**Chapter 5: Data and Chaos
The "patrol" was not what Juno had imagined. She'd pictured a tense, quiet walk through some spooky, corrupted forest, maybe with some cool, synchronized fighting moves. Instead, Tobin had led her to a high, crystalline platform overlooking a vast, shimmering data-spire that pulsed with the collective knowledge of the Dream Continent.
"This is patrol?" Juno asked, hands on her hips. "We're babysitting a glowing library?"
Tobin didn't look up from the holographic interface hovering over his forearm. His fingers flew across it, manipulating streams of light that looked like pure math. "This 'glowing library' is the Nexus Aureum. A primary target for Corruption incursion. If it falls, several billion dreamers lose access to foundational memories and skills. You'd forget how to tie your shoes."
Juno's eyes went wide. "I would not! I have… muscle memory!"
"Muscle memory is a data pattern stored in the brain, which is directly influenced by the state of this Nexus. So, yes. You would." He finally glanced at her, his expression one of clinical curiosity. "Your emotional volatility is fascinating. It must be incredibly inefficient."
"My sparkling personality is what keeps me from turning into a robot like you!" she shot back, though she was secretly a little thrilled he was paying attention to her.
"Not a robot. Optimized." He returned to his work. "Now, be quiet. I'm running a level-4 diagnostic on the emotional resonance filters. A spike in ambient anxiety could indicate a subtle Corruption probe."
Juno sighed dramatically and leaned against the railing. For about thirty seconds. Then, she started humming. It was an off-key, annoyingly catchy pop song from their world.
Tobin's eye twitched. "Please cease the auditory disruption. You are creating interference in the lower astral frequencies."
"You mean my singing is magic?" Juno perked up, then started humming louder, putting her whole heart into it.
"It's noise," Tobin corrected, his fingers stuttering for a fraction of a second. A line of code on his display flickered red before he corrected it. "Noise that is currently degrading my sensor accuracy by 3.7 percent."
"So it is magic!" Juno grinned, and decided to test a theory. She focused on the happiest memory she could think of—the time she'd won a giant stuffed unicorn at a fair and her mom had screamed louder than she had. She poured that feeling into her hum, letting it vibrate in her chest.
To her astonishment, the crystals of the data-spire near them began to pulse in time with her tune, glowing a soft, warm pink.
Tobin froze. He stared at his readouts, then at the pink crystals, then at Juno. "That's… statistically improbable. You are directly interfacing with the Nexus's emotional core using a non-standard, non-codified methodology."
"You're welcome," Juno said, flipping her hair. "I just gave your boring library a personality."
Before Tobin could formulate a response, his console blared a sharp, urgent alarm. A section of his holographic map, representing a lower data archive, flashed a corrosive black and green.
"Probe detected," Tobin snapped, all irritation gone, replaced by cold efficiency. "It's small. A scout. But it's trying to inject a data-worm. This way." He was already moving, not running, but gliding with a strange, liquid speed.
Juno scrambled after him, her heart suddenly pounding. They descended a spiral ramp into a cavernous chamber filled with floating, glowing orbs of light—the archives. In the center of the room, a single, shadowy tendril, like a worm made of static and oil, was burrowing into one of the orbs, which was flickering erratically.
"It's trying to eat history!" Juno yelled.
"A crude but accurate assessment," Tobin said, his hands already up. Crimson, code-like energy swirled around them. "I will attempt to quarantine and delete it. Stand back."
He fired a beam of his destructive code at the tendril. The energy struck it, and the tendril shrieked—a sound of tearing data. But it didn't dissolve. Instead, it split into two smaller, faster worms that began racing towards two different data-orbs.
"Inefficient!" Tobin hissed, frustration in his voice. "Its core programming is adaptive!"
"You're being too logical!" Juno shouted, her own hands coming up. Crystals sparked around her fists. "It's a stupid worm! Don't talk to it in math, just whack it!"
"That is not a viable tactical—" Tobin started, but Juno was already moving.
She didn't aim for the worms. She aimed for the space between them and the orbs they were targeting. With a grunt of effort, she conjured not sharp shards, but a wide, flat, slightly concave sheet of crystalline energy, like a giant, glowing flyswatter.
WHACK!
She smacked one of the data-worms with it. The creature splattered against the crystal sheet, dissolving into harmless black mist.
Tobin stared, his jaw slightly agape.
"See?" Juno panted, already spinning to find the other one. "Simple!"
The second worm was faster, zig-zagging through the air. Tobin tried to target it, but his precise beams kept missing the unpredictable target.
"It's too erratic!" he called out.
"So am I!" Juno yelled back. She stopped trying to predict it. She just threw out a wild, sprawling net of crystalline threads, a chaotic web that filled the entire section of the chamber. The worm zipped right into it, tangled itself up, and with a sizzle, popped out of existence.
Silence returned to the archive. The rescued data-orb pulsed back to its normal, steady rhythm.
Juno stood, hands on her knees, catching her breath. "So. How's that for 'emotional volatility'?"
Tobin slowly approached her, his analytical eyes wide. He looked from her to the spot where the worms had died, then back to her.
"Your methodology is… illogical. Inelegant. It defies all standard tactical protocols," he said slowly. Then, a corner of his mouth twitched upwards. It was the barest hint of a smile. "It was also 97.3 percent effective. A higher success rate than my own."
Juno's grin could have powered the whole Nexus. "So you're saying I'm better than you?"
"I am saying," Tobin corrected, the ghost of the smile vanishing as he turned back to his console, "that your chaotic variable has been noted and integrated into my future calculations. Do not let it go to your head."
But as they walked out of the archive to report, Juno noticed he didn't tell her to stop humming. And for the first time, the relentless tapping of his fingers on his hologram seemed to have a slightly less frantic, almost cheerful, rhythm.