bunnyfic 03, 04, 05
You May Not Insult the Shiny Boybands.
Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200. :3
So I was having a shower, as you do. Showers are nurturing grounds for brains or something. Must be the capsule-like environment. :D Picked up three separate holes across two chapters, lol. Which necessitated restructuring Tamamori's part. And then a bit of Miyata's also. *throws towel* xD; That will be a problem with trying to write a not-so-crack!based AU very fast, harhar. If you notice anything else wrong, please give a heads-up? ♥ Aaanyway.
[edit 16 Feb'10] Hovering over Japanese text will give you a translation. :D
Errant entity 74-M.
( 03: a bother )
The hawk was not going to land.
The hawk, in fact, was going to avoid the weird little rabbit for as long as its wings would bear it up through the air currents. Which was theoretically forever, given the environmental overrides it knew.
Its name was Tamamori, male, and a slicer by profession. A hacker, a codesman, an illegal net disruption. That kind of thing. He bartered goods for people's desires. Because he could. Because they paid him for it, one way or another. Because, having started early, he'd kind of somehow gotten to be very good at these things over the years.
His current hawk form was a point in case. It was a magnificent virtual rendition of the bird. Tamamori had coded it himself from scratch. It looked just like the real thing had, he was sure, flying through the blue skies way back when-if not better. Its feathers were perfectly preened, each one whole and glossy. The scenario's virtual sunlight flowed over its form like a complementary polish, and Tamamori was very proud of it on the whole.
Its commissioner would be just as happy, or so he hoped.
It wasn't just the way the bird looked that Tamamori had crafted well, after all. The feel of the air currents through its feathers was refreshing and sublime. He hadn't cut any corners in programming the number of its active nerve connectors and, as Tamamori flew, he could feel the constant, cooling headwind contrasting the occasional warm updraft.
He soared with wings spread, taking the avatar through its final testing stages, pleased that the physics of its interaction were working as they should. The bird operated seamlessly in the scenario's environment. Tamamori rose higher on a warm current, hovering without expending effort. He moved easily, folding the hawk's wings in to dive like a missile, spreading them again to brake before lifting and banking against the breeze with his red-edged tail feathers.
The hawk flew well, and even from high above its sharp eyes took in the details of the current scenario with ease. Everything from the rabbit to the grass and flowers, and even its own reflection in the stream.
It was a pretty reflection...
...
The rabbit was still watching him.
Tamamori watched the rabbit right back, circling again. It was weird. Slightly uncomfortable.
Tamamori liked being watched when he knew his avatar was pretty. Especially when that prettiness was his own coded creation. But he was fairly sure that the rabbit wasn't watching him, frozen to the spot, for that reason. Was it?
Did it still think Tamamori was going to attack it?
He wasn't going to do that. The rabbit was cute and Tamamori believed-to the extent that he believed anything real-that cuteness should be preserved. Even virtual cuteness. To be appreciated from a distance. Like prettiness.
It wasn't that he was scared of strangers per se, so much as that he had no particular interest in meeting them. Especially weird ones, like that tumbling rabbit. Such people were funny from afar (Tamamori had laughed at the creature's antics), but up close or in conversation... well. He didn't like to be put on the spot so much.
Code was alright. It was like math. Predictable. Overrides cascaded. One thing came after another. If you broke this circuit, that stopped working. If you reconnected it, then all would be well.
Humans didn't work that way. They were weird and got hurt and said strange things and expected funny reactions. Tamamori wasn't a very funny person. It wasn't his job to be funny, but sometimes people made him feel like it was, or like he was. He didn't like that very much, either.
What are you doing, rabbit? he asked inwardly, one eye still tracking the small, fluffy creature. Because its eyes were still tracking him.
Presently though, the rabbit's gaze broke away. It sat back and scratched both its paws over its head twice. Tamamori watched a third scratch with detached curiosity-and was surprised to see a little red headband suddenly appear on the rabbit's head, a miniaturised signboard popping up between the little creature's long fluffy ears. The hawk's eyes could read it easily enough. He arched around and glided...
[ 8649:0900:1863:21-K ♥? ]
A contact sequence.
Tamamori chuckled, his amusement sounding out in a harsh, ringing cry from the hawk's beak. The rabbit flattened itself against the grass at the sound.
Ah... funny little creature, asking for a hawk's company despite itself.
Maybe Tamamori would oblige it? The person behind the avatar obviously knew overrides. As basic as putting a customised headband on a rabbit was, it still slimmed down the chances that they were a Legal. Or at least, not a traditionally sane Legal. Tamamori could appreciate that. And, well... The rabbit now reminded him of a certain other person he knew, who was also not quite all there sometimes...
Maybe the rabbit would entertain him more than it expected to be entertained. If that was the case, then Tamamori wouldn't mind. He circled one last time, preparing to land.
Abruptly though, his view of the scenario saturated blood-red. A whooping proximity siren sounded distantly between his ears.
Tamamori dropped the hawk avatar at once, leaving a line of virus-like self-destruct code in his virtual place. Nothing more than a floating consciousness now, he vanished from the scenario and returned to his blueroom. They'd identified his illegal net access through the scrambler and were on to him, but that was okay. It was fine. The hawk would be dead before they could pin it and trace him and if its ashes would float into the river, then so much the better. I'll fix you up again later, Mr. Hawk, Tamamori thought absently.
The real danger to him came from outside, in the physical world.
Even though it happened often enough (like... once or twice a day if he was unlucky), having to abandon things still made Tamamori unhappy each time. He didn't like the physical world so much. He wasn't that good at it.
Where's my map...? Tamamori asked himself, in the local space of his virtual blueroom. Maps, I mean. I want both of them.
Two large screens promptly swam into being at his thought-command. On one was a birds-eye map of his current vicinity; the other displayed a three-dimensional, skeletal view from his present location and eye-height, that panned if he turned his head. Both displays showed building structures and obstacles in various strengths of colour based upon things like wall thickness and mobility, correct to the last time he'd had them synchronised.
Pinpoint chaser, Tamamori instructed.
On each map a glowing pair of floating figures appeared, moving inexorably toward his location.
So, it wasn't a false alarm this time...
Tamamori's tendency to set his netgear's scanning perimeter on the wide side of safe often wasted his time. But just as often, it made the trouble worth it. Like now.
He frowned. There were two of them.
Usually the government fancied that just one of its Chasers, backed by hub support online, were enough to track down and deal with almost anybody. It was usually right, but even so...
Maybe they were training more of them. The thought made Tamamori feel like frowning, except doing that would give him premature wrinkles.
If one of the pair was a rookie, then they'd be more persistent than usual...
...
Whatever.
How long they chased him for wasn't really his concern, so long as he got out of it alive in the end. The way he dealt with them would still be the same either way. Plot their likely routes, he instructed his netgear. The four most likely, according to directness, speed of travel, and accessibility. Um. Factor in stairs but exclude boundaries of private property. Glowing paths appeared on his maps, and Tamamori considered them for a moment.
The trick was to disconnect at the right time: far enough that they wouldn't catch him, but near enough that his disappearance from their tracking systems wouldn't cause them to fan out or change their incoming route. Once disconnected, he wouldn't be able to see their presence either. He wasn't good at the physical world and needed a sure escape. Couldn't risk an encounter.
At least his scrambler program would buy him an extra... two minutes, maybe, before they realised he'd disconnected. Thirty seconds if he was unlucky and it was a competent Seeker backing up the Chasers...
The pair were getting closer. Still walking, if kind of fast, according to the glowing dots' speed. There was no sense of urgency to their movement. This was normal. Tamamori supposed he ought to be grateful to the number of stupid people who sat oblivious in the cocoons of their scenarios, not realising they were being tracked until the Chasers were already upon them.
Sometimes, they never realised it.
He supposed that was a pretty good way to die, though. That way, you never knew. Suddenly... you just weren't.
But even a good way to die still involved dying, and Tamamori didn't really want to do that yet.
Fidgeting where he sat, he planned his escape. Nothing too complex. A sure bet was better. A sure bet was good.
Once he severed his ties to the net, they wouldn't be able to satellite-spot or track his location using his contact sequence anymore. Those who weren't online in this day and age were as good as nonexistent. Sometimes, this could be used to their advantage...
Thirty percent opacity please, Tamamori instructed his netgear in preparation. Minimum power. The maps dissolved to two-thirds invisible, hovering overlaid atop the physical room he was in: a laundry.
He pulled the hood of his insulated undersuit tight and low over his head. Ugly as its reflective silver fabric was, he could wear his regular clothes over the top of the thing and it concealed his heat signature from the capabilities of portable infrared scanners. Useful, since the Chasers usually switched to infra-red when they were at a close enough range and they couldn't use the net...
Disconnect, he mentally instructed.
With a patent absence of hurry, he slipped off of the washing machine he'd been sitting cross-legged on. Laundries were good places to hide out, aboveground. Or, hide in. Since everything was automated, nothing sentient usually went into them. And if you were lucky, they didn't even stink.
They were accessible, too. The faint, skeletal outlines of the building's plans glowed calmly in his eyes beneath the dark of his hood while it was pulled over his face, but he was used to reading them like that. He looked around. The two glowing dots were still moving, no longer being updated in real-time but taking their projected path instead. That was okay. Tamamori ignored them.
Earlier, he'd come down through that chute over in the left corner, and it had been a three-storey exercise in patient descent. The thing did have a hatch servicing the first floor though, where he could probably get out and lose his pursuit...
...
All he had to do was put enough distance between himself and his net access location. Simple, in theory.
In practice, the chute was small and Tamamori was not so small. But he managed. If only half spurred on by the thought of how a paralysing taser up the behind was not on his list of noble deaths to achieve very soon.
53-N, or Senga Kento.
( 04: something like like )
Senga danced for an audience of one.
Well, two, maybe, since even if he'd been alone he would have still done it, so he was probably dancing for himself as well. There were mirrors along the walls at various angles, because his boss liked that kind of thing... Senga liked it too, though probably in kind of a different way. He could see exactly what he was doing this way, and what he wasn't. Mistakes or cool things. But his eyes didn't get the same look in them as his boss', when he did stuff...
Not that this was a problem. Senga liked his own eyes the way they were. They were wide.
At the moment it was just him and his boss in the scenario. The scenario was a one-time environment that Senga knew was secure through layers of encryption and complicated stuff. Nothing ever got past Iida and Yokoo in Watchtower mode.
So it was a really private place, which suited Senga just fine. After all, if that was what his boss wanted then Senga was as okay with it too. He didn't always get what went on inside Takizawa Hideaki's head, but he could understand a fundamental need for secrecy. Boss Tackey did serious business after all.
And that was actually none of Senga's concern either. He was in the scenario to dance while Tackey worked, and so dance he did.
His bare feet beat strong, rhythmic sequences on the polished floor. They echoed with the sound of his breath through the high-ceilinged chamber. A little way away Takizawa sat at a heavy hardwood table, writing on a scroll with a brush and ink and unhurried, stately grace.
Currently ignored, Senga largely ignored his boss in turn. It was embarrassing to screw up in front of people, so while nobody but himself was watching he tried out some turns he hadn't done before, putting himself through some new virtual paces. A one-handed forward-flip here, connecting to a hit, hit, shoulders high~ lock. Wings, swing, swing, and a cartwheel into a back handspring there- ♥
He liked dancing because he could do it well. It was one of the rare things that he knew he could ace (up against more people than could trounce him at it anyway).
"That looked good," Takizawa said presently, a smile in his voice. "Your rhythm's as fine as ever."
"Boss!" Senga spun around, a grin on his face. "Are you done?" It made him happy when Takizawa gave him compliments like that, even if it only ever happened in private. Otherwise, Boss Tackey had an image to maintain. Or so he liked to explain.
"I'm done," Takizawa smiled broadly. "Finally." He rolled the parchment up into a scroll, capping each end with a metal round thing. Deliberately, elaborately, he then tied a red ribbon around it just so, and melted the end off of a stick of wax and pressed his own ring into the blob.
The process looked complicated and full of care and Senga watched in fascination thinking that you probably had to like somebody a lot to go through that much trouble with a message for them, when just a regular private text message kind of thing would do. "Is that for Panellist Imai again?" he chirped.
Boss Tackey liked to write to Panellist Tsubasa. In fact, Senga was pretty sure, Boss Tackey liked Panellist Tsubasa.
Takizawa laughed. "My, how did you guess?"
"Because I'm sentiment," Senga told him with a grin. "There's intelligence in this life form, yo!"
"Indeed there must be," Takizawa chuckled. "Though I think you mean sentient."
Senga tilted his head, brows furrowed. "There's no M in it?"
"There's no M in it. An M makes it another word."
"Oh..."
"Cheer up, you silly boy," Takizawa smiled. "Do you remember that dance you just practised?"
"Hm?" Senga thought about it for a moment. "...yeah." He smiled. Of course he did. He could remember dances really well, if not words.
"That's good to hear," Tackey said, getting that watching look in his eyes again. "Because I liked what I saw of the end, and would like to see the entire thing for real after this. Do you think you could show it to me?"
Senga's eyes widened. "Sure I can," he said automatically, unwilling to disappoint. Even if when Takizawa said for real, he meant outside of the virtual realm. Senga'd only just made that dance sequence up. He hadn't yet practised...
Takizawa grinned, and rang a dainty-looking bell to the side of his desk. "I'll look forward to it, then."
Senga sweated.
Meanwhile summoned, the tall, virtual form of half of Takizawa's security detail materialised in the centre of the room between Senga and the desk. On bended knee and head bowed, the knuckles of Yokoo's fist pressed lightly to the ground. "Tono," he saluted before looking up, and unfolding to stand.
"Have this delivered to Tsubasa, please," Takizawa said and held out his scroll.
Yokoo stepped forward, accepting the message with both hands in dutiful courtesy. "Yes, sir," he said with a half smile. "I'll get Fujigaya on it."
"I was just going to suggest so myself," Takizawa chuckled. "A good call."
"Thanks," Yokoo grinned, and bowed to take his leave.
"Wait, wait! Say more stuff," Senga blurted.
Yokoo looked over his shoulder, raising a brow at Senga before turning back to Takizawa with rare incomprehension on his face. "...does more need to be said?"
"I think our little friend would like a bit more time for image training," Takizawa laughed. "I've issued him a challenge, you see."
"Right..." Yokoo said.
"Hmm~" Takizawa hummed. "Well. See that the message is encrypted and secure before you send it, please, Yokoo-kun."
"By default," Yokoo said, with a frown. "Of course I'd run it through Iida first." If it had been anyone else telling him so, Yokoo might have been insulted by such a rudimentary order.
"Of course," Takizawa acknowledged with typical grace.
"...should I see to it now, then?" Yokoo asked, glancing over his shoulder at Senga again, unsure which of the scenario's occupants he should be asking.
Senga stared back at him with wide eyes.
Takizawa looked between the two of them for a moment, before asking: "Senga-kun?"
Senga flailed inwardly, blinking as he came back to himself. "Yes, Boss?"
"Are you ready?"
"I'm ready, I'm ready!" he exclaimed, flustered. "Sorry."
"Alright," Takizawa smiled, and gave a nod. "Then take your leave, Yokoo-kun."
"...thanks," Yokoo said again, and bowed. He spared Senga a last strange look before fading from view.
"Completed your image training then?" Takizawa grinned.
Senga flushed. "...yeah. I think so." Really though, image training within a virtual world was a bit of a silly idea. When he danced within a scenario, it was technically already 'image training', since it was just all in his mind. Even if the way his netgear hijacked his brainwaves allowed his nerves to think that they felt a lot more than what he'd otherwise feel using just the power of his own imagination... It was still image training by virtue of him not physically moving when it happened.
"Alright," Takizawa smiled, and called: "Iida-kun. Terminate the scenario and log us out, please."
"Acknowledged, sir," Iida's husky tones sounded from nowhere in particular around them, calm and disembodied. The next second, the grand room faded away and Senga blinked as his eyes re-adjusted to the dimmer light of Takizawa's actual quarters.
He stretched out on the floor, rolling from side to side a bit in an attempt to work out the kinks his muscles got from just sitting there whilst online. "Ahhh... I'm stiff!" he complained.
"And sweating already," Takizawa laughed. "You're ridiculous. Come here."
"Yes, Boss..." Senga said and shuffled over, embarrassed. He closed his eyes, demurely allowing Takizawa to pat at his face with a towel, and brush his hair out of the way. He knew Boss Tackey liked doing these things too-liked giving attention-though probably not as much as he liked Panellist Tsubasa. Maybe it was close? Or maybe it was something different altogether.
The air was warm and the room's walls were a lot more confining than those of the vast hall that the scenario had featured. It was still just the two of them present though, and Takizawa's quarters were just as private. And Senga still liked it. He liked the feel of the soft cloth Takizawa used, too, brushing over his face and neck, and the way Takizawa's hands were gentle as they arranged his collar and...
"...ne," he murmured at last, vaguely curious. "Why do you do that?"
Takizawa sounded amused. "What exactly, Senga, is 'that'...?"
"Umm... the talking thing," Senga said. "You tell Iida to do stuff out loud when, you know... You could just think it to him. Or just terminate the scenario yourself by thinking it. But you always... say so. You know?"
"Ah~ that," Takizawa said, with a smile in his voice. Senga blinked at the tone. It was the kind of gently firm way Takizawa spoke when Senga sometimes didn't want to eat all of his nutricubes. "That's because relationships are all about communication," Takizawa explained. "Interaction and confirmation. Affection and affirmation. From these things, various types of relationships are made, like friendships and partnerships." His fingers brushed Senga's hair away from his face. It felt nice. "Interaction is important."
"Oh..." Senga said, in an attempt to pretend that his brain was still working under Tackey's ministrations. "Okay..." He couldn't concentrate at all much though, because it was... somehow different. There was a very big difference between the virtual world and actual, physical touch. Both felt the same, with the same nerves activated. The same hormones, even. But even then, and even when it was the same people involved, it still wasn't... the same.
In the real world there wasn't that stupid emptiness-that dumb little box locked up in the back of your head most of the time virtually, that had a stupid little voice in it saying, 'No matter how good it feels, it still isn't real.'
Senga knew he was super lucky to have a boss like Boss Tackey, who cared enough to teach them all things like that.
"Do you understand, Senga?" Takizawa asked.
"Mmn," Senga murmured an automatic affirmative. Automatic, but... maybe he did really get it this time.
"That's good," Takizawa smiled. "Now... will you dance for me?"
Senga sat up, blinking. He could dance. He could dance for real. If he thought about it that way, then the idea was kind of cool...
He grinned. "Yes, Boss."
Government entity M15.
( 05: dysfunction )
The underground boy of ten years ago wasn't a boy anymore so much as a young man. He'd gone from eight to eighteen, and neither was he underground these days. He was a fully legal citizen now (if second class), just a regular old entity designated 'M15'-in the books of the government for which he worked, anyway.
He'd never forgotten, though, over those years of growing, and had never lost the element of character that the man who'd raised him had instilled. Even if his name still wasn't legally Miyata Toshiya, he was still a fundamentally cheerful guy.
He hummed as he worked, standing on the prow of his little tug boat that pooped and farted its way across the wide, blue ocean. The tug was comically small, checking in at barely four metres long. Small and round, like a bar of soap. Miyata liked it a lot. It was a very old fashioned wooden boat, full of putts and quirks. Its white paint wasn't really white anymore, and tended to peel off in strips more than flake, but it lent the boat character. Ringed around the hull's outside was thick, buffering rope, which was also a hundred percent unnecessary but for character, since the tug never docked.
Whenever Miyata started up the scenario, he got straight to work. And he worked right up until it was time to go home. There was none of that shallow waters business...
Shoals of fish swam all around in united, cohesive ripples of refracted light. Miyata's job was simple enough: to catch disruptions. Hackers, errant net users and the like. Within his scenario, they manifested themselves as creatures who swam against the tide. A very minor offender might show up as something like a salmon going in the wrong direction. A more serious and invasive criminal might perhaps be a shark-possibly even eating other fish.
None of it worried him though. His little tug was equipped with nets and weapons to deal with all shapes and sizes. Miyata kept a vigilant eye out through his binoculars, scanning the middle ground and horizon.
"You do realise you stick out like a sore thumb right, M15?" a voice behind Miyata asked suddenly.
"Hey there, Supervisor." Miyata smiled without taking his eyes away from the binoculars or the sea. And though he knew what the man meant, he said anyway: "How do you mean...?"
Miyata's supervisor shook his head, coming up to stand beside Miyata and lean against the railing at the little tug's prow, humoring his quirky subordinate. "Your boat," he said, "isn't exactly the stealthiest thing to sail the seven seas. Offenders can see you coming a mile away, with time to run and more. You'd have better success if you used something a bit newer. The scenario itself is also somewhat outdated."
"A lot of people like the ocean~" Miyata countered. A scenario of the ocean, anyway. The real ones were all sort of a murky brown these days, full of sludge and distasteful fluids...
"True, but most of them prefer to swim under sea creature avatars rather than use boats."
Miyata grinned. "I like the wind in my face?"
"But not flying?" his supervisor laughed.
Miyata shook his head sheepishly, finally lowering the binoculars. "I'm kind of scared of heights." In truth, he had a lot of irrational fears and mental blocks for all that he was happy-go-lucky. Not that he minded. They weren't incapacitating or anything.
"Sorry," his supervisor grinned, not very apologetic. He was a young man, maybe a handful of years older than Miyata himself. Unlike Miyata though, his supervisor liked fast things. Miyata had been taught the initial ropes of catching errants from within the man's favoured scenario; it had consisted of a cityscape, a speeder bike, bad guys, big guns, and a whooole lot of kilometres per hour.
Miyata's eyes crinkled up at the corners in amusement at the memory. He skipped to the next question. "じゃ, what are you here for?"
"Just checking up on you," his supervisor said.
Of course. Miyata smiled. "I'm good~"
"I know." His supervisor shrugged. "But it's policy." He'd told Miyata before that he liked people like him. They made his job easy.
Even if...
Even if they'd barely moved a couple hundred metres over the last few minutes-even if they weren't often the most productive. "Should I code you a new boat?" his supervisor asked. "It wouldn't take very long, you know. You could probably even do it yourself."
Miyata chuckled. "Eh? ぜったい無理だよ~ This is the height of my coding achievements. And a new boat would take me ages to get used to, too. I know where everything is on this one."
His supervisor looked pointedly to the left. Then to the right. Given the size of the little tug, it would have been a bigger concern to hear if Miyata hadn't known every bracket and sequence of its construction. "...how about a new engine, at least?" he offered. "Your pay rates would go up by a lot if you brought in even a few more errants, you know. You're kind of skirting the lower ranges."
"I know." Miyata shrugged eloquently. "And thank you. But it's okay. I don't need the money..." It wasn't as if he had a family to support, after all. That he knew of. "And besides," he continued, lifting the binoculars back up to his eyes with a silly grin. "It's okay if I just catch the little stupid ones."
His supervisor leaned over on the prow, trailing his fingertips through the water as the little tug made small ripples in the ocean's surface. "You're a strange one, M15. Don't you ever find it boring?"
Miyata chuckled. "On the contrary, it's only because you're the type to say such things that I don't feel so bad about leaving all the exciting stuff up to you, you know? これが totally okay by me."
His supervisor sighed. "Alright, alright. If you say so. The offer stands, though."
Miyata grinned out at the horizon. "You just want to get out of real work by finding excuses to code fun stuff."
"Oi, oi~ don't say that where anybody could hear you," his supervisor laughed. "We're all being monitored here!" Neither fact was any big secret, though.
"Alright." Miyata lowered the binoculars again, scanning the water in close. "Thanks any- Ooh~ a jellyfish!" He beamed a squinty-eyed smile at his supervisor. "Behold, M15 in action!" Disappearing to the dashboard in the tug's little on-deck cabin (which was more like a hut, really), Miyata threw a few switches to stall the boat's engines. They spluttered and wheezed in indignation before dying gracelessly, and Miyata hurried back out with a long-handled catcher net of middling size.
"I'm preparing to be impressed," his supervisor deadpanned.
With dramatic flair, Miyata swooped his catcher down shallowly into the water and scooped up the inflated, bobbing sea creature-the common representation of a Legal who was abusing resources and doing irrelevant things online while at work for more than fifteen percent of the time. (It was a bar that was, in Miyata's opinion, pretty low.) "やった!" he cheered, raising the jellyfish out of the water with a triumphant pose. "I've got you now!"
But before he could toss it up onto the deck and finish the catch, the jellyfish liquefied before his eyes and dripped out of the net, reforming into an unidentifiable regular fish as it rejoined the shoal back in the ocean.
Miyata's face fell, even his net drooping on its long handle. "It... it knew codes..." he said sadly.
"Just basic ones," his supervisor sighed, leaning back over the prow of the boat now that the drama (for what it had been) was over. "That net of yours is full of holes. And I don't mean structurally."
Miyata looked mournfully at his catcher. "...you wouldn't be interested in re-coding a new one of these for me instead of a fast boat by any chance, would you?" he asked, impossibly unhopeful.
"No chance," his supervisor confirmed.
"Oh," Miyata said. He hadn't thought so. "Well. I guess... at least he's gone back to work properly now..."
"Right..."
"...right." Miyata trundled back into the cabin in the ensuing silence, stowing his flawed catcher back away and attempting to reboot his tug's lazy engines while his supervisor took up the binoculars for lack of anything more riveting to do.
Three revs later, the engines still wouldn't go. Miyata sighed, considering a manual restart as he wondered if his tug was feeling snotty about the new boat offer, or maybe just opportunistic about the new engine offer, or...
"M15, second chance. You have an errant," his supervisor said, breaking through his thoughts. "Something like a snubfin dolphin at eleven o'clock, and it's actually headed this way."
"まじで?" Miyata blinked, coming out to stand by his supervisor again with a second pair of binoculars. "How many black cats do you think he crossed this morning? Because that's some serious unluckiness to run into us while we're stalled." Unlucky. Not to mention blind or something, to be still approaching head-on.
A dolphin was probably just... a harmless errant, not doing anything in particular wrong; not eating a tonne of the other fish, only having a bit of fun. Maybe it was just an Illegal, wanting to connect for a bit...
"Don't you have a harpoon or something aboard this thing?" his supervisor asked, glancing around at the available weapons.
Miyata smiled awkwardly. "まぁ~ she'd probably capsize if we pulled in anything too big."
"That dolphin's not big, M15," his supervisor laughed. "Show me what you've got, okay? So I'll be able to validate your pay without having to trawl the archives for once. And maybe I can get you a raise this time, too."
Miyata stepped back and took a deep breath, finding some inner resolve. He hated to hurt anyone, but... "Alright," he said, and pumped his fists on his way back into the cabin. "よし~" Starting up the little tug's engines without trouble this time, he went about searching for a catcher that might actually work...
1- senga's part was so much wth. i don't know a thing about tackey except his kimoi from watching the ppoi! intro/extro's.
2- miyata is fun, akserf. tamamori is kind of difficult by himself. :| ahaha.
3- i missed yesterday and today. 8D; aaaah, damn.
4- yokoo and iida somehow ninja'd in. as it seems they are wont with my fic. ಠ_ಠ ah well.
5- 8D it's so much doom m,ajwehfser. xD there will be retconning. there is always retconning.
Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200. :3
So I was having a shower, as you do. Showers are nurturing grounds for brains or something. Must be the capsule-like environment. :D Picked up three separate holes across two chapters, lol. Which necessitated restructuring Tamamori's part. And then a bit of Miyata's also. *throws towel* xD; That will be a problem with trying to write a not-so-crack!based AU very fast, harhar. If you notice anything else wrong, please give a heads-up? ♥ Aaanyway.
[edit 16 Feb'10] Hovering over Japanese text will give you a translation. :D
Errant entity 74-M.
( 03: a bother )
The hawk was not going to land.
The hawk, in fact, was going to avoid the weird little rabbit for as long as its wings would bear it up through the air currents. Which was theoretically forever, given the environmental overrides it knew.
Its name was Tamamori, male, and a slicer by profession. A hacker, a codesman, an illegal net disruption. That kind of thing. He bartered goods for people's desires. Because he could. Because they paid him for it, one way or another. Because, having started early, he'd kind of somehow gotten to be very good at these things over the years.
His current hawk form was a point in case. It was a magnificent virtual rendition of the bird. Tamamori had coded it himself from scratch. It looked just like the real thing had, he was sure, flying through the blue skies way back when-if not better. Its feathers were perfectly preened, each one whole and glossy. The scenario's virtual sunlight flowed over its form like a complementary polish, and Tamamori was very proud of it on the whole.
Its commissioner would be just as happy, or so he hoped.
It wasn't just the way the bird looked that Tamamori had crafted well, after all. The feel of the air currents through its feathers was refreshing and sublime. He hadn't cut any corners in programming the number of its active nerve connectors and, as Tamamori flew, he could feel the constant, cooling headwind contrasting the occasional warm updraft.
He soared with wings spread, taking the avatar through its final testing stages, pleased that the physics of its interaction were working as they should. The bird operated seamlessly in the scenario's environment. Tamamori rose higher on a warm current, hovering without expending effort. He moved easily, folding the hawk's wings in to dive like a missile, spreading them again to brake before lifting and banking against the breeze with his red-edged tail feathers.
The hawk flew well, and even from high above its sharp eyes took in the details of the current scenario with ease. Everything from the rabbit to the grass and flowers, and even its own reflection in the stream.
It was a pretty reflection...
...
The rabbit was still watching him.
Tamamori watched the rabbit right back, circling again. It was weird. Slightly uncomfortable.
Tamamori liked being watched when he knew his avatar was pretty. Especially when that prettiness was his own coded creation. But he was fairly sure that the rabbit wasn't watching him, frozen to the spot, for that reason. Was it?
Did it still think Tamamori was going to attack it?
He wasn't going to do that. The rabbit was cute and Tamamori believed-to the extent that he believed anything real-that cuteness should be preserved. Even virtual cuteness. To be appreciated from a distance. Like prettiness.
It wasn't that he was scared of strangers per se, so much as that he had no particular interest in meeting them. Especially weird ones, like that tumbling rabbit. Such people were funny from afar (Tamamori had laughed at the creature's antics), but up close or in conversation... well. He didn't like to be put on the spot so much.
Code was alright. It was like math. Predictable. Overrides cascaded. One thing came after another. If you broke this circuit, that stopped working. If you reconnected it, then all would be well.
Humans didn't work that way. They were weird and got hurt and said strange things and expected funny reactions. Tamamori wasn't a very funny person. It wasn't his job to be funny, but sometimes people made him feel like it was, or like he was. He didn't like that very much, either.
What are you doing, rabbit? he asked inwardly, one eye still tracking the small, fluffy creature. Because its eyes were still tracking him.
Presently though, the rabbit's gaze broke away. It sat back and scratched both its paws over its head twice. Tamamori watched a third scratch with detached curiosity-and was surprised to see a little red headband suddenly appear on the rabbit's head, a miniaturised signboard popping up between the little creature's long fluffy ears. The hawk's eyes could read it easily enough. He arched around and glided...
[ 8649:0900:1863:21-K ♥? ]
A contact sequence.
Tamamori chuckled, his amusement sounding out in a harsh, ringing cry from the hawk's beak. The rabbit flattened itself against the grass at the sound.
Ah... funny little creature, asking for a hawk's company despite itself.
Maybe Tamamori would oblige it? The person behind the avatar obviously knew overrides. As basic as putting a customised headband on a rabbit was, it still slimmed down the chances that they were a Legal. Or at least, not a traditionally sane Legal. Tamamori could appreciate that. And, well... The rabbit now reminded him of a certain other person he knew, who was also not quite all there sometimes...
Maybe the rabbit would entertain him more than it expected to be entertained. If that was the case, then Tamamori wouldn't mind. He circled one last time, preparing to land.
Abruptly though, his view of the scenario saturated blood-red. A whooping proximity siren sounded distantly between his ears.
Tamamori dropped the hawk avatar at once, leaving a line of virus-like self-destruct code in his virtual place. Nothing more than a floating consciousness now, he vanished from the scenario and returned to his blueroom. They'd identified his illegal net access through the scrambler and were on to him, but that was okay. It was fine. The hawk would be dead before they could pin it and trace him and if its ashes would float into the river, then so much the better. I'll fix you up again later, Mr. Hawk, Tamamori thought absently.
The real danger to him came from outside, in the physical world.
Even though it happened often enough (like... once or twice a day if he was unlucky), having to abandon things still made Tamamori unhappy each time. He didn't like the physical world so much. He wasn't that good at it.
Where's my map...? Tamamori asked himself, in the local space of his virtual blueroom. Maps, I mean. I want both of them.
Two large screens promptly swam into being at his thought-command. On one was a birds-eye map of his current vicinity; the other displayed a three-dimensional, skeletal view from his present location and eye-height, that panned if he turned his head. Both displays showed building structures and obstacles in various strengths of colour based upon things like wall thickness and mobility, correct to the last time he'd had them synchronised.
Pinpoint chaser, Tamamori instructed.
On each map a glowing pair of floating figures appeared, moving inexorably toward his location.
So, it wasn't a false alarm this time...
Tamamori's tendency to set his netgear's scanning perimeter on the wide side of safe often wasted his time. But just as often, it made the trouble worth it. Like now.
He frowned. There were two of them.
Usually the government fancied that just one of its Chasers, backed by hub support online, were enough to track down and deal with almost anybody. It was usually right, but even so...
Maybe they were training more of them. The thought made Tamamori feel like frowning, except doing that would give him premature wrinkles.
If one of the pair was a rookie, then they'd be more persistent than usual...
...
Whatever.
How long they chased him for wasn't really his concern, so long as he got out of it alive in the end. The way he dealt with them would still be the same either way. Plot their likely routes, he instructed his netgear. The four most likely, according to directness, speed of travel, and accessibility. Um. Factor in stairs but exclude boundaries of private property. Glowing paths appeared on his maps, and Tamamori considered them for a moment.
The trick was to disconnect at the right time: far enough that they wouldn't catch him, but near enough that his disappearance from their tracking systems wouldn't cause them to fan out or change their incoming route. Once disconnected, he wouldn't be able to see their presence either. He wasn't good at the physical world and needed a sure escape. Couldn't risk an encounter.
At least his scrambler program would buy him an extra... two minutes, maybe, before they realised he'd disconnected. Thirty seconds if he was unlucky and it was a competent Seeker backing up the Chasers...
The pair were getting closer. Still walking, if kind of fast, according to the glowing dots' speed. There was no sense of urgency to their movement. This was normal. Tamamori supposed he ought to be grateful to the number of stupid people who sat oblivious in the cocoons of their scenarios, not realising they were being tracked until the Chasers were already upon them.
Sometimes, they never realised it.
He supposed that was a pretty good way to die, though. That way, you never knew. Suddenly... you just weren't.
But even a good way to die still involved dying, and Tamamori didn't really want to do that yet.
Fidgeting where he sat, he planned his escape. Nothing too complex. A sure bet was better. A sure bet was good.
Once he severed his ties to the net, they wouldn't be able to satellite-spot or track his location using his contact sequence anymore. Those who weren't online in this day and age were as good as nonexistent. Sometimes, this could be used to their advantage...
Thirty percent opacity please, Tamamori instructed his netgear in preparation. Minimum power. The maps dissolved to two-thirds invisible, hovering overlaid atop the physical room he was in: a laundry.
He pulled the hood of his insulated undersuit tight and low over his head. Ugly as its reflective silver fabric was, he could wear his regular clothes over the top of the thing and it concealed his heat signature from the capabilities of portable infrared scanners. Useful, since the Chasers usually switched to infra-red when they were at a close enough range and they couldn't use the net...
Disconnect, he mentally instructed.
With a patent absence of hurry, he slipped off of the washing machine he'd been sitting cross-legged on. Laundries were good places to hide out, aboveground. Or, hide in. Since everything was automated, nothing sentient usually went into them. And if you were lucky, they didn't even stink.
They were accessible, too. The faint, skeletal outlines of the building's plans glowed calmly in his eyes beneath the dark of his hood while it was pulled over his face, but he was used to reading them like that. He looked around. The two glowing dots were still moving, no longer being updated in real-time but taking their projected path instead. That was okay. Tamamori ignored them.
Earlier, he'd come down through that chute over in the left corner, and it had been a three-storey exercise in patient descent. The thing did have a hatch servicing the first floor though, where he could probably get out and lose his pursuit...
...
All he had to do was put enough distance between himself and his net access location. Simple, in theory.
In practice, the chute was small and Tamamori was not so small. But he managed. If only half spurred on by the thought of how a paralysing taser up the behind was not on his list of noble deaths to achieve very soon.
53-N, or Senga Kento.
( 04: something like like )
Senga danced for an audience of one.
Well, two, maybe, since even if he'd been alone he would have still done it, so he was probably dancing for himself as well. There were mirrors along the walls at various angles, because his boss liked that kind of thing... Senga liked it too, though probably in kind of a different way. He could see exactly what he was doing this way, and what he wasn't. Mistakes or cool things. But his eyes didn't get the same look in them as his boss', when he did stuff...
Not that this was a problem. Senga liked his own eyes the way they were. They were wide.
At the moment it was just him and his boss in the scenario. The scenario was a one-time environment that Senga knew was secure through layers of encryption and complicated stuff. Nothing ever got past Iida and Yokoo in Watchtower mode.
So it was a really private place, which suited Senga just fine. After all, if that was what his boss wanted then Senga was as okay with it too. He didn't always get what went on inside Takizawa Hideaki's head, but he could understand a fundamental need for secrecy. Boss Tackey did serious business after all.
And that was actually none of Senga's concern either. He was in the scenario to dance while Tackey worked, and so dance he did.
His bare feet beat strong, rhythmic sequences on the polished floor. They echoed with the sound of his breath through the high-ceilinged chamber. A little way away Takizawa sat at a heavy hardwood table, writing on a scroll with a brush and ink and unhurried, stately grace.
Currently ignored, Senga largely ignored his boss in turn. It was embarrassing to screw up in front of people, so while nobody but himself was watching he tried out some turns he hadn't done before, putting himself through some new virtual paces. A one-handed forward-flip here, connecting to a hit, hit, shoulders high~ lock. Wings, swing, swing, and a cartwheel into a back handspring there- ♥
He liked dancing because he could do it well. It was one of the rare things that he knew he could ace (up against more people than could trounce him at it anyway).
"That looked good," Takizawa said presently, a smile in his voice. "Your rhythm's as fine as ever."
"Boss!" Senga spun around, a grin on his face. "Are you done?" It made him happy when Takizawa gave him compliments like that, even if it only ever happened in private. Otherwise, Boss Tackey had an image to maintain. Or so he liked to explain.
"I'm done," Takizawa smiled broadly. "Finally." He rolled the parchment up into a scroll, capping each end with a metal round thing. Deliberately, elaborately, he then tied a red ribbon around it just so, and melted the end off of a stick of wax and pressed his own ring into the blob.
The process looked complicated and full of care and Senga watched in fascination thinking that you probably had to like somebody a lot to go through that much trouble with a message for them, when just a regular private text message kind of thing would do. "Is that for Panellist Imai again?" he chirped.
Boss Tackey liked to write to Panellist Tsubasa. In fact, Senga was pretty sure, Boss Tackey liked Panellist Tsubasa.
Takizawa laughed. "My, how did you guess?"
"Because I'm sentiment," Senga told him with a grin. "There's intelligence in this life form, yo!"
"Indeed there must be," Takizawa chuckled. "Though I think you mean sentient."
Senga tilted his head, brows furrowed. "There's no M in it?"
"There's no M in it. An M makes it another word."
"Oh..."
"Cheer up, you silly boy," Takizawa smiled. "Do you remember that dance you just practised?"
"Hm?" Senga thought about it for a moment. "...yeah." He smiled. Of course he did. He could remember dances really well, if not words.
"That's good to hear," Tackey said, getting that watching look in his eyes again. "Because I liked what I saw of the end, and would like to see the entire thing for real after this. Do you think you could show it to me?"
Senga's eyes widened. "Sure I can," he said automatically, unwilling to disappoint. Even if when Takizawa said for real, he meant outside of the virtual realm. Senga'd only just made that dance sequence up. He hadn't yet practised...
Takizawa grinned, and rang a dainty-looking bell to the side of his desk. "I'll look forward to it, then."
Senga sweated.
Meanwhile summoned, the tall, virtual form of half of Takizawa's security detail materialised in the centre of the room between Senga and the desk. On bended knee and head bowed, the knuckles of Yokoo's fist pressed lightly to the ground. "Tono," he saluted before looking up, and unfolding to stand.
"Have this delivered to Tsubasa, please," Takizawa said and held out his scroll.
Yokoo stepped forward, accepting the message with both hands in dutiful courtesy. "Yes, sir," he said with a half smile. "I'll get Fujigaya on it."
"I was just going to suggest so myself," Takizawa chuckled. "A good call."
"Thanks," Yokoo grinned, and bowed to take his leave.
"Wait, wait! Say more stuff," Senga blurted.
Yokoo looked over his shoulder, raising a brow at Senga before turning back to Takizawa with rare incomprehension on his face. "...does more need to be said?"
"I think our little friend would like a bit more time for image training," Takizawa laughed. "I've issued him a challenge, you see."
"Right..." Yokoo said.
"Hmm~" Takizawa hummed. "Well. See that the message is encrypted and secure before you send it, please, Yokoo-kun."
"By default," Yokoo said, with a frown. "Of course I'd run it through Iida first." If it had been anyone else telling him so, Yokoo might have been insulted by such a rudimentary order.
"Of course," Takizawa acknowledged with typical grace.
"...should I see to it now, then?" Yokoo asked, glancing over his shoulder at Senga again, unsure which of the scenario's occupants he should be asking.
Senga stared back at him with wide eyes.
Takizawa looked between the two of them for a moment, before asking: "Senga-kun?"
Senga flailed inwardly, blinking as he came back to himself. "Yes, Boss?"
"Are you ready?"
"I'm ready, I'm ready!" he exclaimed, flustered. "Sorry."
"Alright," Takizawa smiled, and gave a nod. "Then take your leave, Yokoo-kun."
"...thanks," Yokoo said again, and bowed. He spared Senga a last strange look before fading from view.
"Completed your image training then?" Takizawa grinned.
Senga flushed. "...yeah. I think so." Really though, image training within a virtual world was a bit of a silly idea. When he danced within a scenario, it was technically already 'image training', since it was just all in his mind. Even if the way his netgear hijacked his brainwaves allowed his nerves to think that they felt a lot more than what he'd otherwise feel using just the power of his own imagination... It was still image training by virtue of him not physically moving when it happened.
"Alright," Takizawa smiled, and called: "Iida-kun. Terminate the scenario and log us out, please."
"Acknowledged, sir," Iida's husky tones sounded from nowhere in particular around them, calm and disembodied. The next second, the grand room faded away and Senga blinked as his eyes re-adjusted to the dimmer light of Takizawa's actual quarters.
He stretched out on the floor, rolling from side to side a bit in an attempt to work out the kinks his muscles got from just sitting there whilst online. "Ahhh... I'm stiff!" he complained.
"And sweating already," Takizawa laughed. "You're ridiculous. Come here."
"Yes, Boss..." Senga said and shuffled over, embarrassed. He closed his eyes, demurely allowing Takizawa to pat at his face with a towel, and brush his hair out of the way. He knew Boss Tackey liked doing these things too-liked giving attention-though probably not as much as he liked Panellist Tsubasa. Maybe it was close? Or maybe it was something different altogether.
The air was warm and the room's walls were a lot more confining than those of the vast hall that the scenario had featured. It was still just the two of them present though, and Takizawa's quarters were just as private. And Senga still liked it. He liked the feel of the soft cloth Takizawa used, too, brushing over his face and neck, and the way Takizawa's hands were gentle as they arranged his collar and...
"...ne," he murmured at last, vaguely curious. "Why do you do that?"
Takizawa sounded amused. "What exactly, Senga, is 'that'...?"
"Umm... the talking thing," Senga said. "You tell Iida to do stuff out loud when, you know... You could just think it to him. Or just terminate the scenario yourself by thinking it. But you always... say so. You know?"
"Ah~ that," Takizawa said, with a smile in his voice. Senga blinked at the tone. It was the kind of gently firm way Takizawa spoke when Senga sometimes didn't want to eat all of his nutricubes. "That's because relationships are all about communication," Takizawa explained. "Interaction and confirmation. Affection and affirmation. From these things, various types of relationships are made, like friendships and partnerships." His fingers brushed Senga's hair away from his face. It felt nice. "Interaction is important."
"Oh..." Senga said, in an attempt to pretend that his brain was still working under Tackey's ministrations. "Okay..." He couldn't concentrate at all much though, because it was... somehow different. There was a very big difference between the virtual world and actual, physical touch. Both felt the same, with the same nerves activated. The same hormones, even. But even then, and even when it was the same people involved, it still wasn't... the same.
In the real world there wasn't that stupid emptiness-that dumb little box locked up in the back of your head most of the time virtually, that had a stupid little voice in it saying, 'No matter how good it feels, it still isn't real.'
Senga knew he was super lucky to have a boss like Boss Tackey, who cared enough to teach them all things like that.
"Do you understand, Senga?" Takizawa asked.
"Mmn," Senga murmured an automatic affirmative. Automatic, but... maybe he did really get it this time.
"That's good," Takizawa smiled. "Now... will you dance for me?"
Senga sat up, blinking. He could dance. He could dance for real. If he thought about it that way, then the idea was kind of cool...
He grinned. "Yes, Boss."
Government entity M15.
( 05: dysfunction )
The underground boy of ten years ago wasn't a boy anymore so much as a young man. He'd gone from eight to eighteen, and neither was he underground these days. He was a fully legal citizen now (if second class), just a regular old entity designated 'M15'-in the books of the government for which he worked, anyway.
He'd never forgotten, though, over those years of growing, and had never lost the element of character that the man who'd raised him had instilled. Even if his name still wasn't legally Miyata Toshiya, he was still a fundamentally cheerful guy.
He hummed as he worked, standing on the prow of his little tug boat that pooped and farted its way across the wide, blue ocean. The tug was comically small, checking in at barely four metres long. Small and round, like a bar of soap. Miyata liked it a lot. It was a very old fashioned wooden boat, full of putts and quirks. Its white paint wasn't really white anymore, and tended to peel off in strips more than flake, but it lent the boat character. Ringed around the hull's outside was thick, buffering rope, which was also a hundred percent unnecessary but for character, since the tug never docked.
Whenever Miyata started up the scenario, he got straight to work. And he worked right up until it was time to go home. There was none of that shallow waters business...
Shoals of fish swam all around in united, cohesive ripples of refracted light. Miyata's job was simple enough: to catch disruptions. Hackers, errant net users and the like. Within his scenario, they manifested themselves as creatures who swam against the tide. A very minor offender might show up as something like a salmon going in the wrong direction. A more serious and invasive criminal might perhaps be a shark-possibly even eating other fish.
None of it worried him though. His little tug was equipped with nets and weapons to deal with all shapes and sizes. Miyata kept a vigilant eye out through his binoculars, scanning the middle ground and horizon.
"You do realise you stick out like a sore thumb right, M15?" a voice behind Miyata asked suddenly.
"Hey there, Supervisor." Miyata smiled without taking his eyes away from the binoculars or the sea. And though he knew what the man meant, he said anyway: "How do you mean...?"
Miyata's supervisor shook his head, coming up to stand beside Miyata and lean against the railing at the little tug's prow, humoring his quirky subordinate. "Your boat," he said, "isn't exactly the stealthiest thing to sail the seven seas. Offenders can see you coming a mile away, with time to run and more. You'd have better success if you used something a bit newer. The scenario itself is also somewhat outdated."
"A lot of people like the ocean~" Miyata countered. A scenario of the ocean, anyway. The real ones were all sort of a murky brown these days, full of sludge and distasteful fluids...
"True, but most of them prefer to swim under sea creature avatars rather than use boats."
Miyata grinned. "I like the wind in my face?"
"But not flying?" his supervisor laughed.
Miyata shook his head sheepishly, finally lowering the binoculars. "I'm kind of scared of heights." In truth, he had a lot of irrational fears and mental blocks for all that he was happy-go-lucky. Not that he minded. They weren't incapacitating or anything.
"Sorry," his supervisor grinned, not very apologetic. He was a young man, maybe a handful of years older than Miyata himself. Unlike Miyata though, his supervisor liked fast things. Miyata had been taught the initial ropes of catching errants from within the man's favoured scenario; it had consisted of a cityscape, a speeder bike, bad guys, big guns, and a whooole lot of kilometres per hour.
Miyata's eyes crinkled up at the corners in amusement at the memory. He skipped to the next question. "じゃ, what are you here for?"
"Just checking up on you," his supervisor said.
Of course. Miyata smiled. "I'm good~"
"I know." His supervisor shrugged. "But it's policy." He'd told Miyata before that he liked people like him. They made his job easy.
Even if...
Even if they'd barely moved a couple hundred metres over the last few minutes-even if they weren't often the most productive. "Should I code you a new boat?" his supervisor asked. "It wouldn't take very long, you know. You could probably even do it yourself."
Miyata chuckled. "Eh? ぜったい無理だよ~ This is the height of my coding achievements. And a new boat would take me ages to get used to, too. I know where everything is on this one."
His supervisor looked pointedly to the left. Then to the right. Given the size of the little tug, it would have been a bigger concern to hear if Miyata hadn't known every bracket and sequence of its construction. "...how about a new engine, at least?" he offered. "Your pay rates would go up by a lot if you brought in even a few more errants, you know. You're kind of skirting the lower ranges."
"I know." Miyata shrugged eloquently. "And thank you. But it's okay. I don't need the money..." It wasn't as if he had a family to support, after all. That he knew of. "And besides," he continued, lifting the binoculars back up to his eyes with a silly grin. "It's okay if I just catch the little stupid ones."
His supervisor leaned over on the prow, trailing his fingertips through the water as the little tug made small ripples in the ocean's surface. "You're a strange one, M15. Don't you ever find it boring?"
Miyata chuckled. "On the contrary, it's only because you're the type to say such things that I don't feel so bad about leaving all the exciting stuff up to you, you know? これが totally okay by me."
His supervisor sighed. "Alright, alright. If you say so. The offer stands, though."
Miyata grinned out at the horizon. "You just want to get out of real work by finding excuses to code fun stuff."
"Oi, oi~ don't say that where anybody could hear you," his supervisor laughed. "We're all being monitored here!" Neither fact was any big secret, though.
"Alright." Miyata lowered the binoculars again, scanning the water in close. "Thanks any- Ooh~ a jellyfish!" He beamed a squinty-eyed smile at his supervisor. "Behold, M15 in action!" Disappearing to the dashboard in the tug's little on-deck cabin (which was more like a hut, really), Miyata threw a few switches to stall the boat's engines. They spluttered and wheezed in indignation before dying gracelessly, and Miyata hurried back out with a long-handled catcher net of middling size.
"I'm preparing to be impressed," his supervisor deadpanned.
With dramatic flair, Miyata swooped his catcher down shallowly into the water and scooped up the inflated, bobbing sea creature-the common representation of a Legal who was abusing resources and doing irrelevant things online while at work for more than fifteen percent of the time. (It was a bar that was, in Miyata's opinion, pretty low.) "やった!" he cheered, raising the jellyfish out of the water with a triumphant pose. "I've got you now!"
But before he could toss it up onto the deck and finish the catch, the jellyfish liquefied before his eyes and dripped out of the net, reforming into an unidentifiable regular fish as it rejoined the shoal back in the ocean.
Miyata's face fell, even his net drooping on its long handle. "It... it knew codes..." he said sadly.
"Just basic ones," his supervisor sighed, leaning back over the prow of the boat now that the drama (for what it had been) was over. "That net of yours is full of holes. And I don't mean structurally."
Miyata looked mournfully at his catcher. "...you wouldn't be interested in re-coding a new one of these for me instead of a fast boat by any chance, would you?" he asked, impossibly unhopeful.
"No chance," his supervisor confirmed.
"Oh," Miyata said. He hadn't thought so. "Well. I guess... at least he's gone back to work properly now..."
"Right..."
"...right." Miyata trundled back into the cabin in the ensuing silence, stowing his flawed catcher back away and attempting to reboot his tug's lazy engines while his supervisor took up the binoculars for lack of anything more riveting to do.
Three revs later, the engines still wouldn't go. Miyata sighed, considering a manual restart as he wondered if his tug was feeling snotty about the new boat offer, or maybe just opportunistic about the new engine offer, or...
"M15, second chance. You have an errant," his supervisor said, breaking through his thoughts. "Something like a snubfin dolphin at eleven o'clock, and it's actually headed this way."
"まじで?" Miyata blinked, coming out to stand by his supervisor again with a second pair of binoculars. "How many black cats do you think he crossed this morning? Because that's some serious unluckiness to run into us while we're stalled." Unlucky. Not to mention blind or something, to be still approaching head-on.
A dolphin was probably just... a harmless errant, not doing anything in particular wrong; not eating a tonne of the other fish, only having a bit of fun. Maybe it was just an Illegal, wanting to connect for a bit...
"Don't you have a harpoon or something aboard this thing?" his supervisor asked, glancing around at the available weapons.
Miyata smiled awkwardly. "まぁ~ she'd probably capsize if we pulled in anything too big."
"That dolphin's not big, M15," his supervisor laughed. "Show me what you've got, okay? So I'll be able to validate your pay without having to trawl the archives for once. And maybe I can get you a raise this time, too."
Miyata stepped back and took a deep breath, finding some inner resolve. He hated to hurt anyone, but... "Alright," he said, and pumped his fists on his way back into the cabin. "よし~" Starting up the little tug's engines without trouble this time, he went about searching for a catcher that might actually work...
1- senga's part was so much wth. i don't know a thing about tackey except his kimoi from watching the ppoi! intro/extro's.
2- miyata is fun, akserf. tamamori is kind of difficult by himself. :| ahaha.
3- i missed yesterday and today. 8D; aaaah, damn.
4- yokoo and iida somehow ninja'd in. as it seems they are wont with my fic. ಠ_ಠ ah well.
5- 8D it's so much doom m,ajwehfser. xD there will be retconning. there is always retconning.