Update! Finally. We should start getting to the good parts next chapter, which is already coming along nicely, I just thought I'd post something so it doesn't seem like I've forgotten this. Thank you so much everyone who reviewed, I really enjoyed reading them :).

The children introduced themselves. The one with the two furry animals on her head was Teresa, the boy wearing the polo-shirt was Tim. Tim's nose appeared to be malfunctioning, it was all red, and wet like Marvin's nose. Sarah had strange brown speckles all over her face that made Rinzler worry she had some kind of disease. Johnny looked like he was wearing half a pineapple on his head, he wondered if the spikes were some kind of defense mechanism, and if they were at all useful in battle. Rinzler informed them of his designation in return.

Led by curiosity, the program ventured toward the street. The children followed him like a group of infant ducks would waddle after their mother, in the messy line they had been drilled to walk in at school.

He remembered that Alan-One had somehow commanded the tide of monsters to halt with his User abilities, so that he could cross. Rinzler looked down at Teresa, who he had determined to be the leader of the pack of Users, as if expecting her to perform some sort of magic spell that would make the cars stop.

"We must cross." He told her.

"You don't know how?" She blinked disbelievingly up at him, but instead of laughing or mocking him as he might have expected, she stepped up to the construct jutting up out of the sidewalk. She pressed a button in a box attached to the pole, and another box on top showing glowing symbols flickered to life.

Teresa led them out into the street.

Rinzler remained tense, expecting for something to explode or attack. The monsters were momentarily tamed by the User's powers, but the smaller User couldn't have been as powerful as Alan One, and what if her will wavered?

A car's horn blared impatiently tight next to Rinzler's ear, he cringed, his ears rang. The sound made the program whirl on his heals, Rinzler kicked the beast, hoping to stun it so they could make their escape. The headlight burst around his foot and glass showered onto the pavement, and the driver swore at them, using words Rinzler had never heard. He scooped up two of the kids from the ground, expecting the vehicle thing- that really looked more like a tank- to start firing torpedoes or explosives in retaliation, but his attack seemed to have done the trick. He set Teresa onto his shoulders and Jhonny clung to his back. Looking like a strange, awkward, five headed creature with the four monkeys clinging to him, he bolted for the nearest cover, the entrance to a subway station.

Rinzler sighed in relief at the darkness and quiet he found inside the station. There were no other Users, inefficient, monstrous machines in sight. He set the kids back onto their feet.

"I'm thirsty Mr. Rinzler." Tim said, pulling on the program's sleeve. Tim pointed at the dark rectangular box standing against the wall of the tunnel, its lights flickered, the circuits inside not far away from quitting entirely. Tim sniffled and whipped at his runny nose.

Rinzler knew what this was, it contained energy, User Roy had showed him how to operate one.

He punched through the hull of the vending machine. The plastic and metal buckled inward under his fist until it burst. From inside he pulled a red can of Coke. Rinzler tossed it to Tim and the boy caught it in his tiny, outstretched hands.

"Thanks." He said. The can made a loud hiss as the boy flipped the tab and broke the seal. Some of the fizzling liquid inside overflowed and dribbled down the hills made by the fingers clutching the can, but Tim didn't appear to mind, he was to busy slurping down soda.

Soon there were three more hands tugging at his sleeve, all of them teary eyed and chanting.

"I'm hungry!" and "I'm thirsty too!"

He fished several more sodas out of the machine, but four hungry children remained.

He decided he liked the look of the dark and quiet tunnel, it was much preferable to the noisy, bright, chaotic world above. He could only hope there was sustinance to be found in this direction. The children clamored back up onto their program turned mobile jungle gym, and the group ventured into the darkness and the unknown.

If I was my program, where would I go? Alan wondered. He'd left the museum behind and run out into the whirlwind of people and life outside.

I would go somewhere away from this cacophony. So, underground? Or maybe inside another building?

There were too many possibilities.

He decided to head toward the city at the side of the museum from which Rinzler had fled.

He eventually ran into the odd sight of an enormous crowd of incredibly noisy people hauled up in the middle of a street.

He looked to see what all the commotion was about, hoping his program was at the center so he could find him, but at the same time terrified his program had gotten someone killed or something.

There was an angry man with a headlight out. His bald head was covered in liver spots, and he had at most two teeth left in his mouth. He was tall enough so that everyone could hear his voice over the crowd. He'd gotten out of his car, which was stopped in the middle of the street and blocking traffic. He was screaming at everyone on the street, as if the damaged headlight was the fault of every one of them. He was shaking his fist above all their heads like he expected his rage could bring down the sky. The people yelled back. It seemed the whole street had stopped to argue.

Alan pushed through the mass of shouting people, until he reached the man at its center.

"Excuse me." He raised his voice tentatively, to be heard over the din. He tried to think of how he would approach the subject of his missing creature while still managing to sound sane enough to be listened to.

"I- I'm looking for my son."

The stranger whirled on him, glaring and turning his head to snap at him.

"I don't care what's happened to your son, can't you see ma'damn headlights broke?"

Alan went on to describe Rinzler anyway, as if he hadn't even heard the comment.

"He has dark hair, and he's my height. He has my nose. Actually he has all of this, sans the wrinkles." Alan gestured to his face, waving his hand in a circle to make sure the man knew he really meant the whole of it.

The old mans eyes widened and recognition flashed across his features, mixed with some kind of furious insanity.

"That bastard broke my headlight! Look here, he almost took off the whole bumper! What kind of monster did you spawn?" He gestured wildly at the damaged done to his hideous car. Privatly Alan thought it was an improvement. As the aprently not-so-right in the head man spoke his crooked intex finger poked harder and harder at Alan's chest, so that he though he would be skewered.

"Can you tell me which way he went?" Alan asked, smiling sheepishly.

"That'away." The man spun to point at the mouth of the metro tunnel across the way. "You find him, you give your brat a good firm repramandin' ya hear!"

Alan nodded vigurously.

"Thank you!" He yelled back as his feet were already carrying him sprinting toward the station.