a mighty roar beyond anything Chip had ever heard or imagined. Louder than twenty thunderstorms combined as one, the sheer force of it blew Chip right off his perch and, like some giant's hand, hurled him with stunning force into the valley behind him.

The lagoon was gone. Boiled completely away, by the monster that had lurked beneath. Chip found himself staring down a two-hundred-foot volcanic shaft into a seething lake of lava. Looking around, he saw devastation everywhere. Almost the entire island lay in smoking ruins. The other side, where he had fought Maximus, was a mass of tumbled, burning trees. He wondered, shakily, if Maximus could have escaped, thinking that he wouldn't be sorry if the sinister tank was gone for good.

Only one part of the island remained relatively unscathed - the hill ahead of him, crowned by the ancient, temple-like structure that guarded the Mystical Chip of Epic Coolness. But the area between had borne the full brunt of the eruption. It was tangled maze of broken water-channels, burning rivers of lava and walls of smoking rubble. And to reach his goal, he had to get through it somehow.

He had made it! The smoking maw of the newly-risen volcano lay safely behind Chip. He stood, at long last, upon the threshold of the vault containing the Mystical Chip of Epic Coolness. He had passed Maximus's minions buried and broken under flattened trees, and there was now nothing left to stop him. Nothing, that is, except whatever traps the Bit Busters had placed to guard the vault.

He was almost there! He could do this, for Melinda! Pushing away his exhaustion, and the pain of his bruises, he entered the ancient temple.

Running for his life, Chip burst from the door of the ancient temple and dove to one side as the giant boulder rolled over a cliff into the ocean. He stood, panting, and brushed the dirt from his glasses.

Then he reached into his pack and slowly, reverently withdrew a flat gray object, two inches wide by four inches long, with a few prongs sticking out of one end. This was it. The legendary object that lay at the root of all the recent turmoil and grief. The Mystical Chip of Epic Coolness.

It looked so ordinary. But as Chip held it, he began to perceive a strange stirring of warmth from within it. A faint trembling touched his fingers - a vibration, not mechanical, but soft and organic. It was like...the chip was trying to communicate with him! And then, suddenly, Chip realized the secret that Melinda had worked so hard to protect. He knew that what he held was no ordinary electronic device.

That was what Maximus had meant, when he spoke of gaining self-awareness. All that he had possessed was near-human intellect. He had had no feelings, no empathy, no context in which to understand a true friendship such as that which Chip shared with Melinda. The MystChip could change that, once integrated with his AI. It could even, perhaps, give him the ability to love.

"Sure am," the ship's computer responded cheerfully. "For a while there, after the eruption, I was afraid I might become your cleanup crew. Boy, am I glad to see you still in one piece! Did you manage to save whatever it was Melinda wanted?"

He wondered what he would find when he arrived at the clubhouse. Had Melinda enjoyed a more complete victory in unearthing Jude's treachery? Would she be disappointed to learn of the MystChip's fate? He hoped she would understand that he had done the best he could. His thoughts grew jumbled as exhaustion took hold, and he slipped into an uneasy sleep. In his dreams, he stood in a courtyard, and walkers danced around him. They whispered insidiously, "Don't be afraid, Chip. We'll answer all of your questions. Just find our secret...discover the lost hint...."

It had been quite an adventure - pursuing Maximus all the way to Isla Mystica, trying to stop him from reaching the Mystical Chip of Epic Coolness, and ultimately seeing both Maximus and the MystChip destroyed in the volcanic eruption that had shattered the island. When Chip disembarked from the ''S.S. Deus Ex Machina'' outside of Chip Grove City, he hoped to be able to relax in the clubhouse while filling Melinda in about all that had happened. He was unpleasantly surprised to see the large, agitated crowd of Bit Busters surrounding the building, seemingly afraid to enter.

"It's Jude! He's betrayed us!" several voices exclaimed.

Chip moved warily. He was almost to the top level of the clubhouse, and so far he hadn't seen any sign of life. Jude and Melinda had to be up here somewhere!

A flash of movement registered, coming from the other end of the long room. An instant later, Chip felt the wind of a bullet that zipped past his head and splashed into the water behind him. Hastily he ducked into a handy alcove.

It seemed that Jude had laid a trap for whoever tried to come after him. He had placed a teeth monster patrolling the far end of the room, armed with a sniper rifle! Getting past it would be no cakewalk, but Chip had to try. He had to save Melinda.

Chip burst into the very last level of the clubhouse, and there they were. Jude stood tall and strong on a ledge near the ceiling, next to a door marked "Helipad", glaring venomously down on Chip. Melinda, handcuffed, stood behind him, looking small and helpless in her pink dress. But her face reflected determination and pride as she saw him. "Chip!" her voice rang out. "I knew you would come for me!"

"Shut up!" Jude told her brutally. He had completely abandoned his smoothly polished manner. Furious hatred painted his face. "You may have stopped my incompetent robot, Chip, but you can't stop me!" he hissed. "Melinda is mine, and so too will be her knowledge of the MystChip! Once I have used it to interface my brain with the AI chip, my intellect will become greater than any man's! I deserve her, Chip - not you! You've solved a few trivial puzzles for her, but I've been her partner for years, assisting in her most important research! Who do you think you are, to compare with me?!"

"Hey, Jude!" Chip yelled, emerging onto the windswept roof of the Bit Busters Clubhouse. The lights of Chip Grove City twinkled in the coming twilight beyond the helipad, where Jude waited tensely with the captive Melinda. Chip had solved the last level in record time, and Jude's helicopter had failed so far to arrive.

An idea came to him. "How about a trade, Jude?" he said. "You have Melinda - but I also have something that you want. The MystChip."

"I did! But then I lost it again," he told her apologetically. "Maximus accidentally destroyed it, and himself with it."

Chip couldn't speak, could only nod, embarrassed. They looked outward again as the last rays of the sun disappeared and the stars began to dance across the darkening sky. After all they had been through, it was good just to stand there, feeling the comfort of each other's presence. Chip found himself wondering what the future would bring. He hoped that he and Melinda would have many exciting years, even a lifetime, together, solving the puzzles that were their joy. He hoped he could always be there for her. Even when this latest adventure of theirs had faded into the past, and become no more than a fleeting memory.