bunnyfic 21, 22
So. 30k after the conceptualisation of the Watchtower character/s, I finally kind of realise how, uh. Howtosay... creepy-and-borderline-MPD Yokoo is? LOL. 8D Oops. I guess it'll depend on how much sentience Iida has as an AI, or uhm. Whether or not Iida had a hand in programming his own ...uh-- self? Or if it was just Yokoo, or. Um. Hm... *fizzle*
A mixed bag: Y00, I14. T65, 44-R. 74-M.
( 21: friendly fire )
The captain's jaw dropped as both 53-N and the kid's errant friend collapsed to the floor in a pile of limbs and puppy fat, dead unconscious for no apparent reason. Within seconds, the pair's avatars faded from sight.
The captain hadn't given an order to fire -- he was a bit of a fan of drama, and timing in these things was everything. Now he'd have to write up an incident report about failing to capture the two boys' consciousnesses (one of Takizawa's, even!), which also meant that he'd miss out on the bonus for it, and also, he'd have to go order one of those meat-headed real world chasers to fetch the errant's body before the kid woke up...
What a complete and utter mess. And whose fault was it?
"44-R!" he snapped, rounding on his trainee archer for the error.
"I didn't do it, Captain!" 44-R said, eyes wide, his two slave avatars dissolving in his distress. He'd messed up his captain's orders once and only once before -- the man was nasty when aesthetics weren't served to perfection.
The captain folded his arms, a mighty scowl on his face. "Then what!" he growled angrily.
His question -- whether it had been rhetorical or not -- was answered before the trainee could muster a reply when the air above 53-N and the errant kid's vanishing spot shimmered as if on a very hot day. And a pair of tall figures materialised within the haze.
The captain and archer both stared in disbelief. The scenario had been firmly locked, to the best of their knowledge -- nobody should have been able to enter it. Quickly, the archer scrambled to re-notch his arrow and draw at the pair but the young yew of his bow refused to bend, suddenly as frozen as the scenario around them. He held the useless weapon at a loss for a moment before brandishing the arrow alone as if it could save him.
The captain, for his part, decided that he'd be having words with tech support when he got out of this wretched place -- but first, it seemed as if this mysterious duo would like to have words with him. He figured he might as well get the first line in and cleared his throat, demanding curtly: "Who are you?"
One of the pair was slimmer, his hair longer and more styled -- not quite delicate, but certainly not masculine either. The other had dark, ageless eyes that almost seemed empty beneath their calm.
Both were dressed in varying styles of the same spotless white, and both bowed at the waist to the government agents, expressing a wordless respect. But the slimmer one straightened first, and was the one to speak. "My digital designation is Y00," he said in formal answer to the captain's question. He gestured first to himself, then to his partner. "This is I14. We come as representatives of the house of Hideaki Takizawa."
At the mention of their employer's name, I14 made a demure gesture in the air with his hands and a small fire flower erupted in the space between them, blazing briefly with the Takizawa seal.
The captain's eyes widened in recognition; he'd seen the emblem a handful of times before, stamped in wax on private correspondence to the Prince. "I am T65," he said. "And this is my subordinate, 44-R." Cued, the archer lowered his arrow. The captain nodded. "What do you want?"
Y00 smiled an easy smile, displaying uniquely crooked teeth. "Merely the chance to deeply apologise for the trouble our juniors have caused you tonight." I14 gave a silent laugh at that. Y00 bowed again, elegant, still smiling himself. "Please rest assured that they will both be disciplined appropriately."
The captain felt ever so slightly creeped out by the silence of the I14 figure. He kept his gaze resolutely on Y00 as he spoke. "Very well. I appreciate your... cooperation in this matter," he said, unsure and wary about it. Had the errant kid actually been a protected pre-registrant, then? These two seemed like bona fide employees of Takizawa. How could such a thing be checked, though? Discreetly, he began running a search on their contacts.
"Ah, not at all," Y00 chuckled. "We are the ones who truly appreciate yours..." He glanced aside as I14 made a rolling gesture with his right hand. Then turned back to the captain. "If you see it fit, and it is within your power to do so, you may also wish to recall the retrieval officer that has just been dispatched after our 21-K," he added and, strangely, glanced up into the foliage of a nearby tree, though the captain did not know what he could possibly be looking at. "We will be collecting the boy on the hour. There is no need to find yourselves troubled for the matter."
:::
Tamamori started in shock as Y00 looked straight in his direction -- at him -- for a moment, through the dark and leaves and Tamamori's own deliberately low profile. He was surprised -- but then again, on the other hand he wasn't surprised at all.
When Senga and Nikaido had suddenly been forcibly disconnected before anything else happened, Tamamori's heart had sunk. He'd watched with little more than a detached curiosity as the two codesmen -- the one codesman, technically, just Y00 -- had a entered the scenario. They were a powerful unit, the haze surrounding their back door acting as some sort of scrambler except worse, rendering them untraceable... he'd been absently copying the code as he scanned it, for picking apart later. It was succinct, elegant script...
But then Y00 had introduced the mute one, I14, and then the pair'd suddenly had Tamamori's full attention again.
I14 had been the one who'd traded Tamamori his own scrambler, ages ago. But... the other hadn't been a slave avatar then, Tamamori was pretty sure. Actually, he hadn't been much more than a disembodied voice floating in a black room, but that wasn't the point. Now, it seemed like he wasn't even talking. What was up with that?
'We will be collecting the boy on the hour...'
Tamamori checked his chrono. Soon, sort of. The hour was approaching. And Y00-I14 were preparing to leave.
"With respect, I advise you to run a second, more thorough check," Y00 was saying, an open palmed gesture indicating the scroll that was tucked into the archer's belt. "21-K was officially one of ours for several hours prior to this, and I assure you that his paperwork sits with the others'. The records do not lie."
The archer looked terrified. The captain looked dubious, and said as much: "Then I'll take your word for it. For now." Tamamori smiled to himself. The man was going to search. But no matter how much he suspected a hack, the codework was probably going to be smooth enough that he'd never be able to get enough evidence out of the archives to support it.
"では、お願いします." Y00 bowed a third time. "If we have no further business to conduct...?" Despite his formal politeness, it was clear who was holding court with whom. The fact kept Tamamori amused.
"Nothing more." The captain's countenance stormed over. "But mark my words, I'll be tracking your boss down and calling him up if your story doesn't hold water."
"Oh," Y00 grinned, breaking the respectful act for a moment. "No need for such crude sequence tag. Here." He reached into the breast pocket of his shirt, withdrawing a crisp business card as white as his clothing. And held it out by the top corners with both hands. "This contact sequence will never go unanswered. Please feel free to call upon us any time at your leisure, Captain T65."
The captain showed only the slightest hesitation, before jerking his head at the card, glaring at his rookie to cover the lapse. "Note the sequence."
The rookie's eyes widened. "Yes, Sir!" he said, stepping over with stiff uncertainty. But the card didn't explode in his hands when he took it, and Y00 just smiled. 44-R hurried back anyway.
"Any time," Y00 said again, before the shimmering heat haze rose up to engulf him and I14 and they faded from view, returning the forest to its dark and frozen state.
"...are you sure you didn't miss that errant boy's paperwork, 44-R?" the captain asked cloudily.
"I-- Sir, if it was there, t-then I didn't see it," the archer stammered. "By the way, the contact sequence on the card seems to be valid."
"I didn't ask about that," the captain grumbled. "Did you trace them to their location? We'll want to keep tabs on that."
"I couldn't," the archer said. "I mean-- I mean that it wasn't possible," he amended quickly when his captain glared daggers. "They had routers and a really strong firewall and some kind of program that... What in the--?"
A sheet of paper materialised on the ground. [ IT'S CALLED A SCRAMBLER ], it read. Above them unnoticed, Tamamori stood upon the branch he was sitting in and stretched out the tension his back. He pointedly did not leave his tree to face the two government agents. Just because they were inept didn't mean he wanted anything to do with them.
"Now who the hell are you?" the captain asked the sheet of paper, irritated.
The black letters on the sheet of paper swam for a moment, reforming: [ IRRELEVANT ]
The captain crossed his arms. "Irrelevant my foot. Trace him, 44-R."
[ DON'T BOTHER ], Tamamori's paper changed again to read. And then: [ I JUST WANTED TO SAY THAT THE BUNNY AND THE BOY WERE MY PREY ] And thirdly: [ IRRITATING PRICK ]
"Oh, you're all bold when the words don't have to come out of your mouth aren't you, hacker?" the captain glared. "Or when you don't have to show yourself! Face us like a man!"
[ AM I MALE? ♥ ], the sheet of paper asked, just for the hell of it.
"What the -- no way," the archer stared.
[ MAYBE I'M JUST SHY ], the sheet added. But turned derisive the next instant: [ OR MAYBE YOU'RE JUST NOT WORTH THE EFFORT ] With that, up in the tree, the fox shimmered and disappeared from the scenario.
"Show yourself, bastard!" the captain roared, before turning from the forest at large to glare once again at his subordinate. "Trace him, 44-R!"
"...can you hear that, Sir?" 44-R asked instead. Unnoticed, the paper left behind on the floor reformed into [ ♥ ].
"Hear what?" the captain snapped. "The scenario's frozen. I don't hear anything."
"There's... a funny whistling," the archer said. "It's getting louder. I think we should get out of here."
"You're imagining it," the captain told him primly. "Trace that bastard or I'm going to write you up for insubordination when we get back to the office."
"I'll be waiting when you wake up, Sir," the archer said, wide eyed. Quickly, scenario unfroze and he disappeared.
"44-R!" the captain shouted, amid the rustling of leaves again. "44-R!"
But he wasn't shouting anything anymore a second later when a miniature A-bomb fell on his head, his angry virtual particles spread far apart through the thick fog of a rising mushroom cloud.
Assorted boiled sweets: K17, T41. 74-M, 21-K.
( 22: some things unexpected )
"What a funny guy," Iida chuckled, talking to the empty room. "A nuclear bomb of all things, and a fairly accurate imitation blast, too." More often, it was Fujigaya's 53-N or Kitayama's 21-K who provided the inadvertent amusement -- the things they said and did were at times unbelievable; however, 74-M occasionally slipped under the radar with something killer. Like this.
With a quiet ping, Yokoo entered the whiteroom, coming in from the briefing room scenario where he'd gone directly after leaving the forest. "Status update?" he asked, and tossed a nondescript black top hat aside. It disappeared before it hit the floor.
"Several hundred square kilometres of forest razed," Iida reported, calmly tongue in cheek.
Yokoo raised an eyebrow, taking a seat in thin air. "Meaning...?"
Iida chuckled. "74-M merely dropped a nuke on the captain's head after you left. Kitayama and Fujigaya are off, now?"
"With satellite maps downloaded onto their netgear and everything," Yokoo said. "As well as flashing dotted lines to follow."
"They're not as bad with directions as some, you know," Iida laughed. Yokoo tended to be on the paranoid side of prepared though.
"You can never be too careful," Yokoo smiled primly, "especially when a life is on the line."
Iida gave the impression of shaking his head. "What would they do without you, Wataru~"
"Hm. I wonder," Yokoo said. He settled back in an invisible chair, leaning back and tucking his hands behind his head. Before adding eventually: "...they've returned alive every time so far, though. Which is something, I suppose."
Iida said nothing to that for a while. He busied his processors with menial tasks, terminating the recording function now that the dust had settled on the A-bombed forest scenario, and archiving a few instance reports. It wasn't enough to occupy him for more than a few nanoseconds though. And so he turned to thinking about what he was supposed to say.
Which, ironically, took far longer to process.
"...do you miss it, Wataru?" he asked eventually into the silence.
"Miss what?" Yokoo asked back.
Iida didn't hesitate in his clarification, having already decided to ask in the first place: "Flying."
Yokoo half rolled, half flopped over onto his side, as if in bed now. "Of course I do," he answered.
Of course. Iida should not have thought otherwise. "I'm sorry," he said.
"Idiot," Yokoo chuckled. "It's not a sacrifice if you don't miss what you give up. It's just tossing excess baggage, in that case."
"I suppose," Iida allowed.
"Believe me when I say I'm right about this," Yokoo told him with typical aplomb. "What really matters is that, even if you still want what you give up, you don't regret leaving it behind."
Iida cycled that around his memory a few times. It worked alright.
"...when you die," he told Yokoo at last, "I want your logic circuits installed in here with me."
"Pfft," Yokoo sniffed. "Everyone wants a piece of me."
"'Everyone'?" Iida chuckled.
"Everyone and their uncle," Yokoo told him. "Just the other day, Fumito said he wanted my elbows, and Taisuke made a claim on my teeth. Said they'd make 'the funniest dentures ever', the bastard. As if I wouldn't outlive him."
"You'd do it just out of spite," Iida agreed, "so you could collect his teeth instead, wouldn't you?" He tried to imagine Kawai with Yokoo's arms and failed to compose any temp images that didn't approximate lanky, prehistoric-looking ape-men. Wisely, he side-stepped saying anything about that.
"Hey now," Yokoo grinned. "Stop making like I'm so old already."
"Yes, Yokoo-san~" Iida teased.
"You're as bad as the rest of them," Yokoo said, and pursed his lips on a smile.
Iida considered that. "...am I being selfish, then?" he asked, after a moment, apparently serious.
"Yes, you are," Yokoo told him anyway, without missing a beat. "Senga's need of my superior powers of logic and deduction are so much more dire than yours."
"Oh, cruel," Iida chuckled. "Don't say that... they'd be wasted on him, wouldn't they?"
"And you say I'm cruel," Yokoo grinned. "Go make yourself useful and grab me a satellite feed on the chaser dispatched after 21-K. We need to see if he's still on the predicted path."
"I have one," Iida smiled. "And he is. I unlocked the same eye you backdoored to trace 21-K's contact sequence, so it wasn't too hard."
"Efficient aren't we?" Yokoo said, amused.
Iida laughed. "We are."
:::
"Gum?" Kitayama asked, offering Fujigaya a stick from his pack as they skated through the Capital's underground. At the moment, Kitayama was trailing, but that was because Fujigaya was more the type to lead the way even when there wasn't a contest on about it. Kitayama's priorities sometimes lay elsewhere. "Here, take two."
Fujigaya beheld the offer with a dubious air. "No thanks," he said, and skated a little faster. "I'm good."
Kitayama shrugged, falling back a tad. "Less men more share."
"Enjoy your one-man jackpot," Fujigaya snorted. "What flavour did you make it this time, anyway?"
Kitayama grinned. "I'm glad you asked. This is where you find out what you're missing: egg with cabbage for one, and mayonnaise with that brown chicken sauce for the other, alternating sticks."
Fujigaya gagged. "That's disgusting. Next time you say 'take two', remind me not to ask."
"Hey, it's not bad you know," Kitayama countered, popping a pair of the chewy rectangles into his mouth. "It tastes a bit like that okonomiyaki stuff Tono took us to the pre-First Collapse capital streets to eat, once."
Fujigaya remembered that scenario. It must just have been the cabbage he'd blocked from his memory. "You mean that half omelet from the corner stall with the 105-en sign on the front of the booth, right?"
"Okonomiyaki," Kitayama nodded, "I'm pretty sure."
"That stuff was weird."
"It had an interesting texture," Kitayama allowed.
"I liked the tako balls better," Fujigaya said.
"I made some in that flavour too," Kitayama grinned, fishing another small packet of gum sticks out of a pocket. "Want some?"
"What the hell," Fujigaya said. "No thanks, Fatty."
"Chewing gum doesn't make you put on weight," Kitayama sniffed, pocketing his sticks of gum again.
"Wouldn't know it to look at you," Fujigaya grinned.
"You know, I think I feel a new kink coming on," Kitayama mused. "How does strangulation sound to you?"
"Settle for racing me to the intercept point instead," Fujigaya laughed. "I wouldn't want your hands on my neck in a million years without a witness."
"But my teeth are okay," Kitayama said. It wasn't really a question.
"Beat me and we'll see," Fujigaya taunted anyway. "From here to under the ambush point. No surface skating."
"Suit yourself," Kitayama said. "Ready when you are."
"Go."
:::
"Cheater," Kitayama accused, voice a harsh whisper.
"Just because you lost," Fujigaya whispered back.
"Just because you used to live around this area," Kitayama hissed in return.
"You should've thought about that before you accepted my challenge, shouldn't you?" Fujigaya chuckled, grinning. "Too bad for later tonight." Carefully, he lifted the grate on the drain they were currently crouched in. Above was an awning, blocking their exit point from view from the sky's eyes. Across the road slumped the body of Nikaido Takashi, in a medium sized enclave that had probably housed some kind of fire extinguishing equipment years ago, before it had either been used or stolen. Probably stolen.
"Hey, something's wrong here," Fujigaya said.
"Exposition please," Kitayama said, popping his head up alongside Fujigaya's to peer out of the drain.
Fujigaya kindly refrained from laughing at how Kitayama'd had to power up his skates again just to do so.
"There," he said instead, keeping his voice low as he pointed across to the enclave. "Two figures. But our records say there's only one Nikaido Takashi."
"I sure as hell hope there's only one," Kitayama muttered. "He's been enough trouble watching out for over the years. Though not as much as Senga, mind you," he added with a glare at Fujigaya's smirk.
"It's not the chaser that was dispatched," Fujigaya sidestepped. "We've beat even Yokoo's shortest intercept estimate by enough that it's not possible. And besides, that guy's just sitting there."
"A friend, then?" Kitayama murmured. "74-M? Yokoo did mention he was in the scenario, too. Can't see his face for that... thing. Wow, what a really ugly silver hood."
Fujigaya frowned. "Must be an ally at the very least. Little Nika's passed out but still has his skates on; anybody unfriendly would've just buggered off with them and been long gone." It being 74-M sounded like a good theory. Since he'd been in the scenario, he would have seen Nikaido and Senga's forced disconnect, too.
But there was just one thing wrong with that line of thought...
"Except," Fujigaya said, "if it's 74-M and he's making sure Nika doesn't get beaten, raped and/or left for dead, then why hasn't he moved them? He's got to know that remaining in the same access location for very long isn't intelligent if you're illegal."
Kitayama considered that point for a long moment. And the only solution he could think up to fit was that 'Tamamori' was waiting...
He glanced sidelong at Fujigaya. Who seemed to have reached the same conclusion.
"He's... waiting."
"For us."
Fujigaya shrugged. "Alright, then what are we still just sitting here for? Drains suck."
"Your priorities are messed up, Taisuke," Kitayama informed the other in a lazy drawl, no longer bothering to keep his voice down, but nevertheless helped him shove the grate aside.
Tamamori was indeed waiting. He raised his head as Fujigaya and Kitayama approached, and pushed back his hood to reveal fair skin and a face that was very... normal. If slightly effeminate about the eyes and mouth. Tamamori remained curled up in the enclave, saying nothing, looking up at the two skaters and hugging his knees as if to avoid disturbing Nikaido's liberal sprawl.
Fujigaya found himself mildly surprised, expecting Tamamori to be weirder looking. Saying nothing either, he just looked at the other for a long while as Kitayama also held an easy, expectant silence, a half smile on his face.
"I..." 74-M said eventually, "I was wondering when you were going to, um..." His voice was soft. Lightweight.
"Get out of the drain?" Fujigaya supplied.
Mutely, Tamamori nodded. He'd meant to say 'show yourselves', but the drain thing worked too...
"Because drains suck, right?" Fujigaya grinned.
Mutely, Tamamori nodded again.
"I told you so," Fujigaya told Kitayama.
"Both your priorities are messed up," Kitayama informed them. Not that he didn't agree, but dry drains were just empty pipes. It wasn't as if they were even slimy or anything. "And be nice to the kid, Taisuke. He's clearly terrified of you."
"Pfft," Fujigaya said, "just because you're small and cuddly."
Tamamori quickly shook his head. "No no no no--"
"Oh, you aren't scared of me?" Fujigaya asked, suddenly glaring down at the other just because he could.
Tamamori jittered a bit, as if unsure whether to keep shaking his head or start nodding instead.
Kitayama snorted softly. "'Should I be?' he wants to squeak. Taisuke, stop messing with him."
Fujigaya grinned. "Well, he's going to have to get used to it if he's coming with us." He glanced at Tamamori. "You are coming with us, right?"
Mutely, Tamamori nodded a third time.
"...you're not just saying that, are you?" Kitayama asked dubiously.
Tamamori shook his head, finding his voice again. And made sure to articulate himself clearly for once: "I want to meet I14. Please."
Surprised, Fujigaya glanced at Kitayama, who looked back at him with a raised brow.
"Um..." Fujigaya started. "There might be a slight problem with that..." At a loss as to how to put it nicely, he trailed off.
Kitayama took over: "Iida's kind of dead," he said bluntly. "We're sorry."
"Ah," Tamamori said, blinking.
"Your next best bet would be speaking to Wataru," Fujigaya added.
Tamamori hazarded a guess, on a roll with the talking thing. "That's Y00?" The one who'd appeared with the I14 slave avatar...
Fujigaya nodded. "He's a good guy."
"If a little anal sometimes," Kitayama added with a shrug. "But if it's all the same to you...?"
Tamamori nodded quickly. "I'll talk to him. Or you guys, even. If you all work for Mr. Hideaki Takizawa..." He took a deep breath. "I just want to help you. I want to work for him, too."
Fujigaya's eyes widened slightly. "How much do you know?"
"Taisuke," Kitayama said, tone warning.
Fujigaya checked his timer. Their chaser's ETA was less than a minute. And scrolling down at a medium trot.
"He's two buildings away," Tamamori murmured, noting Fujigaya's glance aside. "Due South South-East. Passing the further building... now. You've thirty-eight seconds."
Fujigaya narrowed his eyes at the errant hacker, before closing a hand around Tamamori's wrist. "Right. You're coming with me," he said. "Mitsu, deal with the chaser and bring 21-K back to the rendezvous--"
"As if you needed to tell me," Kitayama said.
"--if you can," Fujigaya grinned, tipping his head at Nikaido's inert form. "If you can't, then page me. It kind of looks like he's built twice the size you are."
"Not twice," Kitayama sniffed. "But even if he were, you ought to remember sometime that I can pull my own weight. And more."
"Which is saying something of course," Fujigaya chuckled, dragging Tamamori across the road as Kitayama kicked his skates into standby. "Because you're a little fudgemuffin."
"Hah," Kitayama said, rolling his eyes. "I'd be surprised if you thought I was half that sweet. Piss off already."
Fujigaya didn't need to be told twice: seconds later the drain grate was back in place, he and Tamamori on their way underground.
Kitayama kicked his heels and sprang up to the ambush point -- the empty balcony of an apartment several storeys above -- to await his prey.
It was just one chaser.
A walk in the park.
"では、お願いします." (then, if you please) Y00 bowed a third time.
1- honestly, miyata really does still exist ;; ...it's just that somehow one nighttime is stretching for like 15k and i did a stupid thing and sent him to bed angstfully early, aha. 8D;
2- PIZZAMITSU=LOL i like running jokes. >:D a lot. *abuse*
3- finally got a valid idea for ficgames! :0 OMG.. . . so tired. =∇= *.zZ*
[edit1] ...wth. xD; I've fully misplaced ~250 words from here since last night. *search*
[edit2] ...apparently it's just all the html tags. 8D *SAD*
GODDAMN HTML TAGS. 8DDD; *fail* . =/= > yo!
4- 4k left, somehow. D: i'm totally going to skip a bunch of irrelevant stuff... that.. argh. well, no. i won't. 8D because once i think of something, i feel cheated of my brainpower if nothing gets done with it LOL. tamamori's backstory will continue to exist. xD;
5- no mental capacity with which to write an action sequence for kitamitsu, though. 8D; which makes me sad, but then on the other hand knowing me i would probably have just got him beaten up for no good reason.
A mixed bag: Y00, I14. T65, 44-R. 74-M.
( 21: friendly fire )
The captain's jaw dropped as both 53-N and the kid's errant friend collapsed to the floor in a pile of limbs and puppy fat, dead unconscious for no apparent reason. Within seconds, the pair's avatars faded from sight.
The captain hadn't given an order to fire -- he was a bit of a fan of drama, and timing in these things was everything. Now he'd have to write up an incident report about failing to capture the two boys' consciousnesses (one of Takizawa's, even!), which also meant that he'd miss out on the bonus for it, and also, he'd have to go order one of those meat-headed real world chasers to fetch the errant's body before the kid woke up...
What a complete and utter mess. And whose fault was it?
"44-R!" he snapped, rounding on his trainee archer for the error.
"I didn't do it, Captain!" 44-R said, eyes wide, his two slave avatars dissolving in his distress. He'd messed up his captain's orders once and only once before -- the man was nasty when aesthetics weren't served to perfection.
The captain folded his arms, a mighty scowl on his face. "Then what!" he growled angrily.
His question -- whether it had been rhetorical or not -- was answered before the trainee could muster a reply when the air above 53-N and the errant kid's vanishing spot shimmered as if on a very hot day. And a pair of tall figures materialised within the haze.
The captain and archer both stared in disbelief. The scenario had been firmly locked, to the best of their knowledge -- nobody should have been able to enter it. Quickly, the archer scrambled to re-notch his arrow and draw at the pair but the young yew of his bow refused to bend, suddenly as frozen as the scenario around them. He held the useless weapon at a loss for a moment before brandishing the arrow alone as if it could save him.
The captain, for his part, decided that he'd be having words with tech support when he got out of this wretched place -- but first, it seemed as if this mysterious duo would like to have words with him. He figured he might as well get the first line in and cleared his throat, demanding curtly: "Who are you?"
One of the pair was slimmer, his hair longer and more styled -- not quite delicate, but certainly not masculine either. The other had dark, ageless eyes that almost seemed empty beneath their calm.
Both were dressed in varying styles of the same spotless white, and both bowed at the waist to the government agents, expressing a wordless respect. But the slimmer one straightened first, and was the one to speak. "My digital designation is Y00," he said in formal answer to the captain's question. He gestured first to himself, then to his partner. "This is I14. We come as representatives of the house of Hideaki Takizawa."
At the mention of their employer's name, I14 made a demure gesture in the air with his hands and a small fire flower erupted in the space between them, blazing briefly with the Takizawa seal.
The captain's eyes widened in recognition; he'd seen the emblem a handful of times before, stamped in wax on private correspondence to the Prince. "I am T65," he said. "And this is my subordinate, 44-R." Cued, the archer lowered his arrow. The captain nodded. "What do you want?"
Y00 smiled an easy smile, displaying uniquely crooked teeth. "Merely the chance to deeply apologise for the trouble our juniors have caused you tonight." I14 gave a silent laugh at that. Y00 bowed again, elegant, still smiling himself. "Please rest assured that they will both be disciplined appropriately."
The captain felt ever so slightly creeped out by the silence of the I14 figure. He kept his gaze resolutely on Y00 as he spoke. "Very well. I appreciate your... cooperation in this matter," he said, unsure and wary about it. Had the errant kid actually been a protected pre-registrant, then? These two seemed like bona fide employees of Takizawa. How could such a thing be checked, though? Discreetly, he began running a search on their contacts.
"Ah, not at all," Y00 chuckled. "We are the ones who truly appreciate yours..." He glanced aside as I14 made a rolling gesture with his right hand. Then turned back to the captain. "If you see it fit, and it is within your power to do so, you may also wish to recall the retrieval officer that has just been dispatched after our 21-K," he added and, strangely, glanced up into the foliage of a nearby tree, though the captain did not know what he could possibly be looking at. "We will be collecting the boy on the hour. There is no need to find yourselves troubled for the matter."
:::
Tamamori started in shock as Y00 looked straight in his direction -- at him -- for a moment, through the dark and leaves and Tamamori's own deliberately low profile. He was surprised -- but then again, on the other hand he wasn't surprised at all.
When Senga and Nikaido had suddenly been forcibly disconnected before anything else happened, Tamamori's heart had sunk. He'd watched with little more than a detached curiosity as the two codesmen -- the one codesman, technically, just Y00 -- had a entered the scenario. They were a powerful unit, the haze surrounding their back door acting as some sort of scrambler except worse, rendering them untraceable... he'd been absently copying the code as he scanned it, for picking apart later. It was succinct, elegant script...
But then Y00 had introduced the mute one, I14, and then the pair'd suddenly had Tamamori's full attention again.
I14 had been the one who'd traded Tamamori his own scrambler, ages ago. But... the other hadn't been a slave avatar then, Tamamori was pretty sure. Actually, he hadn't been much more than a disembodied voice floating in a black room, but that wasn't the point. Now, it seemed like he wasn't even talking. What was up with that?
'We will be collecting the boy on the hour...'
Tamamori checked his chrono. Soon, sort of. The hour was approaching. And Y00-I14 were preparing to leave.
"With respect, I advise you to run a second, more thorough check," Y00 was saying, an open palmed gesture indicating the scroll that was tucked into the archer's belt. "21-K was officially one of ours for several hours prior to this, and I assure you that his paperwork sits with the others'. The records do not lie."
The archer looked terrified. The captain looked dubious, and said as much: "Then I'll take your word for it. For now." Tamamori smiled to himself. The man was going to search. But no matter how much he suspected a hack, the codework was probably going to be smooth enough that he'd never be able to get enough evidence out of the archives to support it.
"では、お願いします." Y00 bowed a third time. "If we have no further business to conduct...?" Despite his formal politeness, it was clear who was holding court with whom. The fact kept Tamamori amused.
"Nothing more." The captain's countenance stormed over. "But mark my words, I'll be tracking your boss down and calling him up if your story doesn't hold water."
"Oh," Y00 grinned, breaking the respectful act for a moment. "No need for such crude sequence tag. Here." He reached into the breast pocket of his shirt, withdrawing a crisp business card as white as his clothing. And held it out by the top corners with both hands. "This contact sequence will never go unanswered. Please feel free to call upon us any time at your leisure, Captain T65."
The captain showed only the slightest hesitation, before jerking his head at the card, glaring at his rookie to cover the lapse. "Note the sequence."
The rookie's eyes widened. "Yes, Sir!" he said, stepping over with stiff uncertainty. But the card didn't explode in his hands when he took it, and Y00 just smiled. 44-R hurried back anyway.
"Any time," Y00 said again, before the shimmering heat haze rose up to engulf him and I14 and they faded from view, returning the forest to its dark and frozen state.
"...are you sure you didn't miss that errant boy's paperwork, 44-R?" the captain asked cloudily.
"I-- Sir, if it was there, t-then I didn't see it," the archer stammered. "By the way, the contact sequence on the card seems to be valid."
"I didn't ask about that," the captain grumbled. "Did you trace them to their location? We'll want to keep tabs on that."
"I couldn't," the archer said. "I mean-- I mean that it wasn't possible," he amended quickly when his captain glared daggers. "They had routers and a really strong firewall and some kind of program that... What in the--?"
A sheet of paper materialised on the ground. [ IT'S CALLED A SCRAMBLER ], it read. Above them unnoticed, Tamamori stood upon the branch he was sitting in and stretched out the tension his back. He pointedly did not leave his tree to face the two government agents. Just because they were inept didn't mean he wanted anything to do with them.
"Now who the hell are you?" the captain asked the sheet of paper, irritated.
The black letters on the sheet of paper swam for a moment, reforming: [ IRRELEVANT ]
The captain crossed his arms. "Irrelevant my foot. Trace him, 44-R."
[ DON'T BOTHER ], Tamamori's paper changed again to read. And then: [ I JUST WANTED TO SAY THAT THE BUNNY AND THE BOY WERE MY PREY ] And thirdly: [ IRRITATING PRICK ]
"Oh, you're all bold when the words don't have to come out of your mouth aren't you, hacker?" the captain glared. "Or when you don't have to show yourself! Face us like a man!"
[ AM I MALE? ♥ ], the sheet of paper asked, just for the hell of it.
"What the -- no way," the archer stared.
[ MAYBE I'M JUST SHY ], the sheet added. But turned derisive the next instant: [ OR MAYBE YOU'RE JUST NOT WORTH THE EFFORT ] With that, up in the tree, the fox shimmered and disappeared from the scenario.
"Show yourself, bastard!" the captain roared, before turning from the forest at large to glare once again at his subordinate. "Trace him, 44-R!"
"...can you hear that, Sir?" 44-R asked instead. Unnoticed, the paper left behind on the floor reformed into [ ♥ ].
"Hear what?" the captain snapped. "The scenario's frozen. I don't hear anything."
"There's... a funny whistling," the archer said. "It's getting louder. I think we should get out of here."
"You're imagining it," the captain told him primly. "Trace that bastard or I'm going to write you up for insubordination when we get back to the office."
"I'll be waiting when you wake up, Sir," the archer said, wide eyed. Quickly, scenario unfroze and he disappeared.
"44-R!" the captain shouted, amid the rustling of leaves again. "44-R!"
But he wasn't shouting anything anymore a second later when a miniature A-bomb fell on his head, his angry virtual particles spread far apart through the thick fog of a rising mushroom cloud.
Assorted boiled sweets: K17, T41. 74-M, 21-K.
( 22: some things unexpected )
"What a funny guy," Iida chuckled, talking to the empty room. "A nuclear bomb of all things, and a fairly accurate imitation blast, too." More often, it was Fujigaya's 53-N or Kitayama's 21-K who provided the inadvertent amusement -- the things they said and did were at times unbelievable; however, 74-M occasionally slipped under the radar with something killer. Like this.
With a quiet ping, Yokoo entered the whiteroom, coming in from the briefing room scenario where he'd gone directly after leaving the forest. "Status update?" he asked, and tossed a nondescript black top hat aside. It disappeared before it hit the floor.
"Several hundred square kilometres of forest razed," Iida reported, calmly tongue in cheek.
Yokoo raised an eyebrow, taking a seat in thin air. "Meaning...?"
Iida chuckled. "74-M merely dropped a nuke on the captain's head after you left. Kitayama and Fujigaya are off, now?"
"With satellite maps downloaded onto their netgear and everything," Yokoo said. "As well as flashing dotted lines to follow."
"They're not as bad with directions as some, you know," Iida laughed. Yokoo tended to be on the paranoid side of prepared though.
"You can never be too careful," Yokoo smiled primly, "especially when a life is on the line."
Iida gave the impression of shaking his head. "What would they do without you, Wataru~"
"Hm. I wonder," Yokoo said. He settled back in an invisible chair, leaning back and tucking his hands behind his head. Before adding eventually: "...they've returned alive every time so far, though. Which is something, I suppose."
Iida said nothing to that for a while. He busied his processors with menial tasks, terminating the recording function now that the dust had settled on the A-bombed forest scenario, and archiving a few instance reports. It wasn't enough to occupy him for more than a few nanoseconds though. And so he turned to thinking about what he was supposed to say.
Which, ironically, took far longer to process.
"...do you miss it, Wataru?" he asked eventually into the silence.
"Miss what?" Yokoo asked back.
Iida didn't hesitate in his clarification, having already decided to ask in the first place: "Flying."
Yokoo half rolled, half flopped over onto his side, as if in bed now. "Of course I do," he answered.
Of course. Iida should not have thought otherwise. "I'm sorry," he said.
"Idiot," Yokoo chuckled. "It's not a sacrifice if you don't miss what you give up. It's just tossing excess baggage, in that case."
"I suppose," Iida allowed.
"Believe me when I say I'm right about this," Yokoo told him with typical aplomb. "What really matters is that, even if you still want what you give up, you don't regret leaving it behind."
Iida cycled that around his memory a few times. It worked alright.
"...when you die," he told Yokoo at last, "I want your logic circuits installed in here with me."
"Pfft," Yokoo sniffed. "Everyone wants a piece of me."
"'Everyone'?" Iida chuckled.
"Everyone and their uncle," Yokoo told him. "Just the other day, Fumito said he wanted my elbows, and Taisuke made a claim on my teeth. Said they'd make 'the funniest dentures ever', the bastard. As if I wouldn't outlive him."
"You'd do it just out of spite," Iida agreed, "so you could collect his teeth instead, wouldn't you?" He tried to imagine Kawai with Yokoo's arms and failed to compose any temp images that didn't approximate lanky, prehistoric-looking ape-men. Wisely, he side-stepped saying anything about that.
"Hey now," Yokoo grinned. "Stop making like I'm so old already."
"Yes, Yokoo-san~" Iida teased.
"You're as bad as the rest of them," Yokoo said, and pursed his lips on a smile.
Iida considered that. "...am I being selfish, then?" he asked, after a moment, apparently serious.
"Yes, you are," Yokoo told him anyway, without missing a beat. "Senga's need of my superior powers of logic and deduction are so much more dire than yours."
"Oh, cruel," Iida chuckled. "Don't say that... they'd be wasted on him, wouldn't they?"
"And you say I'm cruel," Yokoo grinned. "Go make yourself useful and grab me a satellite feed on the chaser dispatched after 21-K. We need to see if he's still on the predicted path."
"I have one," Iida smiled. "And he is. I unlocked the same eye you backdoored to trace 21-K's contact sequence, so it wasn't too hard."
"Efficient aren't we?" Yokoo said, amused.
Iida laughed. "We are."
:::
"Gum?" Kitayama asked, offering Fujigaya a stick from his pack as they skated through the Capital's underground. At the moment, Kitayama was trailing, but that was because Fujigaya was more the type to lead the way even when there wasn't a contest on about it. Kitayama's priorities sometimes lay elsewhere. "Here, take two."
Fujigaya beheld the offer with a dubious air. "No thanks," he said, and skated a little faster. "I'm good."
Kitayama shrugged, falling back a tad. "Less men more share."
"Enjoy your one-man jackpot," Fujigaya snorted. "What flavour did you make it this time, anyway?"
Kitayama grinned. "I'm glad you asked. This is where you find out what you're missing: egg with cabbage for one, and mayonnaise with that brown chicken sauce for the other, alternating sticks."
Fujigaya gagged. "That's disgusting. Next time you say 'take two', remind me not to ask."
"Hey, it's not bad you know," Kitayama countered, popping a pair of the chewy rectangles into his mouth. "It tastes a bit like that okonomiyaki stuff Tono took us to the pre-First Collapse capital streets to eat, once."
Fujigaya remembered that scenario. It must just have been the cabbage he'd blocked from his memory. "You mean that half omelet from the corner stall with the 105-en sign on the front of the booth, right?"
"Okonomiyaki," Kitayama nodded, "I'm pretty sure."
"That stuff was weird."
"It had an interesting texture," Kitayama allowed.
"I liked the tako balls better," Fujigaya said.
"I made some in that flavour too," Kitayama grinned, fishing another small packet of gum sticks out of a pocket. "Want some?"
"What the hell," Fujigaya said. "No thanks, Fatty."
"Chewing gum doesn't make you put on weight," Kitayama sniffed, pocketing his sticks of gum again.
"Wouldn't know it to look at you," Fujigaya grinned.
"You know, I think I feel a new kink coming on," Kitayama mused. "How does strangulation sound to you?"
"Settle for racing me to the intercept point instead," Fujigaya laughed. "I wouldn't want your hands on my neck in a million years without a witness."
"But my teeth are okay," Kitayama said. It wasn't really a question.
"Beat me and we'll see," Fujigaya taunted anyway. "From here to under the ambush point. No surface skating."
"Suit yourself," Kitayama said. "Ready when you are."
"Go."
:::
"Cheater," Kitayama accused, voice a harsh whisper.
"Just because you lost," Fujigaya whispered back.
"Just because you used to live around this area," Kitayama hissed in return.
"You should've thought about that before you accepted my challenge, shouldn't you?" Fujigaya chuckled, grinning. "Too bad for later tonight." Carefully, he lifted the grate on the drain they were currently crouched in. Above was an awning, blocking their exit point from view from the sky's eyes. Across the road slumped the body of Nikaido Takashi, in a medium sized enclave that had probably housed some kind of fire extinguishing equipment years ago, before it had either been used or stolen. Probably stolen.
"Hey, something's wrong here," Fujigaya said.
"Exposition please," Kitayama said, popping his head up alongside Fujigaya's to peer out of the drain.
Fujigaya kindly refrained from laughing at how Kitayama'd had to power up his skates again just to do so.
"There," he said instead, keeping his voice low as he pointed across to the enclave. "Two figures. But our records say there's only one Nikaido Takashi."
"I sure as hell hope there's only one," Kitayama muttered. "He's been enough trouble watching out for over the years. Though not as much as Senga, mind you," he added with a glare at Fujigaya's smirk.
"It's not the chaser that was dispatched," Fujigaya sidestepped. "We've beat even Yokoo's shortest intercept estimate by enough that it's not possible. And besides, that guy's just sitting there."
"A friend, then?" Kitayama murmured. "74-M? Yokoo did mention he was in the scenario, too. Can't see his face for that... thing. Wow, what a really ugly silver hood."
Fujigaya frowned. "Must be an ally at the very least. Little Nika's passed out but still has his skates on; anybody unfriendly would've just buggered off with them and been long gone." It being 74-M sounded like a good theory. Since he'd been in the scenario, he would have seen Nikaido and Senga's forced disconnect, too.
But there was just one thing wrong with that line of thought...
"Except," Fujigaya said, "if it's 74-M and he's making sure Nika doesn't get beaten, raped and/or left for dead, then why hasn't he moved them? He's got to know that remaining in the same access location for very long isn't intelligent if you're illegal."
Kitayama considered that point for a long moment. And the only solution he could think up to fit was that 'Tamamori' was waiting...
He glanced sidelong at Fujigaya. Who seemed to have reached the same conclusion.
"He's... waiting."
"For us."
Fujigaya shrugged. "Alright, then what are we still just sitting here for? Drains suck."
"Your priorities are messed up, Taisuke," Kitayama informed the other in a lazy drawl, no longer bothering to keep his voice down, but nevertheless helped him shove the grate aside.
Tamamori was indeed waiting. He raised his head as Fujigaya and Kitayama approached, and pushed back his hood to reveal fair skin and a face that was very... normal. If slightly effeminate about the eyes and mouth. Tamamori remained curled up in the enclave, saying nothing, looking up at the two skaters and hugging his knees as if to avoid disturbing Nikaido's liberal sprawl.
Fujigaya found himself mildly surprised, expecting Tamamori to be weirder looking. Saying nothing either, he just looked at the other for a long while as Kitayama also held an easy, expectant silence, a half smile on his face.
"I..." 74-M said eventually, "I was wondering when you were going to, um..." His voice was soft. Lightweight.
"Get out of the drain?" Fujigaya supplied.
Mutely, Tamamori nodded. He'd meant to say 'show yourselves', but the drain thing worked too...
"Because drains suck, right?" Fujigaya grinned.
Mutely, Tamamori nodded again.
"I told you so," Fujigaya told Kitayama.
"Both your priorities are messed up," Kitayama informed them. Not that he didn't agree, but dry drains were just empty pipes. It wasn't as if they were even slimy or anything. "And be nice to the kid, Taisuke. He's clearly terrified of you."
"Pfft," Fujigaya said, "just because you're small and cuddly."
Tamamori quickly shook his head. "No no no no--"
"Oh, you aren't scared of me?" Fujigaya asked, suddenly glaring down at the other just because he could.
Tamamori jittered a bit, as if unsure whether to keep shaking his head or start nodding instead.
Kitayama snorted softly. "'Should I be?' he wants to squeak. Taisuke, stop messing with him."
Fujigaya grinned. "Well, he's going to have to get used to it if he's coming with us." He glanced at Tamamori. "You are coming with us, right?"
Mutely, Tamamori nodded a third time.
"...you're not just saying that, are you?" Kitayama asked dubiously.
Tamamori shook his head, finding his voice again. And made sure to articulate himself clearly for once: "I want to meet I14. Please."
Surprised, Fujigaya glanced at Kitayama, who looked back at him with a raised brow.
"Um..." Fujigaya started. "There might be a slight problem with that..." At a loss as to how to put it nicely, he trailed off.
Kitayama took over: "Iida's kind of dead," he said bluntly. "We're sorry."
"Ah," Tamamori said, blinking.
"Your next best bet would be speaking to Wataru," Fujigaya added.
Tamamori hazarded a guess, on a roll with the talking thing. "That's Y00?" The one who'd appeared with the I14 slave avatar...
Fujigaya nodded. "He's a good guy."
"If a little anal sometimes," Kitayama added with a shrug. "But if it's all the same to you...?"
Tamamori nodded quickly. "I'll talk to him. Or you guys, even. If you all work for Mr. Hideaki Takizawa..." He took a deep breath. "I just want to help you. I want to work for him, too."
Fujigaya's eyes widened slightly. "How much do you know?"
"Taisuke," Kitayama said, tone warning.
Fujigaya checked his timer. Their chaser's ETA was less than a minute. And scrolling down at a medium trot.
"He's two buildings away," Tamamori murmured, noting Fujigaya's glance aside. "Due South South-East. Passing the further building... now. You've thirty-eight seconds."
Fujigaya narrowed his eyes at the errant hacker, before closing a hand around Tamamori's wrist. "Right. You're coming with me," he said. "Mitsu, deal with the chaser and bring 21-K back to the rendezvous--"
"As if you needed to tell me," Kitayama said.
"--if you can," Fujigaya grinned, tipping his head at Nikaido's inert form. "If you can't, then page me. It kind of looks like he's built twice the size you are."
"Not twice," Kitayama sniffed. "But even if he were, you ought to remember sometime that I can pull my own weight. And more."
"Which is saying something of course," Fujigaya chuckled, dragging Tamamori across the road as Kitayama kicked his skates into standby. "Because you're a little fudgemuffin."
"Hah," Kitayama said, rolling his eyes. "I'd be surprised if you thought I was half that sweet. Piss off already."
Fujigaya didn't need to be told twice: seconds later the drain grate was back in place, he and Tamamori on their way underground.
Kitayama kicked his heels and sprang up to the ambush point -- the empty balcony of an apartment several storeys above -- to await his prey.
It was just one chaser.
A walk in the park.
"では、お願いします." (then, if you please) Y00 bowed a third time.
1- honestly, miyata really does still exist ;; ...it's just that somehow one nighttime is stretching for like 15k and i did a stupid thing and sent him to bed angstfully early, aha. 8D;
2- PIZZAMITSU=LOL i like running jokes. >:D a lot. *abuse*
3- finally got a valid idea for ficgames! :0 OMG.. . . so tired. =∇= *.zZ*
[edit1] ...wth. xD; I've fully misplaced ~250 words from here since last night. *search*
[edit2] ...apparently it's just all the html tags. 8D *SAD*
GODDAMN HTML TAGS. 8DDD; *fail* . =/= > yo!
4- 4k left, somehow. D: i'm totally going to skip a bunch of irrelevant stuff... that.. argh. well, no. i won't. 8D because once i think of something, i feel cheated of my brainpower if nothing gets done with it LOL. tamamori's backstory will continue to exist. xD;
5- no mental capacity with which to write an action sequence for kitamitsu, though. 8D; which makes me sad, but then on the other hand knowing me i would probably have just got him beaten up for no good reason.