(Credits- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Song of Nature, various Stanza.)

"Mine are the night and morning,

The pits of air, the gulf of space,

The sportive sun, the gibbous moon,

The innumerable days.

I hid in the solar glory,

I am dumb in the pealing song,

I rest on the pitch of the torrent,

In slumber I am strong.

--- Anonymous."

I blinked slowly, removing my glasses as I leaned back.

"Oh, that's quite nice, isn't it? One of yours?" My mother decided to surprise me, which never worked.

I nodded calmly. "Yes... from my journal."

She hummed slowly. "You never publish those."

"I didn't." I replied in the same tone.

She hummed again, and nodded, patting my shoulder. "Don't let anyone rile you you up, my boy. How'd they get it out of your Journal? It never leaves the house." She understood the situation quickly, which didn't surprise me at all.

"I have no clue... but I'm finding out." I said simply, as I accessed the code for the site and changed the author's name from 'Anomymous' to 'Xavier Dorian, Poet Laureate.'

She tsk'ed quietly. "You can't just hack them, my boy-"

"I hear hacking?!? We having fun?" My aunt poked her head in, grinning widely.

"Someone stole Xavier's work and posted it online, he's claiming it... though there is Hacking involved, yes... did you leave my pasta on the stove unattended?!" She changed tracks like clockwork, making me smile a bit.

Aunt Zoë squealed and sprinted into the kitchen, nearly tripping over my cat, Dotty. The tiny, old cat wearily climbed into my lap, grumbling softly in dear offense.

I smiled and scratched her scruff and ears gently. "Hey, Dotty. Have a good nap in that new bed I got you?" I asked softly. She grumbled a bit and rolled over, presenting me with her stomach, demanding a belly rub. I chuckled and obliged, then went back to my Hack.

"I don't know why you keep buying those beds. She never sleeps in them. Ever. Always one of our beds." Mother huffed at the same volume. Loud noises scared Dotty, so we avoided being very loud with her around.

"We can hope, eh? And besides, she likes laying on them, just not sleeping on them." I shrugged. "She prefers to sleep surrounded by our scent, Mother. She's basically blind, so our scents and voices are all she has left, okay?" I raised an eyebrow.

She nodded. "True... ah well. Your money, you can do what you want with it."

"Hm." I nodded slowly, and finished, spreading a host of taggers to monitor and track all movement of the data from my Poetry, and to search for more that matched my Journal.

It came back immediately with hundreds of references, and Dotty crawled out of my lap grumpily when my hands stopped moving.

I found my entire repertoire, and tracked it all to one source, which made no sense at all. My own Computer Camera was scanning Written words in my room constantly, and documenting them.

I growled softly, then delved into its programming, and found what led to it labeling any full or partial work as 'Anonymous', then replaced it with my full name and title, watching the cascade of information through the networks that held my data.

I then searched for what and who was using my camera to look for words, and who was sorting them and making grammar corrections.

That turned into a progress bar that read '12 hours', so I got dressed, and kissed mother on the cheek. "I'll be back, Mother. Got a class in an hour."

She nodded. "Vaya con Dios, my boy."

"I'll try. I always do." I chuckled.

"Hmph." She smiled and patted my head, then went to check on her beef stew.

I hummed and grabbed my bag of training gear, walking out to the sidewalk swiftly, where my bike was tied to a telephone pole.

Dotty leapt into the basket, and washed her paws slowly, studiously ignoring me.

I smiled and pet her soft grey ears, ignoring her faux-offended 'Murt!!' and the batting at my hand (claws tightly sheathed). Then I kicked the kickstand up, and began pedaling.

---

"- bring that guard up, Ethan, what are you doing? Do you want her to take your head off? No? Lift your guard!" My partner, and the owner of the building we were training in, yelled at one of my students.

I stood next to him quickly, and showed him the proper guard, as well as a leg capture, as his opponent, Dailen, was a black belt in Tae-Kwon-Do, before she came to our Muay Thai dojo.

I backed away, and he guarded properly, until she swept his legs out from under him with a flick of her ankles.

He landed on his hands, kicking out at her, and though he missed, I was impressed by his improvisation. For a 12 year-old, he was getting better and better every day.

She huffed and kicked his hands out from under him sarcastically. "This is pointless! Why can't I fight one of the Experts or Teachers?" She crossed her arms.

I raised an eyebrow and swept her feet from under her, then pressed a foot to her throat, before she even realized she was on the ground. "It's safer that way. For ." I said simply, and then stepped back. "Begin again, and no more whining, or I'll just send you home."

Johnny chuckled and punched my shoulder, watching them spar. "Good one... now, what's this I hear about you hacking a government site?"

I sighed. "It wasn't on purpose. I was searching for some of my art, someone stole it and started distributing it without my name or permission."

He nodded. "Ahhhh. Makes sense now. And the .Gov you hacked was one of those Literature sites or something?"

"Actually, yeah. K-12 scholastics for New York. I just made sure my name was properly attached." I shrugged.

He grinned. "Cool. Maybe you can hack my 401K, next, eh? And- oh shit, come on, Sara! What did I say about Knees to the skull?"

"High 'n tight, No Mercy?" She grinned a gap-toothed grin, unapologetic.

He sighed and shrugged at my raised brow. "Yes... but not during sparring! Get her some ice, now, and you both stay after washing the mats for wasting time... and my precious ice."

They groaned, but went off towards the Ice-Chest, one of only three electric items in the Warehouse/Gym. The other two were a flood-light and a coffee-maker, all three attached to the Industrial outlet.

I leaned back and watched, calling out corrections here and there, but most of the children here were at the proper skill level, and sufficiently trained.

"We need new students... these are ripe for harvest." I hummed.

Johnny laughed. "I hate when you say that like that. You're right, though. Not much more we can teach them at their age. We'll scout for more students this Saturday at the Martial Arts championship up in Manhattan, hmm?"

"Sounds like a plan to me." I nodded.

---

My computer chimed on cue, as I set my bag down, and I hummed, walking over to it.

"Error, source invalid? Interesting... source is..." I tracked the invalid source, and found the parking lot of my Gym. "Tsk... a phony IP address, I should've known... let's find out who registered you, my friend..." I sighed, and looked through the source code, and eventually found what I was looking for.

An entire script that was an Eyebot, looking for words that fit a certain rhythm, and a certain word count. Poetry.

"Well-crafted, kid..." my aunt hummed over my shoulder.

"I didn't make it... someone made it to find poetry, and steal it... but the Eyebot randomly disperses the poetry it finds, it never takes it anywhere..." I sighed.

"And therefore nowhere to trace back to... but if you looked at a map of all the places it was activated, you'd be able to triangulate, eventually." She reached for my keyboard.

I hit a different tab, and showed her that I'd already done that. "Yeah. Leads to dummy coordinates at my Gym, just like the IP address."

She blinked. "Mm, well crafted... I like this... but it's oddly worded... old English, almost, very formal, even in Code. Almost Poetic, see, look here?"

'Keeper of what disappears,

Hear me now -- open your ears.

Find for me what I now seek,

By Moon, Sun, Earth, Air, Fire and Sea.'

I blinked slowly. "That almost looks... like a chant? Oh hell. The Wiccans are getting tech-savvy, just great."

She snorted softly. "Well, at least it's going to a good cause..." my withering glare rolled off her like the wind, and she continued. "Though, piracy is a crime, no matter what is stolen, and for what cause. Try tracing the language used to an author or recent user."

I hummed and started looking through back alleys in the internet to find what she'd pointed out. People had a hard time distancing themselves from phrases they used on a daily basis, especially when they were stressed... like when they were building a super-complicated computer mole that would infiltrate every piece of electronics on the planet, though I have a lot of respect for the author. Whoever had built that virus was a serious mastermind, that was for sure.

I found only small tasks, small bits of code that were uniform. The entire thing looked like it was centered around rhyme, but that wasn't possible, because code didn't hold Audio... except this one did.

I isolated the audio, and hit enter, to see what would happen,

Soft music flowed from my speakers, followed by the chant from earlier, in a soft, yet mature, female voice.

"Me-yow, she sounds like a hottie, huh? Too bad... hey, maybe when you find her, you can ask her on a date?" Aunt Zoë grinned mischievously.

I sighed. "You know what? When I find her, I'll be sure to do that. She likes poetry, she's great with computers, she has a nice voice, and her coding is gentle, almost maternal. She's likely your age, Zoë, married, and with children. And I do like mature women." I smirked.

She growled at me, blushing. "I'm not 'Mature' yet, I'm still only 38, okay? I'm in the Springtime of Youth!"

"What's this bullshit I hear, 'elder sister'?" Mother smirked through the doorway, walking past with groceries.

"Shaddup, Sage!" Zoë growled curse words under her breath in Italian, and I laughed, shaking my head. "Fine, I take that as a promise. You'd better. I don't care if she's married, with six kids." She smacked my skull, walking into the kitchen with a huff.

I grinned and went back to digging. "Aye aye, Cap'n Ahab, sir!"

"Smartass."

---

The internet is a fascinating place, really, and the Darknet is just as interesting, if more... well, Dark. Gore sites, porn sites with illegal videos, shady sales, you name it.

But I'd never tracked poetry through it. Surprisingly difficult, seeing as almost every piece of literature in the history of literature was here, scattered around, and the Virus had scattered through it, taking what it wanted, publishing, moving, but then it started to do something different.

I watched as the virus evolved, clearly done with its prime directive, and began copying everything it had found, sending it all back to a single point...

My gym.

"DAMMIT!" I growled, and tried to track it beyond the fake coordinates, but was only met with BS coordinates that made absolutely no sense.

"-.000000997x, .000000997y, .000000997z, by .000000997ç?" I blinked. "What the hell is a ?"

"A letter in a different alphabet... I've never seen fourth dimensional Coordinates before. Cool. Someone went to a lot of trouble to keep this hidden." Zoë was back, albeit slightly miffed, and eating a bowl of ice cream.

"Hmph. Yeah, well, so be it. I'll just try again." I shrugged.