The Absence Equation - Chapter 4
Title: The Absence Equation - Chapter 4
Group/Pairings: NewS. Pairings: Koyama/Shige, Massu/Yamapi
Rating: R
Warnings: Violence, cursing, sexual implications.
Words: 3,750
Summary: First try: "The fate of the world as they know it rests in the hands of one Kato Shigeaki. Oh shit." Possibly more coherent try (though it sounds like a lame old-school sci fi jacket blurb): The A.I. guarding cyberspace is forced to choose between eternal imprisonment and self-destruction. With the fate of the world resting in their hands, they must race against time to give her a third option before it's too late.
Prologue - Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Epilogue
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Chapter 4 -100
Shige connected to the lab’s wi-fi on a self-encrypted line, E.P. looking approvingly at his handiwork, and video-phoned Jansen.
“Kato,” Jansen greeted him blandly.
“Jansen, we’ve run into trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Japanese and Russian mafia trouble. Jansen, I’m not complaining, because you paid me for a job and I’m doing it, but we’re not going to be able to make it to the next location on time. My partner got shredded and he needs at least another day to recover. We’re safe for now, but we’re not going to be able to fly out like no big deal. They know we’re here.”
Jansen looked at him blankly for a minute. Shige shifted uncomfortably, feeling something niggling at the back of his brain. Then the man blinked.
“All right. One day. Then you move again.”
“All of today and all of tomorrow. We’ll leave the next morning,” he countered.
“Fine,” and Jansen cut the line.
Shige sat staring at the dead screen for a moment before shutting his laptop down and closing it. “There’s something wrong,” he said. “Did you see his face when I said we’d been found by the mafias? He looked… pleased. Just for a second.”
Koyama was resting his cheek on his hand, body twisted just enough that he could watch Shige, and Shige looked up at him for a moment.
“How many couriers, Shige?” E.P. asked, and Shige felt like he’d been punched in the stomach at the use of his name so informally from this man. He glared at E.P. but he just looked back expectantly.
“What do you mean? It’s just me. Using more than one courier is a waste of money - an exorbitant fee.”
“And yet, he looked pleased that you’d been found out.”
“He didn’t fight very hard over his ‘condition’ that I not be involved despite his concern that our partnership was too well-known,” Koyama said thoughtfully. “And he wasn’t concerned about the extra money he’d promised with the condition. He gave it to you anyway, didn’t he?”
E.P. looked at Shige. “You’re a decoy. There’s another courier,” he said confidently. “Whatever it is that you’re carrying, it’s important. And they don’t care if they lose you as long as you make them chase you long enough for the other courier to get through. That’s why he didn’t argue the time delay but also insisted that it not be too long. He needs them on your trail again, or they might find the other.”
“Shige…” Koyama looked at him worriedly. “Maybe it’s time to break client confidence…”
“Do you know how hard hacking into my drive is? Nearly impossible. It’s designed to be impossible to hack.”
E.P. looked like he’d just had his birthday and Christmas all rolled into one. “I’ve always wanted to try this,” he breathed.
“Can it hurt you, Shige?” Koyama asked quickly.
“No-o. Not as such. If we set off the security, it will just destroy the file. And I’ll have to get the drive pulled within 48 hours but other than that, no.”
E.P grinned. “I’m glad I brought my deck.”
As though E.P.’d have gone anywhere without it. He snorted. He was kind of huffy about the decision being made for him, but, then, he’d always liked a challenge, too, and if E.P. was around, he couldn’t think of a better duo for the attempt.
Shige set up an impromptu desk next to Koyama’s bed and E.P. used the other side, their decks practically touching each other, and Tegoshi connected the two physically while Shige plugged his own deck into his drive. They settled into their seats, stretching and prepping themselves for a minute while everything loaded. They didn’t have to jack in to do what they were about to, just a simple check first, and they definitely wouldn’t be connecting with cyberspace, but they both felt more comfortable working in the three dimensional world achieved by fully immersing themselves into their systems, so they attached the gelled electrodes and put their goggles on. After a second, E.P. said, “go” and he flipped to his drive and they both stared.
They faced a wall of ice so complex it glittered, light refracting from the depths of the shadows, and Shige could hear E.P. breathe a sigh of awe.
“I’ve never actually seen anything like this before,” he said. “It’s so… pretty.”
Shige snorted. They jumped forward about half the distance and moved around the diameter, examining. “What do you think?” he asked.
“I think this ought to be fun,” E.P. replied and Shige wanted to smack him.
“It can’t hurt me. But if the file is destroyed and we’re wrong and I can’t deliver it and I lose my drive, I’m in serious trouble. I don’t want ‘fun’ associated with this run.”
He heard E.P. removing his goggles so he did the same and found the man looking at him seriously. “I always have fun, or what’s the point,” he replied, and reached for his bag.
Shige replaced his goggles and went back to studying the problem. “I don’t have anything I can adapt to this,” he said slowly. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it, either.”
When E.P. spoke next, he sounded smug. “I think I have something,” and loaded up a program.
Shige took one look at it and whistled. “You did this?”
“Yeah.”
He studied it. “Good, it’s excellent. But this is going to have to go,” he said, pointing at a piece of coding. “And this needs to be changed here.” He tweaked a few 0’s and 1’s, E.P. arguing points with him, and he felt a bit nostalgic. It had been a while since they’d last worked together.
There could be no trial run so they spent the next few hours speaking hypothetically and Koyama fell asleep on them. In the end, it took them ten grueling hours, and twice as many cups of coffee, to come up with a final virus they both felt would work. Shige was just grateful E.P. had had something to start from.
Shige unhooked himself and removed his goggles and stood, rubbing his face vigorously. He looked down at Koyama and gently placed a hand on the top of his head. Then he looked at Tegoshi. “We’ll eat, and then we’ll run. All right?”
E.P. spoke to the medic who left and when he came back he had a couple steaming plates with bratwurst and potato dumplings. Nothing fancy and not his favorite, but it was food. He gave Koyama a bite just to watch his face crinkle in disgust.
When they sat back down, he was feeling refreshed and ready for the challenge to be completed. They jacked in and loaded the finished virus. He flipped to his drive and they let it go, watching carefully as it worked.
It was tedious sitting and watching it work and Shige fought off sleep until E.P. told him to take a nap.
“I’m still awake, so we’ll take turns.”
Shige couldn’t figure out where the man got all the energy. When he woke up two hours later, Koyama was sitting up and watching E.P. He slid off the bed with a jaw-cracking yawn, careful not to jog the wire attached to his drive, and padded up to gently set his chin on Koyama’s shoulder. “Good morning,” he whispered hoarsely. Koyama giggled quietly. “How’re you doing?”
“Good,” Koyama whispered. “George, the medic, said it’s almost healed.”
Shige never thought to ask names, Koyama always did. Shige nuzzled his cheek sleepily.
“Why’re you watching him?”
“Hm… he looks familiar but I can’t place him.”
Shige shrugged and straightened, walking to the edge of the bed to call and see if George had any coffee ready. He was in luck - George brought him a mug and he wrapped sleep-weak fingers around the cup and carried it to the desk in both hands. “My turn,” he told E.P. as he slipped into his chair. “Anything strange?”
“Nope,” E.P. said. “Wake me in two.”
Shige grunted. Ten minutes later he was already nodding. Three hours later he and E.P. watched the virus break through the last wall of ice and suddenly they were in, surrounded by bright towers of data that represented his payload. Shige grinned, pulling off his goggles to look at E.P. who’d removed his as well to reveal twinkling eyes. Goggling back in and examining the towers seemed pretty anti-climactic. Not that Shige had been really hoping for any excitement during the hack - it was his ass on the line. He’d always been a theoretical man, himself, less into the actual run than in the theory behind it. It was why he and E.P. made such a great team - E.P. thrived on the challenge of the here and now while Shige’s analytical mind provided the base. But then they figured out what the data was and Shige wanted to run.
“Is this…” He was afraid to put it into words.
They pulled back and examined it from farther away but he couldn’t figure out anything else it could be.
“This would completely melt the system,” E.P. breathed in awe.
“Don’t!” Shige admonished. “This is cyberspace we’re talking about. The entire world would shut down.”
“It would have to be initiated from within the system administration core, though,” E.P. said musingly. “There’s no way to hack the system.”
“So they put it in by hand.”
“The A.I. running cyberspace would never let it through. It would be akin to suicide.”
“Who would even want to kill the ‘net?”
“The non-mods, maybe.”
Suddenly Shige remembered the beautiful and aggressively unmodified receptionist. “Shit.” He quickly filled E.P. in on that part.
“Ah. If it really is them, we’ll have trouble.”
“You’re telling me. How the hell are we going to figure out who the other courier is? And we only have half a day left before we have to get to the airport.”
Shige groaned. He just wanted to sleep, damnit. “What about the mafia? What’s the deal with them?”
Tegoshi shrugged. “They want the information first. If they can get the virus, they can either use the virus as a threat to get what they want, or they can create an anti-virus and use it as a bargaining tool. I’m sure Stat Com would be interested in that. It would be worth quite a bit.”
"Ah!" Koyama said suddenly. "I remembered! He's Tegoshi Yuya! He does those gritty underground simstims the media keeps going on about lately!"
Shige pushed the goggles on top of his head and turned to stare at Koyama. "...Read the atmosphere will you?"
Koyama had the grace to look sheepish.
“Well, we ultimately know where he’s going,” Shige offered. “That should give us a start. The problem is that they’ll be looking for us there and when we do show up, Jansen will know we know.”
“But the transfer could occur at any time. We don’t know it will just be straight. We still need to figure out who and where he is so we can be sure.”
Shige dropped his head into his hands with a groan. “How can we even know there’s just one other courier?” His words were muffled and he sat up again. “There could be hundreds.”
Tegoshi raised an eyebrow at him. “Now you’re just being silly, Shige.”
“Why don’t we just call Stat Com and tell them what we’ve found?” Shige asked.
“Yeah, because they’ll believe us. You must know how many threats they get on a regular basis.”
“What if we sent them the virus?” he asked dubiously.
“What, so some numbnuts can take it and implement it? No.”
“I still think they should be warned,” Shige said with a frown.
Tegoshi waved his hand. “Fine, go on. It’s no skin off my nose.”
Shige glared at him but rigged up an anonymous call to Stat Com, transferring as high up the chain as he could get before very calmly explaining the situation, Tegoshi watching him interestedly. A pause. “I don’t think you understand the situation, sir.” Shige frowns. “No, this is not a threat. I’m telling you that the information exists and that someone is trying to get it into the system… Yes, I do understand how improbable it seems… No… Look, I’m just trying to save the universe as we know it… no I do not think I am some sort of superhero you…” He jerked away from the phone and glowered at it. “That asshole hung up on me.”
Tegoshi sniffed and scratched his nose, pointedly looking anywhere but Shige.
“Go on,” Shige muttered.
“What?” Tegoshi asked innocently.
“I know you want to.”
“Shige was just trying to help save the universe as we know it,” he said sweetly. “Who can fault him for trying?”
“Say it,” Shige growled, “or you’ll be lording it over me for days.”
Tegoshi laughed for a moment and once he’d quieted down he looked at Shige with an impish grin. “I told you so.”
“Jerk,” Shige replied gruffly and Tegoshi laughed so hard he snorted.
“What about an anti-virus,” Koyama asked slowly once they’d both calmed down. They turned to look at him and he colored. “Is it too difficult?”
“It’s not that it’s necessarily too difficult…” Shige trailed off.
“It’s the time factor. We don’t know how much we have. But I think it’s something we should start working on. I’ll call in some favors and see if I can get our guy tracked down while you and I work on the code. With the two of us, we can do it.”
Shige looked up at the hint of a question in E.P.’s voice. The absolute certainty had disappeared and E.P. looked years younger suddenly. He felt his stomach suddenly rise into his throat at what they risked losing - the entire world as they knew it - and he couldn’t blame him for needing reassurance. “Definitely,” he replied as confidently as he could and E.P.’s smile was blinding. He had a feeling he wasn’t going to be sleeping any time in the near future.
E.P. rubbed his face and sighed. “Okay. We have to leave in five hours. The best way to do it would be to split up and meet back together in another city. They’re going to be looking for the both of you together, not separately -“
Koyama cut him off firmly. “No. There’s no way Shige could deal with those guys alone.”
“Your faith in me is staggering,” he said wryly.
“He wouldn’t be alone. I’d send my partner with him.”
“No. We go together. Them’s the rules.”
Shige smiled at the phrase. Anyway, E.P. would have gone with Koyama and Shige didn’t want them within ten feet of each other if he could help it, let alone without him around.
E.P. sighed. “Fine, fine. We’ll do it the hard way.”
And that’s how he found himself seething in an artfully ripped, skin-tight number, hair messy and hanging in his face, next to E.P.’s smiley, and apparently color-blind, partner, while E.P. was latched onto a brassy-blond Koyama and smiling charmingly at the customs officer of the Frankfurt International Airport, three hundred miles from Munich.
“Business or pleasure?” the officer asked.
Tegoshi’s lips curled up and his eyes narrowed a bit as he flicked them toward Koyama. “Pleasure, definitely,” he drawled.
Shige was only slightly appeased to see the nervous tick start in Koyama’s cheek, just barely hidden by his plastered-on bored face.
Masuda, E.P.’s partner, took one look at Shige’s face and hurried up to the officer, smoothing out a piece of paper and handing it to him. “Business. The itinerary. We’re doing some filming for his next simstim in New York City. You have heard of Tegoshi Yuya,” Masuda asked suspiciously, like it was a crime not to have.
“No, of course,” the man replied quickly. “Chronological Order. I own it.”
Masuda smiled suddenly and it was like the sun had come out. “Of course.”
Tegoshi signed a business card and handed it over to the man happily. “Thank you!”
And there had been no more questions, not even about Koyama’s fingertip blades.
Shige worked the code over during the 16-hour flight to New York City, Koyama tugging the laptop off his lap when he could barely keep his eyes open any longer, and E.P. would take over for a while. E.P.’s partner was on the other side of Shige and he stayed pretty quiet for the most part, respecting that Shige was working hard and only talking to offer him snacks to keep up his energy. In the last hour of the flight they were both awake, Shige’s fingers flying across the keyboard while E.P. watched.
“Shige’s really good at this,” he said quietly, leaning against Shige’s shoulder.
E.P. totally had no sense of personal space. So much for cowboys having anti-social tendencies. He really wished the guy would develop a couple. Then the captain was calling for all electronic devices to be turned off and Shige powered down the laptop and wearily pinched the bridge of his nose.
They kept a less-than-low profile once they were in New York City, E.P., or Tegoshi, he guessed, posing for pictures with his ‘boyfriend’ and signing autographs.
“They don’t know anything about me,” Tegoshi replied nonchalantly when Shige hissed at him in the bathroom of the airport. “If I don’t act like I’m hiding anything, there’s nothing to worry about. Besides, with that visor on and his hair that color, he barely even looks like himself.”
Koyama was wearing shoe inserts and shoes that added a several inches to his height, and his visor was made to seem as though it was surgically embedded into his skin. Shige sadly noted that it was true. When he looked into the mirror, kohl-rimmed eyes looked back and he thought he barely looked like himself either. Which he guessed was the point. But he didn’t have to like it. He adjusted himself. Men weren’t meant to wear pants this tight. He glared at Tegoshi’s back as he walked out ahead of him.
When they got to the hotel, there was another argument. “There is no way I’m letting you stay with Koyama.”
Tegoshi looked at him with innocent eyes from where he was reclining on the bed. “But Shige, he’s my boyfriend. Wouldn’t it look weird for my boyfriend to be sleeping with my tech guy? I’m not about to be cuckolded,” he said with a grin.
“Shige…”
Shige turned to look at Koyama. He had his hands on his narrow hips, an eyebrow raised, and an incredulous look Shige knew meant, “Do you really think I’m going to let anything happen?” He felt a bit sheepish.
“All right,” he said, throwing his hands up in defeat. “All right. But Masuda better not snore. I only put up with Koyama’s because I like him.”
Masuda looked hurt and Koyama just looked amused.
In the morning he woke up cold, alone, and utterly disoriented. He hadn’t slept alone in years. He was suddenly really grumpy and slammed around the room until Masuda poked his head out from the bathroom questioningly.
“Kato-san?”
Shige snorted. At least the man tried to be polite, and then he felt a little bad.
“Sorry. Just disoriented. Jet-lag,” he finished lamely, but the man brightened considerably.
“They have a great breakfast bar downstairs. I’ll come with you. I kind of want more waffles…” Masuda looked at the floor and curled his toes into the carpet.
He was strangely charmed and found himself dressing quickly, not bothering to do anything at all with his hair. He was still a bit irritated about the eyeliner from yesterday - passive-aggressive hairstyling for the win. He purposefully did not knock on Koyama and Tegoshi’s door but it turned out he didn’t have to because they were both already downstairs, talking animatedly over mugs of steaming coffee. Koyama smiled at Shige when he sat down with his plate of food but turned back to Tegoshi right away. Keeping up appearances. Shige sighed.
Koyama quickly finished his coffee and went upstairs with Masuda and the man’s plate of waffles leaving Tegoshi and Shige to talk.
“I spoke to a couple people a few hours ago and we think we’ve found our guy,” Tegoshi said quietly with a bored face, buffing his nails on his shirt and looking at them.
Shige struggled to keep the shock off his face. Like they were just talking business. “So soon?”
Then Tegoshi smiled, a self-satisfied smirk and Shige crinkled his nose at him. Shige spent the majority of the day working on the code while Tegoshi and Koyama went out to see the sights, leaving Masuda to play guard. The man spent a lot of time on the ‘net though.
“What are you doing?” Shige asked him without looking up.
“Oh, keeping my fingers in the mix,” and Shige had looked up in surprise at the sly undertones in his voice. Unexpected.
“What exactly do you do?”
“I’m Tegoshi’s agent.”
“In which career?”
Masuda looked up with a guileless face, “Simstims, of course.”
Shige didn’t buy it. But whatever. He had a job to do. Masuda acted as gopher and Shige was able to completely lose himself in the coding and he admitted to himself as he slogged his way through that he had rather missed this aspect. Most cowboys were in it for the thrill of the ride, like Tegoshi he was sure. He, however, was more of a coder at heart, and preferred building the structures, placing each piece perfectly and fitting it in like a puzzle and the most satisfying part for him was when he finally ran the program and it went smooth as silk. He was actually a little disappointed when Masuda tapped him on the shoulder and he removed his goggles to see that night had fallen and it was time to film.
He was tired, his mind worn from the programming, the intense problem-solving skills needed for both the anti-virus and the larger problem at hand. He squeezed back into his tight jeans with a sigh, feeling overexposed as the rips let the air breeze across skin that hadn’t even seen outside light since he had gone streaking on a dare in high school. He let Masuda apply his makeup skillfully and primp his hair a little, and when he looked in the mirror he almost wanted to ask ‘how much.’ He was, he thought, justifiably grumpy.
Chapter 5
Group/Pairings: NewS. Pairings: Koyama/Shige, Massu/Yamapi
Rating: R
Warnings: Violence, cursing, sexual implications.
Words: 3,750
Summary: First try: "The fate of the world as they know it rests in the hands of one Kato Shigeaki. Oh shit." Possibly more coherent try (though it sounds like a lame old-school sci fi jacket blurb): The A.I. guarding cyberspace is forced to choose between eternal imprisonment and self-destruction. With the fate of the world resting in their hands, they must race against time to give her a third option before it's too late.
Prologue - Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Epilogue
---
Chapter 4 -100
Shige connected to the lab’s wi-fi on a self-encrypted line, E.P. looking approvingly at his handiwork, and video-phoned Jansen.
“Kato,” Jansen greeted him blandly.
“Jansen, we’ve run into trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Japanese and Russian mafia trouble. Jansen, I’m not complaining, because you paid me for a job and I’m doing it, but we’re not going to be able to make it to the next location on time. My partner got shredded and he needs at least another day to recover. We’re safe for now, but we’re not going to be able to fly out like no big deal. They know we’re here.”
Jansen looked at him blankly for a minute. Shige shifted uncomfortably, feeling something niggling at the back of his brain. Then the man blinked.
“All right. One day. Then you move again.”
“All of today and all of tomorrow. We’ll leave the next morning,” he countered.
“Fine,” and Jansen cut the line.
Shige sat staring at the dead screen for a moment before shutting his laptop down and closing it. “There’s something wrong,” he said. “Did you see his face when I said we’d been found by the mafias? He looked… pleased. Just for a second.”
Koyama was resting his cheek on his hand, body twisted just enough that he could watch Shige, and Shige looked up at him for a moment.
“How many couriers, Shige?” E.P. asked, and Shige felt like he’d been punched in the stomach at the use of his name so informally from this man. He glared at E.P. but he just looked back expectantly.
“What do you mean? It’s just me. Using more than one courier is a waste of money - an exorbitant fee.”
“And yet, he looked pleased that you’d been found out.”
“He didn’t fight very hard over his ‘condition’ that I not be involved despite his concern that our partnership was too well-known,” Koyama said thoughtfully. “And he wasn’t concerned about the extra money he’d promised with the condition. He gave it to you anyway, didn’t he?”
E.P. looked at Shige. “You’re a decoy. There’s another courier,” he said confidently. “Whatever it is that you’re carrying, it’s important. And they don’t care if they lose you as long as you make them chase you long enough for the other courier to get through. That’s why he didn’t argue the time delay but also insisted that it not be too long. He needs them on your trail again, or they might find the other.”
“Shige…” Koyama looked at him worriedly. “Maybe it’s time to break client confidence…”
“Do you know how hard hacking into my drive is? Nearly impossible. It’s designed to be impossible to hack.”
E.P. looked like he’d just had his birthday and Christmas all rolled into one. “I’ve always wanted to try this,” he breathed.
“Can it hurt you, Shige?” Koyama asked quickly.
“No-o. Not as such. If we set off the security, it will just destroy the file. And I’ll have to get the drive pulled within 48 hours but other than that, no.”
E.P grinned. “I’m glad I brought my deck.”
As though E.P.’d have gone anywhere without it. He snorted. He was kind of huffy about the decision being made for him, but, then, he’d always liked a challenge, too, and if E.P. was around, he couldn’t think of a better duo for the attempt.
Shige set up an impromptu desk next to Koyama’s bed and E.P. used the other side, their decks practically touching each other, and Tegoshi connected the two physically while Shige plugged his own deck into his drive. They settled into their seats, stretching and prepping themselves for a minute while everything loaded. They didn’t have to jack in to do what they were about to, just a simple check first, and they definitely wouldn’t be connecting with cyberspace, but they both felt more comfortable working in the three dimensional world achieved by fully immersing themselves into their systems, so they attached the gelled electrodes and put their goggles on. After a second, E.P. said, “go” and he flipped to his drive and they both stared.
They faced a wall of ice so complex it glittered, light refracting from the depths of the shadows, and Shige could hear E.P. breathe a sigh of awe.
“I’ve never actually seen anything like this before,” he said. “It’s so… pretty.”
Shige snorted. They jumped forward about half the distance and moved around the diameter, examining. “What do you think?” he asked.
“I think this ought to be fun,” E.P. replied and Shige wanted to smack him.
“It can’t hurt me. But if the file is destroyed and we’re wrong and I can’t deliver it and I lose my drive, I’m in serious trouble. I don’t want ‘fun’ associated with this run.”
He heard E.P. removing his goggles so he did the same and found the man looking at him seriously. “I always have fun, or what’s the point,” he replied, and reached for his bag.
Shige replaced his goggles and went back to studying the problem. “I don’t have anything I can adapt to this,” he said slowly. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it, either.”
When E.P. spoke next, he sounded smug. “I think I have something,” and loaded up a program.
Shige took one look at it and whistled. “You did this?”
“Yeah.”
He studied it. “Good, it’s excellent. But this is going to have to go,” he said, pointing at a piece of coding. “And this needs to be changed here.” He tweaked a few 0’s and 1’s, E.P. arguing points with him, and he felt a bit nostalgic. It had been a while since they’d last worked together.
There could be no trial run so they spent the next few hours speaking hypothetically and Koyama fell asleep on them. In the end, it took them ten grueling hours, and twice as many cups of coffee, to come up with a final virus they both felt would work. Shige was just grateful E.P. had had something to start from.
Shige unhooked himself and removed his goggles and stood, rubbing his face vigorously. He looked down at Koyama and gently placed a hand on the top of his head. Then he looked at Tegoshi. “We’ll eat, and then we’ll run. All right?”
E.P. spoke to the medic who left and when he came back he had a couple steaming plates with bratwurst and potato dumplings. Nothing fancy and not his favorite, but it was food. He gave Koyama a bite just to watch his face crinkle in disgust.
When they sat back down, he was feeling refreshed and ready for the challenge to be completed. They jacked in and loaded the finished virus. He flipped to his drive and they let it go, watching carefully as it worked.
It was tedious sitting and watching it work and Shige fought off sleep until E.P. told him to take a nap.
“I’m still awake, so we’ll take turns.”
Shige couldn’t figure out where the man got all the energy. When he woke up two hours later, Koyama was sitting up and watching E.P. He slid off the bed with a jaw-cracking yawn, careful not to jog the wire attached to his drive, and padded up to gently set his chin on Koyama’s shoulder. “Good morning,” he whispered hoarsely. Koyama giggled quietly. “How’re you doing?”
“Good,” Koyama whispered. “George, the medic, said it’s almost healed.”
Shige never thought to ask names, Koyama always did. Shige nuzzled his cheek sleepily.
“Why’re you watching him?”
“Hm… he looks familiar but I can’t place him.”
Shige shrugged and straightened, walking to the edge of the bed to call and see if George had any coffee ready. He was in luck - George brought him a mug and he wrapped sleep-weak fingers around the cup and carried it to the desk in both hands. “My turn,” he told E.P. as he slipped into his chair. “Anything strange?”
“Nope,” E.P. said. “Wake me in two.”
Shige grunted. Ten minutes later he was already nodding. Three hours later he and E.P. watched the virus break through the last wall of ice and suddenly they were in, surrounded by bright towers of data that represented his payload. Shige grinned, pulling off his goggles to look at E.P. who’d removed his as well to reveal twinkling eyes. Goggling back in and examining the towers seemed pretty anti-climactic. Not that Shige had been really hoping for any excitement during the hack - it was his ass on the line. He’d always been a theoretical man, himself, less into the actual run than in the theory behind it. It was why he and E.P. made such a great team - E.P. thrived on the challenge of the here and now while Shige’s analytical mind provided the base. But then they figured out what the data was and Shige wanted to run.
“Is this…” He was afraid to put it into words.
They pulled back and examined it from farther away but he couldn’t figure out anything else it could be.
“This would completely melt the system,” E.P. breathed in awe.
“Don’t!” Shige admonished. “This is cyberspace we’re talking about. The entire world would shut down.”
“It would have to be initiated from within the system administration core, though,” E.P. said musingly. “There’s no way to hack the system.”
“So they put it in by hand.”
“The A.I. running cyberspace would never let it through. It would be akin to suicide.”
“Who would even want to kill the ‘net?”
“The non-mods, maybe.”
Suddenly Shige remembered the beautiful and aggressively unmodified receptionist. “Shit.” He quickly filled E.P. in on that part.
“Ah. If it really is them, we’ll have trouble.”
“You’re telling me. How the hell are we going to figure out who the other courier is? And we only have half a day left before we have to get to the airport.”
Shige groaned. He just wanted to sleep, damnit. “What about the mafia? What’s the deal with them?”
Tegoshi shrugged. “They want the information first. If they can get the virus, they can either use the virus as a threat to get what they want, or they can create an anti-virus and use it as a bargaining tool. I’m sure Stat Com would be interested in that. It would be worth quite a bit.”
"Ah!" Koyama said suddenly. "I remembered! He's Tegoshi Yuya! He does those gritty underground simstims the media keeps going on about lately!"
Shige pushed the goggles on top of his head and turned to stare at Koyama. "...Read the atmosphere will you?"
Koyama had the grace to look sheepish.
“Well, we ultimately know where he’s going,” Shige offered. “That should give us a start. The problem is that they’ll be looking for us there and when we do show up, Jansen will know we know.”
“But the transfer could occur at any time. We don’t know it will just be straight. We still need to figure out who and where he is so we can be sure.”
Shige dropped his head into his hands with a groan. “How can we even know there’s just one other courier?” His words were muffled and he sat up again. “There could be hundreds.”
Tegoshi raised an eyebrow at him. “Now you’re just being silly, Shige.”
“Why don’t we just call Stat Com and tell them what we’ve found?” Shige asked.
“Yeah, because they’ll believe us. You must know how many threats they get on a regular basis.”
“What if we sent them the virus?” he asked dubiously.
“What, so some numbnuts can take it and implement it? No.”
“I still think they should be warned,” Shige said with a frown.
Tegoshi waved his hand. “Fine, go on. It’s no skin off my nose.”
Shige glared at him but rigged up an anonymous call to Stat Com, transferring as high up the chain as he could get before very calmly explaining the situation, Tegoshi watching him interestedly. A pause. “I don’t think you understand the situation, sir.” Shige frowns. “No, this is not a threat. I’m telling you that the information exists and that someone is trying to get it into the system… Yes, I do understand how improbable it seems… No… Look, I’m just trying to save the universe as we know it… no I do not think I am some sort of superhero you…” He jerked away from the phone and glowered at it. “That asshole hung up on me.”
Tegoshi sniffed and scratched his nose, pointedly looking anywhere but Shige.
“Go on,” Shige muttered.
“What?” Tegoshi asked innocently.
“I know you want to.”
“Shige was just trying to help save the universe as we know it,” he said sweetly. “Who can fault him for trying?”
“Say it,” Shige growled, “or you’ll be lording it over me for days.”
Tegoshi laughed for a moment and once he’d quieted down he looked at Shige with an impish grin. “I told you so.”
“Jerk,” Shige replied gruffly and Tegoshi laughed so hard he snorted.
“What about an anti-virus,” Koyama asked slowly once they’d both calmed down. They turned to look at him and he colored. “Is it too difficult?”
“It’s not that it’s necessarily too difficult…” Shige trailed off.
“It’s the time factor. We don’t know how much we have. But I think it’s something we should start working on. I’ll call in some favors and see if I can get our guy tracked down while you and I work on the code. With the two of us, we can do it.”
Shige looked up at the hint of a question in E.P.’s voice. The absolute certainty had disappeared and E.P. looked years younger suddenly. He felt his stomach suddenly rise into his throat at what they risked losing - the entire world as they knew it - and he couldn’t blame him for needing reassurance. “Definitely,” he replied as confidently as he could and E.P.’s smile was blinding. He had a feeling he wasn’t going to be sleeping any time in the near future.
E.P. rubbed his face and sighed. “Okay. We have to leave in five hours. The best way to do it would be to split up and meet back together in another city. They’re going to be looking for the both of you together, not separately -“
Koyama cut him off firmly. “No. There’s no way Shige could deal with those guys alone.”
“Your faith in me is staggering,” he said wryly.
“He wouldn’t be alone. I’d send my partner with him.”
“No. We go together. Them’s the rules.”
Shige smiled at the phrase. Anyway, E.P. would have gone with Koyama and Shige didn’t want them within ten feet of each other if he could help it, let alone without him around.
E.P. sighed. “Fine, fine. We’ll do it the hard way.”
And that’s how he found himself seething in an artfully ripped, skin-tight number, hair messy and hanging in his face, next to E.P.’s smiley, and apparently color-blind, partner, while E.P. was latched onto a brassy-blond Koyama and smiling charmingly at the customs officer of the Frankfurt International Airport, three hundred miles from Munich.
“Business or pleasure?” the officer asked.
Tegoshi’s lips curled up and his eyes narrowed a bit as he flicked them toward Koyama. “Pleasure, definitely,” he drawled.
Shige was only slightly appeased to see the nervous tick start in Koyama’s cheek, just barely hidden by his plastered-on bored face.
Masuda, E.P.’s partner, took one look at Shige’s face and hurried up to the officer, smoothing out a piece of paper and handing it to him. “Business. The itinerary. We’re doing some filming for his next simstim in New York City. You have heard of Tegoshi Yuya,” Masuda asked suspiciously, like it was a crime not to have.
“No, of course,” the man replied quickly. “Chronological Order. I own it.”
Masuda smiled suddenly and it was like the sun had come out. “Of course.”
Tegoshi signed a business card and handed it over to the man happily. “Thank you!”
And there had been no more questions, not even about Koyama’s fingertip blades.
Shige worked the code over during the 16-hour flight to New York City, Koyama tugging the laptop off his lap when he could barely keep his eyes open any longer, and E.P. would take over for a while. E.P.’s partner was on the other side of Shige and he stayed pretty quiet for the most part, respecting that Shige was working hard and only talking to offer him snacks to keep up his energy. In the last hour of the flight they were both awake, Shige’s fingers flying across the keyboard while E.P. watched.
“Shige’s really good at this,” he said quietly, leaning against Shige’s shoulder.
E.P. totally had no sense of personal space. So much for cowboys having anti-social tendencies. He really wished the guy would develop a couple. Then the captain was calling for all electronic devices to be turned off and Shige powered down the laptop and wearily pinched the bridge of his nose.
They kept a less-than-low profile once they were in New York City, E.P., or Tegoshi, he guessed, posing for pictures with his ‘boyfriend’ and signing autographs.
“They don’t know anything about me,” Tegoshi replied nonchalantly when Shige hissed at him in the bathroom of the airport. “If I don’t act like I’m hiding anything, there’s nothing to worry about. Besides, with that visor on and his hair that color, he barely even looks like himself.”
Koyama was wearing shoe inserts and shoes that added a several inches to his height, and his visor was made to seem as though it was surgically embedded into his skin. Shige sadly noted that it was true. When he looked into the mirror, kohl-rimmed eyes looked back and he thought he barely looked like himself either. Which he guessed was the point. But he didn’t have to like it. He adjusted himself. Men weren’t meant to wear pants this tight. He glared at Tegoshi’s back as he walked out ahead of him.
When they got to the hotel, there was another argument. “There is no way I’m letting you stay with Koyama.”
Tegoshi looked at him with innocent eyes from where he was reclining on the bed. “But Shige, he’s my boyfriend. Wouldn’t it look weird for my boyfriend to be sleeping with my tech guy? I’m not about to be cuckolded,” he said with a grin.
“Shige…”
Shige turned to look at Koyama. He had his hands on his narrow hips, an eyebrow raised, and an incredulous look Shige knew meant, “Do you really think I’m going to let anything happen?” He felt a bit sheepish.
“All right,” he said, throwing his hands up in defeat. “All right. But Masuda better not snore. I only put up with Koyama’s because I like him.”
Masuda looked hurt and Koyama just looked amused.
In the morning he woke up cold, alone, and utterly disoriented. He hadn’t slept alone in years. He was suddenly really grumpy and slammed around the room until Masuda poked his head out from the bathroom questioningly.
“Kato-san?”
Shige snorted. At least the man tried to be polite, and then he felt a little bad.
“Sorry. Just disoriented. Jet-lag,” he finished lamely, but the man brightened considerably.
“They have a great breakfast bar downstairs. I’ll come with you. I kind of want more waffles…” Masuda looked at the floor and curled his toes into the carpet.
He was strangely charmed and found himself dressing quickly, not bothering to do anything at all with his hair. He was still a bit irritated about the eyeliner from yesterday - passive-aggressive hairstyling for the win. He purposefully did not knock on Koyama and Tegoshi’s door but it turned out he didn’t have to because they were both already downstairs, talking animatedly over mugs of steaming coffee. Koyama smiled at Shige when he sat down with his plate of food but turned back to Tegoshi right away. Keeping up appearances. Shige sighed.
Koyama quickly finished his coffee and went upstairs with Masuda and the man’s plate of waffles leaving Tegoshi and Shige to talk.
“I spoke to a couple people a few hours ago and we think we’ve found our guy,” Tegoshi said quietly with a bored face, buffing his nails on his shirt and looking at them.
Shige struggled to keep the shock off his face. Like they were just talking business. “So soon?”
Then Tegoshi smiled, a self-satisfied smirk and Shige crinkled his nose at him. Shige spent the majority of the day working on the code while Tegoshi and Koyama went out to see the sights, leaving Masuda to play guard. The man spent a lot of time on the ‘net though.
“What are you doing?” Shige asked him without looking up.
“Oh, keeping my fingers in the mix,” and Shige had looked up in surprise at the sly undertones in his voice. Unexpected.
“What exactly do you do?”
“I’m Tegoshi’s agent.”
“In which career?”
Masuda looked up with a guileless face, “Simstims, of course.”
Shige didn’t buy it. But whatever. He had a job to do. Masuda acted as gopher and Shige was able to completely lose himself in the coding and he admitted to himself as he slogged his way through that he had rather missed this aspect. Most cowboys were in it for the thrill of the ride, like Tegoshi he was sure. He, however, was more of a coder at heart, and preferred building the structures, placing each piece perfectly and fitting it in like a puzzle and the most satisfying part for him was when he finally ran the program and it went smooth as silk. He was actually a little disappointed when Masuda tapped him on the shoulder and he removed his goggles to see that night had fallen and it was time to film.
He was tired, his mind worn from the programming, the intense problem-solving skills needed for both the anti-virus and the larger problem at hand. He squeezed back into his tight jeans with a sigh, feeling overexposed as the rips let the air breeze across skin that hadn’t even seen outside light since he had gone streaking on a dare in high school. He let Masuda apply his makeup skillfully and primp his hair a little, and when he looked in the mirror he almost wanted to ask ‘how much.’ He was, he thought, justifiably grumpy.
Chapter 5