[Arashi] [Cyberpunk!AU] Open Your Eyes (10)
[Title] Open Your Eyes (10)
[Author] honooko
[Rating] R
[Notes] Can you believe when I started this thing, I thought it'd be about 6 chapters? CRY.
Ohno really wasn't surprised when the next day, Aiba pulled him into the kitchen, away from the eyes and ears of Nino and Jun, and seriously requested a tattoo of his own.
"Sometimes they forget," Aiba said softly, "that I'm the oldest and I don't need protecting."
Ohno picked a bright green for him; it was the color of the plants in his childhood picture books and something that always seemed so very alive, as though it was about to bloom right off the pages. It suited Aiba somehow; Ohno suspected it had to do with the fact that Aiba always found something to hope for, even in the darkest of hours. His strength and vibrancy never wavered.
They put the tattoo on his chest, just above his heart. “That’s where they belong anyway,” Aiba had commented with a grin, his fingers brushing at the light bandage over the new wound. Despite the slight pain he was most assuredly in, Aiba saw no reason not to return to his workshop and continue his tinkering. Ohno followed when Aiba waved a hand at him, beckoning.
“I’m trying to think of something nice for Jun,” Aiba explained, gesturing at what looked to Ohno like a pile of scrap metal, wires, the carcass of an ancient television, and the head of a teddy bear. “I never seem to make anything he really likes.”
“He likes that thing in the kitchen you made,” Ohno pointed out. “The box thing. He puts fish in it.”
“Aiba-chan’s Super Awesome Blast-to-the-Past Rehydrator?” Aiba said with a completely straight face.
“Right,” Ohno said, nodding. “The box thing.”
“I made that on accident,” Aiba admitted sheepishly. “I was trying to make something that would put flowery smells into shampoo. Instead, it just puts water in stuff.”
“Why don’t you just… mix in scents?” Ohno asked with confusion.
“Because that’s no fun,” Aiba replied as though this made perfect sense. He set the head of the teddy bear in the open face of the television thoughtfully, standing back to give it a good look. Apparently dissatisfied, he pulled it out again and sighed.
“Jun is really hard to invent for,” Aiba said, shaking his head. “He doesn’t like cuddly things, he doesn’t like flashy things, and he thinks my taste in fabrics is tacky.”
“He likes useful things?” Ohno guessed.
“Yeah,” Aiba said. “But he does everything so well, he doesn’t really need any machines to help.”
“What about Nino?” Ohno asked. He knew already that all of Nino’s gadgets had some element of Aiba in them; his handheld mp3 player had a case and speakers built by Aiba, his skates were made by Aiba, his wrist detector was invented by Aiba… it seemed to Ohno that Nino was a far better candidate for a grateful recipient.
“Nino gets two different kinds of things,” Aiba said. “One, things he can use when he works. Two, things that make him happy.”
“What makes him happy?” Ohno said softly, surprised at how much he wanted to know the answer.
“Other people,” Aiba said. “Not being alone, and having something to remind him of people he cares about.” Aiba smiled wistfully, cradling the head of the bear in his hands as he spoke. “I made him a talking picture frame once. Jun and I recorded messages on it for him. But I couldn’t give it to him without a picture to go in it, and I haven’t been able to make film that actually works yet.”
Ohno spoke before he’d even had a chance to think. “Would a drawing work?”
“A drawing?”
“Yeah,” Ohno said. “Instead of a photograph, a drawing of you both.”
“Sure,” Aiba said. “But I can’t draw, and I know Jun can’t either.”
Ohno smiled. “That’s okay,” he said brightly. “I can.”
~
Nino rolled to a stop on the street corner and glanced at his wrist detector. It showed one small patrol about three-quarters of a mile away, but was otherwise clear. Peeking around the corner just in case, he only moved forward when he saw no one.
The job for Sho was going slower than he’d expected. Before, he could have managed two or three trips back and forth a night, but with the new undetectable patrols in place, he was lucky to get safely back from one. Fortunately, Sho understood and had assured Nino that the time limit on the job was not terribly strict, and that his safety outweighed the necessity of removing the books.
Suddenly, his wrist detector blipped. A small beep, a single flashing dot, and then just as quickly, it was gone. Nino’s first thought was that the detector was malfunctioning.
His second thought was that Aiba’s inventions never malfunctioned.
“Idiot!” a male voice snapped less than 100 feet away. “Keep the scrambler on, remember?”
Nino knew immediately that a patrol was moving his direction very quickly. He also knew that he was running out of good luck. Taking off as fast as he could, Nino darted down a side street and over a fence; Sho’s was three blocks away, and if he was going to make it, he’d have to hurry. His movement caught the patrol’s attention; the Force took off after him, and Nino knew they were drawing close by the pinging sound of Barracuda’s ricocheting off the buildings.
He hit Sho’s property going full speed; his skates carried him up the wall, and with a smooth vault, he was over the lasers. Nino guessed that the Force would be delayed by Sho’s own body guards; he had maybe three minutes, at best. Darting into Sho’s bedroom through the balcony door, Sho looked up from where he’d been reading a newspaper (and taking notes) with surprise.
“Nino?” Sho asked, clearly unsure of why Nino had come in so abruptly.
“They heard me,” Nino said quickly. “The Force is right behind me.”
Sho’s face darkened. Standing quickly, he grabbed Nino’s elbow and pulled him towards the door, but thundering footsteps on the stairs stopped him. Swallowing, he gestured towards the wardrobe, and Nino nodded, climbing in with no hesitation. Sho pulled his hanging shirts in front of Nino to hide him, and then realizing he’d need a reason to be there, started unbuttoning his shirt as though he were changing for bed.
The door flew open, and an orange-clad Force patrol captain barreled into the room.
“What,” Sho said with remarkable levels of fury, “are you doing?”
“The rat-kid!” The captain spat, and Nino took a moment to be disgusted at the nickname’s utter lack of creativity. “He came in here!”
“I can assure you,” Sho said, drawing himself up and radiating authority, “nothing even so much as resembling a rat would be caught on my property.” His tone implied heavily that the mere suggestion of an infestation was grounds for Sho to make him disappear quietly and completely.
Nino took another moment, this time to fully appreciate how delightfully threatening Sho could be, given sufficient motivation.
“B-but I saw him,” the captain insisted weakly. “He came right here, sir. If we could just take a look around-”
“The only disturbance my very qualified, very experienced, and very well-paid guards have reported in the past month has been the racket you and your men have caused,” Sho said as though he were disciplining a very naughty, very stupid child. “And as I have no reason what so ever to doubt them, I will continue to trust their judgment over yours.”
“Ah,” said the captain, bowing nervously. “So… we’ll just, er, be going.”
Sho said nothing; Nino could see through a gap in the shirts that he was merely standing, staring at the captain and obviously waiting for him to do exactly that; leave. Taking his cue, the captain skittered away, closing the door behind him.
Pushing the shirts aside quickly, Sho exhaled.
“Are you okay?” he asked urgently. Nino nodded, accepting the hand that Sho offered him.
“Fine,” he said with a smile. “That was pretty… close, though.”
“Nino?” Sho said with concern, and Nino held up his hands reassuringly.
“Really!” he insisted. “I’m fine! Didn’t even trip and faceplant!”
“Nino,” Sho said softly. “Your hands are shaking.”
“Eh?” Nino answered, looking at his hands. Sho was right; tiny trembles ran up and down his hands and wrists. His heart was pounding still, and his breath was quicker than was normally associated with standing totally still.
“Oh,” Nino said. “I guess that was a little scarier than I thought.”
Sho said nothing; he simply wrapped his arms around Nino’s shoulders and held him close. Nino relaxed against Sho’s chest, immediately settling his arms around Sho’s waist. Sho felt strong and solid, and strangely warm; it was both comforting and strangely familiar. Nino recognized Sho’s quiet reliability, but he couldn’t place it.
Nuzzling his nose into Sho’s neck, Nino pressed himself closer, allowing himself to let go of a few defenses in favor of trust. Sho dropped a soft kiss on Nino’s temple affectionately. Turning his head just as Sho leaned in to drop another, Nino was a touch disappointed when Sho stopped, their faces close enough to feel each other breathe.
Slowly, carefully, Nino closed the small distance. Sho’s hands moved from Nino’s shoulders to his lower back, and Nino lifted his arms to drape around Sho’s neck. The kiss stayed soft and sweet, neither one attempting to push it further. Nino wondered if there wasn’t something wrong with him; no one else seemed to fall in love so easily. And he could (or already had) love Sho, if he wanted. Sho cared about what happened to him, and was more than willing to put himself in danger for Nino’s sake. He was comfortable.
‘Like Ohno,’ he thought suddenly.
Wasn’t that what had attracted Nino to Ohno in the first place? Safety, comfort, a touch of excitement in the form of something relatively new and unexplored; everything that Nino was responding to in Sho also existed in Ohno. The only difference was that Ohno had, however unintentionally, broken Nino’s trust. Sho hadn’t.
And yet, while Nino’s feelings towards Sho were strong, his feelings for Ohno were more complex than he could immediately puzzle out. He couldn’t judge until he had a clearer understanding.
“You’re staying here, right?” Sho murmured against Nino’s cheek. Nino shivered.
“I told them I’d be back,” Nino said, but he made no attempt to pull out of Sho’s embrace.
“It’s safer here,” Sho pointed out, and Nino was struck by how utterly sure he was that Sho had no ulterior motive for convincing Nino to stay.
“I have to go home,” Nino insisted. “It’s only home for as long as I keep going back to it.”
Sho considered that statement, then seemed to come to a decision. “I’ll go back with you then.”
“What?” Nino said, surprised.
“I’ll go with you,” Sho said. “I want to make sure you get there safely.”
“Sho, I’ll be fine. And besides,” Nino said, trying to phrase it as delicately as possible, “You’re not exactly used to dodging patrols or anything-”
“No,” Sho interrupted. “But I do have something useful for you.”
Nino raised an eyebrow.
“I know you’re looking for Ohno Satoshi’s mother,” Sho said. “And I know where she is.”
~
Nino had to hand it to him; Sho did better on the street than he’d expected, and took direction well. He didn’t even bat an eyelash when Nino unceremoniously shoved him into a dumpster to hide from a patrol. He certainly didn’t thank Nino for it, but once he’d spat out the coffee grinds, Sho at least seemed to forgive him.
Once they got home, Jun warily accepted Sho’s presence inside the house. Aiba was overjoyed; Sho came across Aiba’s purring pillow and cooed at it like it was actually something fluffy and adorable. As soon as he had, Aiba turned to Jun and asked with wide, hopeful eyes, “Jun, can we keep him?”
Ohno hovered around the edge of the living room, clearly unsure of whether or not his presence was wanted. Nino approached him, and Ohno looked at him like Nino was going to suddenly attack him.
“He knows where your mom is,” Nino said simply. “Go talk to him.”
“She’s alive,” Sho said once Ohno had been introduced. “She was arrested on two counts of disobedient conduct, and one count of resistance.”
“So, what,” Jun drawled. “She wore a purple hat, wrote her name in kanji, and when they told her not to, she told them to suck it?”
“In essence,” Sho said. “A young recruit in the arresting party apparently confessed to his superior office that he felt a bit conflicted, arresting an old woman who, upon seeing him, told him to eat more and wear clean socks.”
“Mom likes clean socks,” Ohno commented with a smile.
“But previous to this point, she had immunity,” Nino pointed out. “She was the collateral to Ohno’s enlistment. Something has to have changed in order for that immunity to be voided.”
“I haven’t heard any specific reports,” Sho confessed. “But I know where to look. The Force keeps an archive of all orders relating to specifically directed arrests. It’s heavily protected though.”
“Password or encryption?” Nino asked.
“Both. And it runs on software that only exists on three systems within the Ment itself. You can’t even get into the point where you’re asked for a password without the software to run it.”
“Can you get us to that page?” Jun said, glancing at Nino out of the corner of his eye.
“Probably,” Sho said.
“Aiba,” Nino said suddenly. “I’m going to need a hard drive with the fastest data transfer humanly possible.”
“Can it be shaped like a big egg?” Aiba asked, gesturing.
“As long as it remembers what I tell it to, it can be any shape you want,” Nino said generously.
“Wait,” Ohno interrupted. “I don’t understand. What are you doing?”
“If I have a drive that can record what I encounter, I can replicate the software. Or at least figure out the main components and write a new one that works the same way. Once that’s done, breaking through the encryption is less a matter of possibility and more a matter of time,” Nino explained, already running through the process for breaking through the passwords.
“Sho will have to stay here,” Jun said. “We’re going to need you, and it’s too risky to send you back now that you’ve been here; someone will notice and make the connection.”
“So I’ll be borrowing your couch?” Sho asked, laughing.
“No,” Jun replied with a smile that indicated how much he was going to enjoy Sho’s suffering. “Ohno has the couch. You can have that corner over there. Don’t worry, the carpet’s pretty soft in that spot.”
Sho’s face fell, and Nino laughed.
Chapter 11.
[Author] honooko
[Rating] R
[Notes] Can you believe when I started this thing, I thought it'd be about 6 chapters? CRY.
Ohno really wasn't surprised when the next day, Aiba pulled him into the kitchen, away from the eyes and ears of Nino and Jun, and seriously requested a tattoo of his own.
"Sometimes they forget," Aiba said softly, "that I'm the oldest and I don't need protecting."
Ohno picked a bright green for him; it was the color of the plants in his childhood picture books and something that always seemed so very alive, as though it was about to bloom right off the pages. It suited Aiba somehow; Ohno suspected it had to do with the fact that Aiba always found something to hope for, even in the darkest of hours. His strength and vibrancy never wavered.
They put the tattoo on his chest, just above his heart. “That’s where they belong anyway,” Aiba had commented with a grin, his fingers brushing at the light bandage over the new wound. Despite the slight pain he was most assuredly in, Aiba saw no reason not to return to his workshop and continue his tinkering. Ohno followed when Aiba waved a hand at him, beckoning.
“I’m trying to think of something nice for Jun,” Aiba explained, gesturing at what looked to Ohno like a pile of scrap metal, wires, the carcass of an ancient television, and the head of a teddy bear. “I never seem to make anything he really likes.”
“He likes that thing in the kitchen you made,” Ohno pointed out. “The box thing. He puts fish in it.”
“Aiba-chan’s Super Awesome Blast-to-the-Past Rehydrator?” Aiba said with a completely straight face.
“Right,” Ohno said, nodding. “The box thing.”
“I made that on accident,” Aiba admitted sheepishly. “I was trying to make something that would put flowery smells into shampoo. Instead, it just puts water in stuff.”
“Why don’t you just… mix in scents?” Ohno asked with confusion.
“Because that’s no fun,” Aiba replied as though this made perfect sense. He set the head of the teddy bear in the open face of the television thoughtfully, standing back to give it a good look. Apparently dissatisfied, he pulled it out again and sighed.
“Jun is really hard to invent for,” Aiba said, shaking his head. “He doesn’t like cuddly things, he doesn’t like flashy things, and he thinks my taste in fabrics is tacky.”
“He likes useful things?” Ohno guessed.
“Yeah,” Aiba said. “But he does everything so well, he doesn’t really need any machines to help.”
“What about Nino?” Ohno asked. He knew already that all of Nino’s gadgets had some element of Aiba in them; his handheld mp3 player had a case and speakers built by Aiba, his skates were made by Aiba, his wrist detector was invented by Aiba… it seemed to Ohno that Nino was a far better candidate for a grateful recipient.
“Nino gets two different kinds of things,” Aiba said. “One, things he can use when he works. Two, things that make him happy.”
“What makes him happy?” Ohno said softly, surprised at how much he wanted to know the answer.
“Other people,” Aiba said. “Not being alone, and having something to remind him of people he cares about.” Aiba smiled wistfully, cradling the head of the bear in his hands as he spoke. “I made him a talking picture frame once. Jun and I recorded messages on it for him. But I couldn’t give it to him without a picture to go in it, and I haven’t been able to make film that actually works yet.”
Ohno spoke before he’d even had a chance to think. “Would a drawing work?”
“A drawing?”
“Yeah,” Ohno said. “Instead of a photograph, a drawing of you both.”
“Sure,” Aiba said. “But I can’t draw, and I know Jun can’t either.”
Ohno smiled. “That’s okay,” he said brightly. “I can.”
~
Nino rolled to a stop on the street corner and glanced at his wrist detector. It showed one small patrol about three-quarters of a mile away, but was otherwise clear. Peeking around the corner just in case, he only moved forward when he saw no one.
The job for Sho was going slower than he’d expected. Before, he could have managed two or three trips back and forth a night, but with the new undetectable patrols in place, he was lucky to get safely back from one. Fortunately, Sho understood and had assured Nino that the time limit on the job was not terribly strict, and that his safety outweighed the necessity of removing the books.
Suddenly, his wrist detector blipped. A small beep, a single flashing dot, and then just as quickly, it was gone. Nino’s first thought was that the detector was malfunctioning.
His second thought was that Aiba’s inventions never malfunctioned.
“Idiot!” a male voice snapped less than 100 feet away. “Keep the scrambler on, remember?”
Nino knew immediately that a patrol was moving his direction very quickly. He also knew that he was running out of good luck. Taking off as fast as he could, Nino darted down a side street and over a fence; Sho’s was three blocks away, and if he was going to make it, he’d have to hurry. His movement caught the patrol’s attention; the Force took off after him, and Nino knew they were drawing close by the pinging sound of Barracuda’s ricocheting off the buildings.
He hit Sho’s property going full speed; his skates carried him up the wall, and with a smooth vault, he was over the lasers. Nino guessed that the Force would be delayed by Sho’s own body guards; he had maybe three minutes, at best. Darting into Sho’s bedroom through the balcony door, Sho looked up from where he’d been reading a newspaper (and taking notes) with surprise.
“Nino?” Sho asked, clearly unsure of why Nino had come in so abruptly.
“They heard me,” Nino said quickly. “The Force is right behind me.”
Sho’s face darkened. Standing quickly, he grabbed Nino’s elbow and pulled him towards the door, but thundering footsteps on the stairs stopped him. Swallowing, he gestured towards the wardrobe, and Nino nodded, climbing in with no hesitation. Sho pulled his hanging shirts in front of Nino to hide him, and then realizing he’d need a reason to be there, started unbuttoning his shirt as though he were changing for bed.
The door flew open, and an orange-clad Force patrol captain barreled into the room.
“What,” Sho said with remarkable levels of fury, “are you doing?”
“The rat-kid!” The captain spat, and Nino took a moment to be disgusted at the nickname’s utter lack of creativity. “He came in here!”
“I can assure you,” Sho said, drawing himself up and radiating authority, “nothing even so much as resembling a rat would be caught on my property.” His tone implied heavily that the mere suggestion of an infestation was grounds for Sho to make him disappear quietly and completely.
Nino took another moment, this time to fully appreciate how delightfully threatening Sho could be, given sufficient motivation.
“B-but I saw him,” the captain insisted weakly. “He came right here, sir. If we could just take a look around-”
“The only disturbance my very qualified, very experienced, and very well-paid guards have reported in the past month has been the racket you and your men have caused,” Sho said as though he were disciplining a very naughty, very stupid child. “And as I have no reason what so ever to doubt them, I will continue to trust their judgment over yours.”
“Ah,” said the captain, bowing nervously. “So… we’ll just, er, be going.”
Sho said nothing; Nino could see through a gap in the shirts that he was merely standing, staring at the captain and obviously waiting for him to do exactly that; leave. Taking his cue, the captain skittered away, closing the door behind him.
Pushing the shirts aside quickly, Sho exhaled.
“Are you okay?” he asked urgently. Nino nodded, accepting the hand that Sho offered him.
“Fine,” he said with a smile. “That was pretty… close, though.”
“Nino?” Sho said with concern, and Nino held up his hands reassuringly.
“Really!” he insisted. “I’m fine! Didn’t even trip and faceplant!”
“Nino,” Sho said softly. “Your hands are shaking.”
“Eh?” Nino answered, looking at his hands. Sho was right; tiny trembles ran up and down his hands and wrists. His heart was pounding still, and his breath was quicker than was normally associated with standing totally still.
“Oh,” Nino said. “I guess that was a little scarier than I thought.”
Sho said nothing; he simply wrapped his arms around Nino’s shoulders and held him close. Nino relaxed against Sho’s chest, immediately settling his arms around Sho’s waist. Sho felt strong and solid, and strangely warm; it was both comforting and strangely familiar. Nino recognized Sho’s quiet reliability, but he couldn’t place it.
Nuzzling his nose into Sho’s neck, Nino pressed himself closer, allowing himself to let go of a few defenses in favor of trust. Sho dropped a soft kiss on Nino’s temple affectionately. Turning his head just as Sho leaned in to drop another, Nino was a touch disappointed when Sho stopped, their faces close enough to feel each other breathe.
Slowly, carefully, Nino closed the small distance. Sho’s hands moved from Nino’s shoulders to his lower back, and Nino lifted his arms to drape around Sho’s neck. The kiss stayed soft and sweet, neither one attempting to push it further. Nino wondered if there wasn’t something wrong with him; no one else seemed to fall in love so easily. And he could (or already had) love Sho, if he wanted. Sho cared about what happened to him, and was more than willing to put himself in danger for Nino’s sake. He was comfortable.
‘Like Ohno,’ he thought suddenly.
Wasn’t that what had attracted Nino to Ohno in the first place? Safety, comfort, a touch of excitement in the form of something relatively new and unexplored; everything that Nino was responding to in Sho also existed in Ohno. The only difference was that Ohno had, however unintentionally, broken Nino’s trust. Sho hadn’t.
And yet, while Nino’s feelings towards Sho were strong, his feelings for Ohno were more complex than he could immediately puzzle out. He couldn’t judge until he had a clearer understanding.
“You’re staying here, right?” Sho murmured against Nino’s cheek. Nino shivered.
“I told them I’d be back,” Nino said, but he made no attempt to pull out of Sho’s embrace.
“It’s safer here,” Sho pointed out, and Nino was struck by how utterly sure he was that Sho had no ulterior motive for convincing Nino to stay.
“I have to go home,” Nino insisted. “It’s only home for as long as I keep going back to it.”
Sho considered that statement, then seemed to come to a decision. “I’ll go back with you then.”
“What?” Nino said, surprised.
“I’ll go with you,” Sho said. “I want to make sure you get there safely.”
“Sho, I’ll be fine. And besides,” Nino said, trying to phrase it as delicately as possible, “You’re not exactly used to dodging patrols or anything-”
“No,” Sho interrupted. “But I do have something useful for you.”
Nino raised an eyebrow.
“I know you’re looking for Ohno Satoshi’s mother,” Sho said. “And I know where she is.”
~
Nino had to hand it to him; Sho did better on the street than he’d expected, and took direction well. He didn’t even bat an eyelash when Nino unceremoniously shoved him into a dumpster to hide from a patrol. He certainly didn’t thank Nino for it, but once he’d spat out the coffee grinds, Sho at least seemed to forgive him.
Once they got home, Jun warily accepted Sho’s presence inside the house. Aiba was overjoyed; Sho came across Aiba’s purring pillow and cooed at it like it was actually something fluffy and adorable. As soon as he had, Aiba turned to Jun and asked with wide, hopeful eyes, “Jun, can we keep him?”
Ohno hovered around the edge of the living room, clearly unsure of whether or not his presence was wanted. Nino approached him, and Ohno looked at him like Nino was going to suddenly attack him.
“He knows where your mom is,” Nino said simply. “Go talk to him.”
“She’s alive,” Sho said once Ohno had been introduced. “She was arrested on two counts of disobedient conduct, and one count of resistance.”
“So, what,” Jun drawled. “She wore a purple hat, wrote her name in kanji, and when they told her not to, she told them to suck it?”
“In essence,” Sho said. “A young recruit in the arresting party apparently confessed to his superior office that he felt a bit conflicted, arresting an old woman who, upon seeing him, told him to eat more and wear clean socks.”
“Mom likes clean socks,” Ohno commented with a smile.
“But previous to this point, she had immunity,” Nino pointed out. “She was the collateral to Ohno’s enlistment. Something has to have changed in order for that immunity to be voided.”
“I haven’t heard any specific reports,” Sho confessed. “But I know where to look. The Force keeps an archive of all orders relating to specifically directed arrests. It’s heavily protected though.”
“Password or encryption?” Nino asked.
“Both. And it runs on software that only exists on three systems within the Ment itself. You can’t even get into the point where you’re asked for a password without the software to run it.”
“Can you get us to that page?” Jun said, glancing at Nino out of the corner of his eye.
“Probably,” Sho said.
“Aiba,” Nino said suddenly. “I’m going to need a hard drive with the fastest data transfer humanly possible.”
“Can it be shaped like a big egg?” Aiba asked, gesturing.
“As long as it remembers what I tell it to, it can be any shape you want,” Nino said generously.
“Wait,” Ohno interrupted. “I don’t understand. What are you doing?”
“If I have a drive that can record what I encounter, I can replicate the software. Or at least figure out the main components and write a new one that works the same way. Once that’s done, breaking through the encryption is less a matter of possibility and more a matter of time,” Nino explained, already running through the process for breaking through the passwords.
“Sho will have to stay here,” Jun said. “We’re going to need you, and it’s too risky to send you back now that you’ve been here; someone will notice and make the connection.”
“So I’ll be borrowing your couch?” Sho asked, laughing.
“No,” Jun replied with a smile that indicated how much he was going to enjoy Sho’s suffering. “Ohno has the couch. You can have that corner over there. Don’t worry, the carpet’s pretty soft in that spot.”
Sho’s face fell, and Nino laughed.
Chapter 11.