bunnyfic 17, 18, 19, 20
The last few days have been educational. xD LOL. I found out this thing takes me about... 4 hours per 1.8k of words, excluding proofing and loopholes? GOD, WHY SO SLOW. And then I swore off posting past midnight, given the average posting timestamp was like, 4am or something and bedtimes must be observed! xD ... D: But then discovered that it's actually cathartic before I go to bed -- because I didn't post yesterday, then had the most disturbing dream about James Bond using Vaseline for lube and there were also bombs and crap exploding and a bad guy in the house and throwing grenades and hiding under the bed and what. Subconscious, go jump off a cliff. <-woke up so disturbed. And then a friend sms'd and asked if we wanted to go see Quantum of Solace. D:
A collection of legal entities: K17, T41, Y00, I14.
( 17: guardians, not angels )
"Taisuke," Yokoo said, coming through the common room door with a grin on his face. "I've got news for you."
Fujigaya raised an eyebrow. "Yeah? It better be good..." He was flopped on the room's sole couch and still feeling a little annoyed from earlier, about how Takizawa had asked him to go find Senga and send him to Takizawa's private quarters. That brat...
"Do I look like the bearer of ill tidings right now?" Yokoo asked pointedly, pointing to his face. He was still smiling.
"Yokoo-san, Yokoo-san," Fujigaya said, more than a little prickly about it. "That expression on your esteemed self could mean any number of things, good and bad. For example: 'Hey, Taisuke~ I've got news for you. Remember how you misplaced your virtual skates? Well, after much searching I've found them. They're in the doghouse scenario now. Which, by the way, I've also had Iida fill with pit bull terriers. So you might want to hurry if you ever want to see them intact again.' And then I'll say something like, 'Oh no! That's no good!' And you'll tell me that it serves me right for losing my programs again and not naming them properly." Leaning back on the couch, Fujigaya looked up at Yokoo, a belligerent smile on his face. "Right?"
"Perhaps right," Yokoo said, and plopped down on the end of the couch, refusing to rise to the bait. He fought with Fujigaya sometimes -- not half as much as Fujigaya fought with Kitayama, but (apart from the fact that those two just had a special bond like that) that was because Yokoo's rule of thumb was to just pretend that Fujigaya wasn't in a bad mood whenever he was.
Said moods didn't usually last long, anyway.
"So tell me already, Wataru~" Fujigaya said, switching to Yokoo's given name -- which was the default when Fujigaya was feeling friendly (which was usual). Or wanted something (which was sometimes). "You've made me curious and now I want to know. Don't leave me hanging~"
"Flatscreen activate," Yokoo articulated, as if by way of answering. Then turned to grin at Fujigaya. "He's doing it again."
"Who's doing what?" Fujigaya deadpanned, unimpressed.
"Your charge," Yokoo informed him, "has gone Tarzan today."
"Oh. Him." Fujigaya was still unimpressed. And still prickly from before. "Really."
"Really." Yokoo snorted softly. He was amused, though. Especially when Fujigaya's eyes glanced over at the real time display when Iida's feed swam into view on the flatscreen's panel, belying his supposed lack of interest.
"Hey, this isn't fair," Fujigaya protested, swinging his legs off of the couch to face the display properly. "You routed a feed just to make me watch!"
"Only because I knew you'd totally want to watch," Yokoo grinned, and gave Fujigaya the rundown: "He was sent on an errand to deliver a letter to Prince Domoto K. We left him on foot in a forest scenario, a portion of which is currently frozen. We're not sure what twigged the seekers yet, but there are two chasers in the scenario at present-- Flatscreen pause," he added. Temporarily, the image stilled, rippling a little while the flatscreen's antiquated systems took a moment to remove the feed's motion blur and shakiness. "...the rabbit you see there is 21-K."
Nikaido was currently caught in the act of taking a random bite out of Senga's hair. Fujigaya snorted. "Right, the little feral. Kitayama's charge?"
"Yes. Also known as Nikaido."
"Weird name," Fujigaya said.
"I didn't choose it," Yokoo shrugged as if that explained everything, and brought the feed back up to speed: "Flatscreen skip to real time."
"...it's in real time?" Fujigaya said.
"Yeah. He's swinging as we speak. And Kyon's got a complete recording from the start, if you like."
"Wataru, no. Thank you, but totally no thanks. That's going too far."
Yokoo grinned. "Well, this phenomenon happens so rarely. When you really want to compare charges, you need all the ammo you can muster against Kitayama."
"I resent that," Fujigaya said with a mock glare, though he didn't take his eyes from the screen. "I resent that a great deal..."
Yokoo chuckled, clearly enjoying himself. "On the other hand it might not matter so much. It's not as if 21-K's amazing levels of skill blow Senga out of the water either." He raised his voice ever so slightly, still heavy on the amusement: "Right, Kitamitsu?"
"...hn? Ugh, what...?"
"Great," Fujigaya said. "Now you've gone and woken him up."
"Why do I nod off only to come back to you guys talking about me?" Kitayama's sleep-rough voice groused from behind them.
"We need to be talking about something," Fujigaya said matter of factly. "And it's not like you nod off rarely enough for us to come up with original topics all the time," he added. "Care to join us? There'll be space on the couch if Wataru here moves over."
"Excuse me, Taisuke," Yokoo said primly. "I'm not the biggest of us three by a long shot." It was valid enough -- Yokoo was a veritable rake. He did move over though, making room at the end of the couch for Kitayama to sit with them if he so chose.
Fujigaya shrugged. "No, our resident fatty would be Kitayama."
"And you ask me to join you," Kitayama sniffed, feigning indignation. "Shouldn't you be worried about ending up on the floor?" With the audible, low hum of a pair of miniature reactors, he skated over and dropped into the couch.
"Oof," Fujigaya grinned, feigning offence on the furniture's behalf.
"Shut it, Taisuke," Kitayama said lazily, settling against its comfy formafoam backrest.
Yokoo gave Kitayama a certain Look, trademarked and registered. "How many times have you been told not to sleep with your skates powered up?"
Kitayama made a face. "Come on, Yokoo-san. Fujigaya had the couch. Up in the air was the next nicest napping place."
"Apart from your bed, naturally," Yokoo said. "They're reactors on your feet, you know."
"They're safe!" Kitayama donned a hurt expression. "And you know that if I went to sleep properly, you'd never get me awake again. And I'd miss out on things like this."
"You don't even know what this is," Fujigaya snerked.
"I heard my charge's name," Kitayama said dismissively. "And that--" he gestured to Senga's image on the screen "--is yours. Deduction isn't exactly rocket science, though I am surprised they know each other already..." He spared a glance at Yokoo with the implied question.
Yokoo shrugged. "A strange set of coincidences starting less than twenty-four hours ago," he explained, without really saying anything at all.
Kitayama shrugged. "Whatever."
"That totally explains nothing at all, Wataru," Fujigaya said obtusely. "Please enlighten us."
"Maybe," Yokoo grinned. "After we bet on the outcome."
Fujigaya snorted. "I say this with a great deal of fondness in my biting cynicism, but it's not as if Senga's going to be able to fight his way out of that frozen scenario anytime this millennium, right? And he can run for a very long time. Believe me when I say there's no rush."
"Is that your bet then?" Yokoo asked, eyes disappearing in a wide, crooked smile. "That things will continue this way for a while?"
"Yeah, well..." Fujigaya made a show of inspecting the screen, within which Senga was currently leaping barefoot through the treetops. "Interference from you or Iida aside, he'll just keep running from those chasers like a hamster on a wheel."
Kitayama snorted softly at that. Yokoo shook his head, amused. "It's possible."
"I bet less," Kitayama said. "Sooner rather than later, he's going to screw up and get caught."
Fujigaya raised an eyebrow. "There are two chasers after them. Only two. Aren't you underestimating my charge just a little bit there, Kitayama...?"
"Funny, when you were calling him a hamster mere moments ago."
"I can do that," Fujigaya said stubbornly. "He's my charge--"
But he derailed that train of thought for a moment and silence reigned in the common room as Senga ran out of tree to run through, and leapt out across a clearing. It seemed almost to happen in slow motion, the on-screen figure was so calm about jumping from such a ridiculous height, dropping down, down and down to land solidly against the hard floor right in the middle of it.
Yokoo imagined there would have been a billow of dust at Senga's feet, had the scenario not been frozen--
"...that would've looked a lot cooler if the scenario hadn't been frozen," Kitayama said aloud, off-hand.
"Look!" Fujigaya laughed, pointing. "Look, the rabbit's totally just cracking its eyes open now!"
"...that's the way, 21-K. Don't leave you guys silhouetted out there like targets or anything," Kitayama added as Nikaido dragged Senga out of the direct moonlight.
"Aww, how cute. They're sharing shoes!" Fujigaya laughed.
"Senga didn't enter the scenario with any," Yokoo told him with a sadistic grin. "Because his virtual big toe was still sprained and wrapped."
Kitayama laughed heartily at that. Fujigaya slapped a palm to his forehead. "Tell me how he's the best power user we've got again?"
"Power users," Yokoo recited dutifully, with an irritating smile, "are able to turn any given scenario into their virtual oyster. They don't know the code behind what they do, but neither do they need to. They are merely adept at maximising the performance of their avatars within a scenario, whatever they may be; at getting the most out of a program using only its graphical user interface."
"I knew that," Fujigaya told him grumpily. "And everyone here knows Senga can't code to save his life--"
"Dyslexia," Kitayama put in, only half joking, "probably."
Fujigaya ignored him. "--but unless he's an idiot savant, getting rid of a minor injury like that is just avatar construction basics."
"You don't think he's an idiot savant?" Yokoo cackled.
"Just shut up, Wataru."
"You wouldn't understand," Kitayama said.
"Oh, right," Fujigaya snerked, "you'd know because you've still got trouble differentiating your real and virtual selves too, don't you?"
"Answer this one, Kitamitsu~"
"It's nothing so minor as that," Kitayama told them, indicating Senga's on-screen feet, "but I got online latest of all of us. So if you ask me, Senga's just got a very solid sense of his real self--"
"Which would figure. He is mostly a dancer, after all."
"--so that his avatar construction is more subconscious than anything."
"So he just doesn't think about it," Yokoo crowed. "It's the idiot savant theory after all."
"Right," Fujigaya objected, leaning forward to eye Kitayama: "But. There's just one problem with your call. Senga's been online from a younger age than all of us. So how do you explain that?"
"Ah," Kitayama shrugged. "Then it must be just a side-effect of depression."
"What?" Fujigaya laughed.
"Well, everything gets blamed on depression doesn't it?" Kitayama snerked, amused.
It was true enough though, for the amount of legals who were prescribed drugs with their nutri-cubes or underwent scheduled therapy scenarios online. Takizawa wasn't a particular believer in either method: real interaction, he believed, cured a great deal of psychological ills. (He didn't seem terribly fussed when said real interaction, in Senga's case, meant a lot of teasing and tormenting from those senior to him. That was apparently just part of growing up.)
"Hey, wait, wait--" Fujigaya said, suddenly aghast as he pointed to the screen. "What's he doing? Wataru, what did he just yell? He totally just shouted something right in the middle of the-- aww, why don't we have audio on this thing?"
Kitayama laughed as Yokoo just rolled his eyes. "They weren't saying anything too worthwhile until just then. Excuse me."
"Of course."
Pressing the heel of his palm to his left year, Yokoo completed a circuit that activated the cochlear implant in his head. It allowed him direct remote access to Takizawa's servers from anywhere within the house, the connection untraceable from the net at large, and unjammable due to its broad range frequency. He was connected immediately. "Kyon."
On the other end, Iida was laughing. "Ah," he said, chuckles barely diminished. "Hey... need something?"
Yokoo shook his head, almost regretting having to ask already. "Taisuke wants to know what Senga just yelled. Can you rewind to just prior and play it with audio for us?"
Iida's laughter redoubled at that. "I can, but are you sure you want me to?"
Yokoo grinned, and turned to Fujigaya with an eyebrow raised. "He wants to know if you're sure you want it."
Fujigaya raised an eyebrow right back at Yokoo, before glancing briefly at Kitayama's amused expression at the other end of the couch, and looking back at Yokoo. In a split second, he weighted up his own curiosity against the (almost certain) potential that he'd lose either pride or face with this--
The curiosity won.
"I'm sure," Fujigaya said. "Of course I'm sure."
Yokoo shook his head again. "Let it rip, Kyon."
"Indeed. Enjoy~" Iida chuckled, shutting down their link.
As Yokoo lowered his hand again, the flatscreen display skipped back a few dozen seconds, and Senga's image raised his hands to his mouth. There was still no white noise -- the scenario was frozen after all -- but then two distinct voices rang out from the speakers.
"II-CHAAAN~! IF YOU'RE LISTENING, A LITTLE BIT OF HELP HERE ANYTIME SOON WOULD BE SUPER SWEET PLEAAAAASE!"
"What the fuck do you think you're doing!?"
...and then a few seconds later, the bellow of a hunting horn.
Kitayama didn't bother trying to contain his mirth at the blatant failure, laughing heartily into the armrest as he clutched his stomach.
Yokoo's grin was about a mile wide. "So~" he chuckled.
"...why are we bothering with them again?" Fujigaya deadpanned. "I mean seriously. I'd like to know."
"For the sake of seeing a revolution come to pass," Yokoo duly recited, again with the irritating smile. "We shall--"
"Right," Fujigaya said, sinking into the couch with an air of defeat. "Tono's vision and all that."
"Right," Yokoo grinned.
"But..."
"So funny... soo~ funny..." Kitayama chuckled and sighed out the last dregs of his amusement.
"Are you quite done there?" Fujigaya asked across the couch, a little peevish.
Kitayama made a show of dabbing at his eyes. "Ahh~ maybe, maybe. Thank you for filling today's quota of entertainment, Taisuke," he said. "That was good."
"You're welcome," Fujigaya told him.
"Yokoo-san, Yokoo-san," Kitayama said, grinning like a kid in a toy store as he pointed to the flatscreen's figures. "Can we keep them? I want to keep them~ ♥"
Illegal entity, 74-M. And the collection again.
( 18: superstars and cannonballs )
Tamamori was having a little difficulty. For a few reasons.
The back door had opened just fine, and was now safely closed again after him like it had never been there (apart from a little catch that'd allow him to get it open again real quick). But despite how that had gone well...
Firstly, he couldn't locate Senga and Nikaido, and had no idea where they were. Or if they were even still around. He didn't want to spread his scanners too widely, just in case he pinged off of a chaser and alerted them to his presence. While chasers weren't generally competent in his opinion, that didn't mean he wanted any after him all the same.
Which in turn meant that he was relegated to using the natural eyes and ears of his avatar only. Which was really not much better than trying to find a needle in a haystack, because the frozen part of the forest was big. And Tamamori was not so big.
He could have used a different avatar -- something far bigger, or one that flew -- but the logic against that course of action was the same as the argument against using wide range scanning: the chasers, however many there were, and the fact that they were bad news. At the moment, Tamamori was set on keeping as low a profile as possible.
He was not here to play superhero and save the day. He was here to investigate... something. And it wouldn't do to make waves until he found out what that something was. Miyata's efforts warranted at least that much. And so Tamamori would stick to ordinary code for the time being. Nothing that would raise flags.
All this aside, Senga would have needed no saving if he'd just left Nikaido be. And Nikaido... well, Tamamori had already saved Nikaido once that day. The skater boy wasn't stupid. Or, not that stupid at least. He'd survived this long, if nothing else...
Tamamori snuffled a small sigh out of his sensitive nose, licking it to keep it damp as he padded along, picking his way silently through the forest, careful to place his paws only on the bodies of leaves so as to avoid stepping on anything that would cut him.
Everything was eerily silent.
In the distance, he could hear... vague sounds, filtered through the trees. But his ears were large and highly sensitive; everybody was still far off. Which was a good thing, he supposed. He trotted along on black-socked feet, his bushy, white-tipped tail stretched out behind him for balance as he made his way over to where the action was.
:::
"You know..." Senga said, tentatively amused as he swung to a stop among the higher reaches of a random tree, and squatted casually on a thin branch, easily balanced. The branch wasn't going to break so long as the scenario remained frozen, disallowing interaction. No interaction meant that the tree had no idea Senga was sitting on it. And that was okay by him. "If it's between my feet from before," he told Nikaido, "or my shoulders now, I think the pain levels and bleeding would be about the same..."
"Hey, you can't blame neither of those on me," Nikaido countered. "You were stupid enough to run barefoot on the frozen floor, and you were the one who told me to go bunny. I don't have any other way to hold on tight enough, you know." The fact that Senga's shoulders both bore teeth marks of a totally unsexy kind was not Nikaido's fault at all.
Senga just laughed. "As long as you don't have rabies or something, I guess I'll live."
"Pfft," Nikaido grinned. "If I was gonna give you a virus, it totally wouldn't be as lame as rabies."
"Oh!" Senga said, half non sequitur: "I could get you a bunny harness for next time! I've totally seen them around, you know. People and their pets -- it's not just dogs, they'll walk anything! Like, I've seen a guy walking a goldfish before. It was totally funny. We could use one of those to keep you stuck to me."
"What? No," Nikaido said. "I'm not wearing no bunny harness. And who says there's going to be a next time, anyway?" He rubbed his paws over his nose at the lieful wish. He hoped it would be a lie anyway. Senga was kind of fun.
"Won't there be though? A next time?" Senga asked, turning his head to try and look at Nikaido, still perched on his shoulder. It was still a difficult thing, unfortunately.
Nikaido swiped a paw at Senga's nose, smacking it lightly. "Not with chasers behind us I mean, okay? Where's your Iichan or whatever anyway? Has he heard you yet or what?"
Senga frowned, chewing his upper lip. "I don't know," he admitted, and looked up at the full moon, easily visible this high up among the trees. It, too, was frozen in the sky at its post-dusk largest. "Maybe I should try calling again..."
"Uh," Nikaido said. "If by 'call' you mean like private ring, ring, dial tone, hello? and not just shouting again, because if you mean just shouting then I'm gonna have to say no."
"You're not the boss of me though," Senga pointed out.
"What," Nikaido blatted an impressive raspberry for a bunny, clearly having had practice at it. "That's bullshit. I'm the commonsense of you, is what I am!"
"That doesn't even make sense."
"You don't even make sense."
"Your mom doesn't even make sense!"
"What the hell!" Nikaido snapped. "No, she didn't, she was a crazy bitch, but that's totally irrelevant!" He jumped off of Senga's shoulder all in a huff, hopping irritatedly to the end of their branch.
Senga stared after Nikaido, surprised at the other's reaction to that silly comment. The guys back at Boss Tackey's said things like that all the time, and it'd never...
Watching Nikaido hop, Senga vaguely hoped he wasn't going to lose his footing and fall like a million metres to the forest floor and die. But Nikaido stopped safely at the end of the branch and just sat there harmlessly enough -- his back to Senga, but almost visibly fuming nonetheless. Nikaido's body language, Senga thought, was really easy to read.
"...you remember your mom?" Senga asked tentatively, voice kind of low. A little plaintive. He didn't like it when people were angry at him.
"I wish I didn't," Nikaido grumbled under his breath. "Dad either."
If the bad mood tones sounded a little funny coming out of his rabbity little voice box, then Senga wisely made no mention. "Oh," he said instead, "well I guess it's no good if they're bad memories. But I kind of wish I had some of my parents. I totally don't remember anything!" He laughed at himself, softly, a little depressed, and stared at the bark of the branch he was perched on. "It kind of sucks, because you know. When they say I've got stupid genes and stuff, I can't say I don't because I totally don't know..."
"What the hell kind of reason is that?" Nikaido snorted. "You're retarded."
"I am not!" Senga protested.
"You have stupid genes," Nikaido told him.
"...now you're just being mean," Senga frowned.
Nikaido turned around, levelling Senga with as even a stare as he could muster from his less than impressive bunny height. "Nah, my parents chucked me out of a window when I was five, you know?" he said, blasé tone incongruous with his words. He peered sideways, down toward the ground. "Actually, our place was about this high up, I think. 'Could've been I was smaller then, though."
"No way..." Senga stared right back. "Are you for real?"
"Guess if I am." Nikaido's grin was not a little sardonic around the edges. "Nah, I think they paid the reproduction tax for me, but couldn't afford to send me to school? And you know, since it's against the law to keep a kid at home and not send them to school, they picked not to keep me at home. What do you think? I never went to school, you know."
"...can you write?" Senga blinked. "Like... can you read?"
"I'm not retarded," Nikaido snorted. Not as retarded as Senga anyway. "Or illiterate." He knew his alphabet in order perfectly fine at least. That was what classroom scenarios were for. Not the official ones that the government ran, but other ones that were close enough. You could even get fake NPC teachers and fake classmates in them...
"Oh," Senga said. And tilted his head a little. "Hey, I can teach you stuff if you like? I know stuff! I like school a lot, and I can teach you it if you want."
"No thanks," Nikaido sniffed, turning his head. "I don't think you'd be much--"
He froze before finishing that sentence though, head stuck sideways and one eye fixed squarely staring at something just past Senga in apparent petrification.
Senga blinked, uncomprehending for a second -- until he glanced over his shoulder.
And came face to face with a red fox.
"Ahh!" he shouted, making shooing motions with his hands. "Stupid predator, keep away! Nika-chan's my bunny and you totally can't have him!"
:::
"That... isn't a chaser," Kitayama said, watching their miniature rendition of Senga flap and squawk on the flatscreen display. "They don't do things that way." As the action arm of government law enforcement, concepts like discretion and stealth were as foreign to the average chaser as ballet shoes on a tank.
Yokoo shook his head in agreement, on call with Iida again. "Kyon says it's actually 74-M."
"His charge?" Fujigaya raised an eyebrow. "What's this, a Junior Recruits Anonymous meeting? Since when did they all know each other already?" He turned back to the screen, growing impatient with Senga and Nikaido. "Trace his contact sequence, idiots!"
Yokoo shook his head. "74-M has a scrambler. They wouldn't know it was him again unless he told them so."
"'Again'? Wait -- Iida gave him that?"
"A less secure version in a fair trade, or so he says," Yokoo chuckled. "And 'again'. The three were in the same party earlier, before 74-M switched scenarios briefly."
"Not much of a talker is he?" Kitayama drawled. "Given he's not just 'telling them so'."
Fujigaya snerked. "Maybe he's enough of a 'lite hacker, socially speaking, that he didn't even write a speech function into that avatar."
"Well excuse us," Yokoo said disdainfully, feigning offense on his and Iida's behalf. He and Iida weren't socially dysfunctional though; there were too many other people around the Takizawa residence for one to be alone for very long. You had to socialise to survive -- an arrangement that suited Fujigaya's type more than Yokoo's, but was equally beneficial to both in the end.
"Oh," Kitayama said, "what..."
On screen, a few things happened in quick succession:
The fox sat up on its hind legs.
The fox waved.
Startled, the bunny's hind leg slipped from the end of the branch.
The bunny squeaked.
Startled, Senga made a grab for the bunny.
Senga missed.
The bunny fell.
"Ah, crap!" Senga yelled, and dove off of the branch in the bunny's wake.
...momentarily, the fox stared after the pair with the same level of disbelief that the scene's three older viewers also felt. Before the creature started to pick its own slow way down through the branches.
"You've got to be kidding me," Fujigaya declared. "I don't believe that just happened."
"Believe it," Kitayama said, as the camera tracked the junior pair's fall. "They're going to die-- At worst, they're going to die. At best, 21-K is going to die, and Senga is going to break his neck."
"Should we be ready to scramble, Wataru?" Fujigaya asked. "If 21-K leaves the scenario this way, they're going to go after his real body next."
"No, let's see how it goes first."
"You don't seem too disturbed about this impending doom, Yokoo-san," Kitayama said mildly.
Yokoo shrugged. "Kyon reckons that Senga's still in the zone." He ignored the mighty scowl on Fujigaya's face, and the way he was watching the flatscreen feed intently from the edge of his seat. "Guess we'll see if his faith pays off."
"Hey!" Fujigaya protested, attempting to turn to face Yokoo without taking his eyes off of the flatscreen display. "I've got plenty of faith in my charge."
"Sure," Yokoo snerked. "Like absolute trust in his tendency to be an idiot."
"And in Iida 'Understatement' Kyohei's ability to be too fucking calm all the time! God, he better not--"
"Which 'he'?"
"Argh, stop that!" Fujigaya stood. "I'm going to--"
"No you're not. You can't do anything at the moment," Yokoo observed.
"Yokoo," Fujigaya growled, rounding on the other. "You know I hate that phrase more than anything..."
"Oy, oy, Taisuke~" Kitayama drawled, half his mouth quirked up in a smile. He indicated the screen. "Settle down, have a closer look." He grinned, obnoxiously benign. "Believe."
Entities 21-K, 53-N. And the collection, yet again.
( 19: work it )
"Ahhhhhhhh!" Nikaido shouted.
"Noooooooo!" Senga yelled, one hand reaching out.
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!" Nikaido kept shouting. Distantly, under the wind rushing past his ears, he could hear the call of the hunting horn again -- they were probably making waaay too much noise for prey, but Nikaido didn't really give a rat's behind about that at the moment. He was going to die. He couldn't drag the appropriate codes onto his clipboard in the frozen scenario to save himself. He couldn't bring up anything he didn't already have, just the same way he couldn't leave the place, and his avatar was going to die here, then they were going to send real world chasers out after his unconscious body and he was going to die out there for real.
He hoped that stupid fox liked bunny pancake.
Stupid fox. He knew it wasn't a bad guy now, but why had it had to use the same stupid avatar as that chaser that'd caught Nikaido earlier, that had pulled him in to that stupid ocean scenario and--
There'd been the kraken saving him that time.
This time-- this time--
Did people still like bunnies?
...maybe they did...?
Senga fell faster than Nikaido, falling forcefully. Abruptly, Nikaido became aware of Senga having caught up to him -- of Senga grabbing him around the waist in an impossible stretch as the ground rushed up, Senga's other hand grabbing a low-hanging tree branch above them simultaneously. Nikaido felt something give in his weak bunny back and suddenly couldn't feel his legs anymore -- but that didn't matter; he'd stopped falling. The next second he was swung up onto the branch Senga had grabbed. They were barely a couple of metres up from the forest floor.
Scrabbling for purchase on the branch with his front paws and teeth, Nikaido tried very hard for all of two seconds, before gravity had its way with his dead-weight lower half, and he slipped off of the branch and fell to the ground with a dull thud.
"Eh?" Senga blinked, staring down at Nikaido from the tree branch he'd just swung up into himself. "Nika-chan, are you alright?" Lithely, he dropped to the forest floor just beside where Nikaido lay.
"Ernf," Nikaido muttered, winded from the minor fall but otherwise alive. "Yeah, I'm fine." He rolled over onto his stomach. When his legs took their time following, he looked at them with a measure of distaste. "Just messed up my spine when you caught me, 'cause this stupid avatar's pretty weak." It was okay though, because he wasn't hurt out in the real world, nor was he stupid enough to mistake the scenario for reality -- there'd been cases of that, where people thought a scenario was real so bad that their minds had made it actually real. But Nikaido wasn't that dumb. As soon as they got out of the frozen area and logged off, he'd be fine again. It wasn't even the first time it'd happened.
But for now...
He looked like little more than a furry penguin at present, what with the way his hind legs weren't working. And he was going to start feeling ill soon -- his body's way of telling his mind that something was wrong (... as if he couldn't just tell by looking, just because he couldn't feel it). Maybe Tamamori had been right and Nikaido should just stick to less vulnerable avatars...
Senga seemed at a loss as to what to do, staring haplessly as he crouched uncertainly by Nikaido's side.
"Well, I reinforced its back muscles, but you know..." Nikaido continued, folding his paws under his chin petulantly and frowning up at Senga. He couldn't frown too hard though -- not when Senga was covered with scratches now, visible even through Nikaido's bad close-range bunny vision, from following Nikaido's inadvertent plummet down through the inanimate foliage. Senga unfortunately hadn't been so bunny-sized... "Guess this avatar just wasn't ever meant to fall from a billion metres up. Hey, hey-- it was totally my fault, don't make a stupid face like that," Nikaido added. "I'm surprised you didn't like, dislocate your arm or anything, you know..."
Senga ignored the covert question about whether or not he was alright, still fretting, hands hovering uncertainly. "Can I--" he started, "um. Can I still pick you up, or--?" When Senga moved his arms, one of his shoulders popped disconcertingly. Nikaido's ears twitched at the sound.
"Uh," Nikaido said, "sure. Just mind the ass. But it's not like it hurts or anything." Of course it didn't hurt. His entire lower half was numb. But things could've turned out worse. "Hey, I'm not made of glass you know," he added as Senga picked the bunny up as if were a damp sheet of tissue. "Just a log off and it'll totally be fixed."
"...I totally broke you though!" Senga protested in a tiny voice, carrying Nikaido tentatively. Like a giant with a porcelain tea set.
"Um, no. Idiot," Nikaido said gruffly-- "You totally saved me from that." --and pointed to the hard forest floor with a paw over the edge of Senga's hands. "Which, FYI, I'd be a bloodsplat against if you hadn't caught me. In case you didn't realise." He looked away.
Dying in a scenario meant a forced disconnect. And because it meant there was no natural or logical transition to guide one's brain out of its online state into a regular, wakeful state out in the real world, a forced disconnect often meant being passed out as if in a deep sleep for a bit, while your consciousness swam its way back into action.
This process potentially took hours -- which were hours Nikaido wouldn't have to spare, if they knocked him out here and went after his potato sack of an unconscious body out in the real world. If they weren't doing that already. From experience, they probably weren't -- the government liked doing one thing at a time because sequences were easy to teach and drill: capture the consciousness first. Then after that, getting rid of the body was just a matter of cleanup that could easily be done by an automated Capital janitor instead...
"Hey," Nikaido said quietly against Senga's chest, changing the subject. He hoped Senga's firewall friends noticed their plight soon. Because it was really starting to go downhill now. His little bunny brain felt a definite headache coming on, for more than one reason. "Senga. We need to get going already."
:::
"Aww," Fujigaya said obnoxiously, "isn't that cute? He totally just thanked him for saving him in the classic boy way: by not saying it at all!"
"I think I'm going to win this bet," Kitayama said.
"What?"
"I quote:" Yokoo recited, "Sooner rather than later, he's going to screw up and get caught."
"Right," Kitayama said. "Senga needed to have set them running again as soon as both of them were safe on the ground, but he seems to have forgotten about the horn that sounded."
"He can still outrun the chasers though," Fujigaya pointed out. "He's not hurt, and the scenario hasn't changed."
"But he can't hit the zone with 21-K like that," Yokoo said. "The block will be psychological more than anything: he won't go that fast. He's treating 21-K more like an invalid than is strictly necessary."
"The kid's stuck as a paraplegic rabbit," Fujigaya laughed. "What the hell isn't invalid about that?"
"Point," Kitayama grinned.
"Your charge is kind of ridiculous," Fujigaya grinned across the couch. "Without the 'kind of' part."
"As if I'd try to deny that fact," Kitayama snerked -- but then switched his focus back to the flatscreen as a blur of movement caught his eye. "...here they come."
"Where do you mean?" Fujigaya asked, following Kitayama's line of sight.
"Chasers: lower left quadrant," Yokoo supplied. "They've been cornered."
"I hate betting on bad outcomes," Kitayama said conversationally, his pointed lack of surface tension belying what was happening on screen. "It takes all the happy glow out of winning."
"Freeze! Don't move," an archer said on screen, stepping from the shadows with his bow drawn, taunt and quivering, the head of an arrow glinting in the faint moonlight. "Move, and you and your bunnyfriend get skewered."
Senga's on screen figure went obediently still -- though his eyes still darted around, probably evaluating his escape options. But all he registered were two other archers emerging from the foliage, each at a hundred and twenty degrees from the first, leaving him and Nikaido totally surrounded.
"Don't do anything stupid," Fujigaya whispered an entreaty.
"Keep trying, Taisuke," Kitayama chuckled. "They might get your telepathic message yet."
"...uh oh," Senga said, the nervousness in his voice making it through even the flatscreen speakers.
"Uh oh is right," he archer smiled, teeth glinting like the notched arrows.
"...slave avatars," Nikaido murmured, voice almost inaudible but for the dead silence of the scenario.
Yokoo's eyebrows rose, and he glanced at Kitayama. "The kid knows his stuff."
Kitayama just smiled. "Of course he does. Sometimes."
"The other two are controlled by the first," Nikaido continued quietly on screen. "Limited intelligence, limited operating range away from the first--"
"Pity for you," the first archer interrupted loudly, "that the primary directive in that supposed 'limited intelligence' of theirs is to shoot you when necessary. And since they're programs, they're hardly going to miss." He turned slightly, though didn't take his eyes off the captured pair to call over his shoulder: "Captain!"
"'Captain'?" Fujigaya echoed, with a note of disbelief. "You're kidding me. Our two got caught by a supervised rookie?"
Kitayama shrugged. "You forget that 'our two' are also supervised rookies."
"Yeah, well. There are two of ours though," Fujigaya sniffed. "And we're supposed to be better than the government dogs anyway."
Yokoo sat up as the archer's captain came into view, the man dressed in the liveries of the Domoto Princes, all bold blues and reds and purples. He held what looked like a black circlet in his hand. Senga tensed, holding Nikaido close to his chest.
"53-N," the captain said. "Hand over the errant and we'll let you leave in peace. As opposed to pieces."
"No," Senga gritted out.
Nikaido said nothing in either direction, likely torn between wanting Senga to go and not wanting to be left behind. "...idiot," he mumbled, and squeezed his eyes shut.
"Kyon," Yokoo said, pressing his hand to his ear. "Monitor 21-K's vital statistics, subconscious reaction to injury. If he passes out, we'll step in to diplomat Senga out of trouble while Kitayama and Taisuke scramble for 21-K retrieval."
"Acknowledged," Iida said.
On screen, the captain took another step forward. "Hand it over," he repeated slowly. "And we'll let you leave. This is your second and final chance."
"No--" Senga said, then: "Wait, wait!" when the archer's arrows shifted ever so slightly to aim blatantly at his chest instead of keeping up the pretence of pointing at just Nikaido. "Wait..." Senga said, and took a deep breath. "He's... under our protection."
Nikaido's little eyes flew open -- though squinted again the next second. "I'm what?"
"He's what?" Fujigaya shouted at Senga, as if the other would be able to hear him. "Idiot brat!"
"Kyon!" Yokoo said.
"I'm hearing it, Wataru," Iida replied in Yokoo's ear. "Takizawa's offline. Get your pager to him ASAP."
"Mitsu," Yokoo said, unclasping the little device from his belt and dropping it into Kitayama's lap. "Take this to Tono's private quarters immediately. Bypass what you have to. Be ready to relay a message."
"Yes, sir~" Kitayama teased, throwing a lazy two-fingered salute, though it belied the speed with which he kicked his heels and was gone from the couch.
On screen, Senga's eyes were still locked with the captain's. "Um," Senga said. "I've got proof." Too fast for the frame rate to keep up with, Senga's left hand darted a movement -- and suddenly the scroll from his tunic was in his grasp.
"Hah!" Fujigaya laughed, with audible derision. "Looks like his sleight of hand tricks actually came in handy for someting other than cheating at cards."
"--hey! Hey, I told you not to move!" the archer shouted when he realised it, all three bows quivering.
The captain regarded Senga with a much calmer, steady curiosity. "You've got a scroll," he said evenly. "So what? That could be anything."
"Validate it with a scan!" Senga told him tightly, still speaking as if he was half holding his breath. "It's from Hideaki Takizawa, addressed to Prince Koichi Domoto. And contains list of protected pre-registrants. Kids who are under Takizawa's protection, pending approval of legal status."
He knew Nikaido's name wasn't actually on the list, but the government didn't have to find that out yet. If the captain bought the bluff just from the sender and recipient scan, then maybe they could both get out of it...
Hopefully...
If not, Senga was going to be charged with attempted deception, never mind the part about protecting an illegal entity. And it would be the shortest trial ever, his consciousness captured without a second thought. Nikaido's too.
The government would lock his virtual self up and keep his mind captive until it disappeared because his physical body died.
Senga chewed his upper lip. It would suck if he never got to dance in the real world again. When his last dance before this had ended up with him spraining a toe...
Please, he thought, please, please, please...
He wasn't sure who he was asking, though. Iida or Yokoo or...
Nobody seemed to be listening.
The collection. And 74-M, 21-K, 53-N.
( 20: drastic action )
"Tono," Kitayama called.
Takizawa sat up as Kitayama skated in at speed and spun to an immediate stop, his braking pirouette dropping quickly into a bended knee salute beside Takizawa's couch. The skater pressed a fist to the ground as he knelt, holding up Yokoo's pager with his other hand. Beside Takizawa, Senga's physical body seemed to sleep on in REM as his mind remained engaged online.
"What is it?" Takizawa asked aloud.
"Sir," Iida's voice projected from the pager's speakers. "Permission to add 21-K to the list of protected pre-registrants and retroactively action his paperwork to the Prince."
"Permission granted," Takizawa said immediately, glancing at Senga's inanimate form.
"Thank you, Sir," Iida said, no-nonsense as ever. He signalled the termination of their connection with an audible click.
Kitayama stood and clipped the pager onto his belt, his job done. For now.
"...so tell me how this happens," Takizawa sighed, half to Kitayama and half to himself. With an air of resigned fondness, he stroked Senga's hair -- giving Kitayama the sudden reason to be glad that Fujigaya hadn't run this errand. Kitayama respected Takizawa a great deal, but did not crave the same kinds of attentions from him as a lot of the others. He felt nothing of Fujigaya's typical jealousy at the scene before him. "I give this boy the most basic of missions and log off for an hour," Takizawa continued, "and suddenly emergency procedures are being enacted, and my door's security overridden...?"
Kitayama smiled. "It's nothing too bad at the moment, Sir. Ken-chan ran from a pair of chasers in order to protect 21-K. Watchtower's just doing some pre-burning to see if stepping in with something drastic can be avoided."
"As expected," Takizawa nodded. "Because drastic action now means offensive hacking in the presence of government agents, which is an insult to the grace the Prince has shown us thus far, and means that the government will tighten our leash next time."
"As you say, Tono," Kitayama bowed. He moved to take his leave but paused in the door. "Though it may be presumptuous of me to request it, please continue to ensure that Senga's netgear feed is not disrupted yet." Straightening, Kitayama smiled. Worse come to worst they could simply remove Senga's netgear in the physical world and forcibly log him out. He'd remain out cold for a bit, but would be fine eventually. However: "Avoiding the capture of 21-K's consciousness is currently riding on Senga staying online, so..."
Takizawa nodded. "I understand your concern, Kitayama-kun."
Kitayama bowed again-- "お願いいたします." --and left Takizawa's private quarters, the room's heavy security door sliding silently shut behind him.
"...Kitayama-kun," Iida's voice crackled across the pager. "Senga's made the government force our hand. New plan: return to the common room and, with Fujigaya, prep for the physical retrieval of 21-K; we're going to forcibly disconnect both him and Senga from the scenario on Wataru's mark."
Kitayama smiled. Well, that wasn't exactly the way he'd planned to bring his charge in personally, but he couldn't complain too much. "Understood," he told Iida, skating back through the halls. "Let Yokoo know I'm ready to go whenever he calls it."
:::
Tamamori crouched among the lower branches of the tree Senga and Nikaido had fallen through earlier, hiding among the foliage, his breath held. He'd heard keywords -- the things he was pretty sure that Miyata had heard first and wanted him to discover. Names like Hideaki Takizawa. Protected pre-registrants. The inclusion of Prince Domoto Koichi's name in affairs had startled Tamamori at first, but ultimately only served to get him thinking that maybe he'd been too quick to judge. He'd have to start that part of his investigation again later, more thoroughly... later.
At the moment, his primary concern was just how much longer Senga's crappy improvisation could keep him and Nikaido from getting killed. Tamamori's initial view of Senga (admittedly pretty dismal) was rising, bit by bit -- though not enough to stop Tamamori from thinking that he'd have to step in and help out sooner or later. He couldn't allow Senga to be captured here -- his link to Takizawa was too hot to let slide.
Just... how to help, though? Timing was going to be pretty critical; the archer's three arrows were trained on Senga just a few paces shy of point blank... and if Tamamori just brought in something disruptive like the kraken avatar, it was just as the archer had said: the archer was human, but his two slave avatars were mere programs that would not be distracted.
Moreover, it would fly in the face of the legal and law-abiding image that Senga was currently trying (and a little failing) to project.
If -- or when -- Tamamori made a move, his timing would have to be good, and it would have to be card-trick quick, too...
...not yet.
...
For the moment, Tamamori waited.
"Nice try, 53-N," the captain was saying, smiling sardonically at Senga and the scroll Senga held. "However, this errant was not on the Princes' protected list the last time I checked -- which happened to be moments before I froze this scenario."
Tamamori watched Senga chew nervously upon his upper lip, and decide to push on with the bluff anyway, despite the way it was backing him into a smaller and smaller corner: "That's because I've got your list updates here..." Senga said, waving the scroll in his hand in a tense sort of wiggle. "The new stuff, it's all in here."
But the captain's resolve seemed too stony to break. "At last check," he repeated, "our records held no forms for your errant. Forms generally do not require formalities that allow for transit time -- meaning that, if indeed this errant is listed on your scroll, your message has been hacked." Confidence oozing from his body language, the captain took a step forward.
And Senga took a step back, eyes wide. "Hey, no! Wait! Check again!" he exclaimed desperately. "Maybe you missed it! You totally must have missed it!"
"Impossible," the captain said, and gestured to the archer, and crossed his arms. "44-R, confiscate that scroll."
"Yes, Sir," the first archer said, releasing the tension in his bow and stepping up to pluck the scroll from Senga's hand. The other two archers did not move, weapons still trained...
The captain gave Senga a sharp smile when Senga's fingers paused in relinquishing their grip on the message he held. "If you have truly done nothing wrong," he said, words a smooth taunt, "you have nothing to fear."
You have nothing to fear... Stupid government creed. Tamamori held his breath, readying a slide of bulletproof glass. Senga and Nikaido were only under two arrows now -- the third point of the bracketing triangle was missing. If he was fast enough, maybe he'd be able to shove the glass between--
The archer opened the scroll. Tamamori's mental finger tightened on its trigger.
"Shintaro Morimoto," the archer read aloud. "I recall seeing his paperwork earlier today. As with that of Ryutaro Morimoto and Taiga Kyomoto." An eyebrow raised in surprise. "...the name of Takashi Nikaido is here, but I have not seen his paperwork."
:::
"What?" Senga stared, thunderstruck that his bluff had come true and Nikaido's name was on the scroll after all. He certainly hadn't hacked it there himself. Were Iida and Yokoo monitoring the situation after all? If so, why hadn't they just stepped in already?
Nikaido's jaw likewise hung open, his mind racing. Ignoring the nausea swimming around his head, he turned on Senga. "How do you know my whole name?" he shouted, bunny voice carrying like an echo. "I never told you it! I never told anyone it! I--"
He hadn't heard anybody say his first name since he was five.
Senga was immediately on the defensive, holding Nikaido's furious little form away from himself. "I don't know!" he yelled, forgetting where they were. "I don't know what you're talking about! I never--"
"My name's on that scroll!" Nikaido snapped. "Does that mean I--" Was he safe, then? Protected for real? But at what cost? Hell, did that mean that that creepy Boss Tackey freak had collected him--?
"Captain," the archer said, gritting his teeth against the melodrama.
"Agreed," the archer's captain said, turning to cast a sneer upon Nikaido and Senga's little quarrel. "Neither of your responses are in line with what would be expected if the errant's name had been protected all along. I thus conclude your scroll has been hacked under an attempt at deception and hereby place both your minds under arrest."
Accordingly, one of the archer's slave avatars turned to target Senga, the arrow of the other remaining trained squarely upon Nikaido, tracking as Senga tucked Nikaido up under his chin, hands sheltering the little bunny avatar as best he could. His eyes watched the arrows warily. The metal arrowheads glowed with strange blue electricity, what looked like incongruous black circlets floating around each...
Nikaido ran a lot of curses out under his avatar's metaphysical breath. The arrows were set to capture. It wasn't as if the government would give him even the slight chance that a forced disconnect afforded after all, where -- one in a million -- he'd be able to wake up out in the real world before a seeker pinned his location and the chasers tracked him down out there.
They were going to capture his consciousness, and his inanimate body simply wouldn't last long after that. He regretted leaving Tamamori presently -- nobody knew where he was. Nobody would protect him or keep him hydrated and stuff while his mind was locked up online -- locked up online very miserably: the nerve disruption and probable messed up vertebrae were combining to make his stomach feel super queasy already, and... Lasting a pathetic three days or a week, max, until his body died... unable to log out? He'd almost rather just die now.
At least Senga might last longer, given he knew people out in the real world, where that Takizawa guy's place was... people who'd take care of him even while his mind was away. Maybe even people who'd fight to get him out of being locked up. Senga was a legal, after all... A proper legal.
"Hey, don't give up," Senga whispered. The tense way his hands held Nikaido though, countered the hope he was trying to pass on. "Don't give up -- the scroll thing was totally Ii-chan. They're totally here... They're-- they've totally gotta be..."
"Bullshit they are," Nikaido told him, suddenly annoyed. "It's stupid to count on people." People weren't ever worth anything... Except...
Senga, maybe... Senga was probably worth quite a bit, even if his stupid avatar smelled like sweat and weird and everything, he--
All of a sudden, Nikaido felt inexplicably upset. It wasn't the thought of getting caught or dying that was anything new or depressing -- he'd been acutely aware that he was living on borrowed time ever since the first time a chaser had tried to do his head in. But... just... this...
He buried his face in the side of Senga's neck and reverted to human form -- there were just some things that couldn't be said in a stupid squeaky bunny voice. Nikaido wrapped his arms tight around Senga's neck, his legs still dead; Senga staggered a little under the sudden weight shift, but didn't let go either. "Whoa," he whispered. "You're kinda heavy when you're human."
"Gee, thanks," Nikaido said, voice dripping with watery sarcasm. But he mopped it up the next moment with an amendment. "I mean..." he said, voice just his own again, unmodified and unmodulated, slowly descending lower into a mumble. "...yeah. Thanks. For sticking around, too. I mean... People suck, but you're not too bad."
It wasn't even like they'd known each other that long or anything, but Senga had tried so hard anyway and Nikaido was... grateful? Yeah, maybe he was grateful.
"..." Senga sniffled. "Um. Well--"
"Enough of this," the captain said, stepping forward.
"Man, just sit tight and shut the fuck up for a bit alright? We're having a moment here!" Nikaido shouted, raising his head to glare at the government agent. "You're seriously pissing me--"
--off.
Was what he'd wanted to say.
But the world went black before he could finish.
Kitayama bowed again-- "お願いいたします." (onegai-itashimasu; super formal onegaishimasu/please)
1- CLIFFHANGER, LOL (sort of)
2- things suddenly got complicated. xD; feel like i'm totally losing my grip on the tech system (even if i made it up), and even the voices are mixing as well. &i think i've been repeating myself. xD;
3- nikaido has been turned into a damsel and plot device I AM SORRY. it will be fixed soon. i just couldn't think of any other way to do it. ;;
4- contradictions and loopholes make me facepalm. 8D; if you find any more, please let me know. ; <-it is what you get for making stuff up on the fly, cry. xD;
5- hm. second time around, i'll change the things to kitayama senga, and fujigaya nikaido instead. funnier that way. 8D;
6- ...miyata still exists, i sweartogod. :0
7- notes, totally tl;dr xD xD
why does gdocs eat my spaces? -_-* merf. *edit*
A collection of legal entities: K17, T41, Y00, I14.
( 17: guardians, not angels )
"Taisuke," Yokoo said, coming through the common room door with a grin on his face. "I've got news for you."
Fujigaya raised an eyebrow. "Yeah? It better be good..." He was flopped on the room's sole couch and still feeling a little annoyed from earlier, about how Takizawa had asked him to go find Senga and send him to Takizawa's private quarters. That brat...
"Do I look like the bearer of ill tidings right now?" Yokoo asked pointedly, pointing to his face. He was still smiling.
"Yokoo-san, Yokoo-san," Fujigaya said, more than a little prickly about it. "That expression on your esteemed self could mean any number of things, good and bad. For example: 'Hey, Taisuke~ I've got news for you. Remember how you misplaced your virtual skates? Well, after much searching I've found them. They're in the doghouse scenario now. Which, by the way, I've also had Iida fill with pit bull terriers. So you might want to hurry if you ever want to see them intact again.' And then I'll say something like, 'Oh no! That's no good!' And you'll tell me that it serves me right for losing my programs again and not naming them properly." Leaning back on the couch, Fujigaya looked up at Yokoo, a belligerent smile on his face. "Right?"
"Perhaps right," Yokoo said, and plopped down on the end of the couch, refusing to rise to the bait. He fought with Fujigaya sometimes -- not half as much as Fujigaya fought with Kitayama, but (apart from the fact that those two just had a special bond like that) that was because Yokoo's rule of thumb was to just pretend that Fujigaya wasn't in a bad mood whenever he was.
Said moods didn't usually last long, anyway.
"So tell me already, Wataru~" Fujigaya said, switching to Yokoo's given name -- which was the default when Fujigaya was feeling friendly (which was usual). Or wanted something (which was sometimes). "You've made me curious and now I want to know. Don't leave me hanging~"
"Flatscreen activate," Yokoo articulated, as if by way of answering. Then turned to grin at Fujigaya. "He's doing it again."
"Who's doing what?" Fujigaya deadpanned, unimpressed.
"Your charge," Yokoo informed him, "has gone Tarzan today."
"Oh. Him." Fujigaya was still unimpressed. And still prickly from before. "Really."
"Really." Yokoo snorted softly. He was amused, though. Especially when Fujigaya's eyes glanced over at the real time display when Iida's feed swam into view on the flatscreen's panel, belying his supposed lack of interest.
"Hey, this isn't fair," Fujigaya protested, swinging his legs off of the couch to face the display properly. "You routed a feed just to make me watch!"
"Only because I knew you'd totally want to watch," Yokoo grinned, and gave Fujigaya the rundown: "He was sent on an errand to deliver a letter to Prince Domoto K. We left him on foot in a forest scenario, a portion of which is currently frozen. We're not sure what twigged the seekers yet, but there are two chasers in the scenario at present-- Flatscreen pause," he added. Temporarily, the image stilled, rippling a little while the flatscreen's antiquated systems took a moment to remove the feed's motion blur and shakiness. "...the rabbit you see there is 21-K."
Nikaido was currently caught in the act of taking a random bite out of Senga's hair. Fujigaya snorted. "Right, the little feral. Kitayama's charge?"
"Yes. Also known as Nikaido."
"Weird name," Fujigaya said.
"I didn't choose it," Yokoo shrugged as if that explained everything, and brought the feed back up to speed: "Flatscreen skip to real time."
"...it's in real time?" Fujigaya said.
"Yeah. He's swinging as we speak. And Kyon's got a complete recording from the start, if you like."
"Wataru, no. Thank you, but totally no thanks. That's going too far."
Yokoo grinned. "Well, this phenomenon happens so rarely. When you really want to compare charges, you need all the ammo you can muster against Kitayama."
"I resent that," Fujigaya said with a mock glare, though he didn't take his eyes from the screen. "I resent that a great deal..."
Yokoo chuckled, clearly enjoying himself. "On the other hand it might not matter so much. It's not as if 21-K's amazing levels of skill blow Senga out of the water either." He raised his voice ever so slightly, still heavy on the amusement: "Right, Kitamitsu?"
"...hn? Ugh, what...?"
"Great," Fujigaya said. "Now you've gone and woken him up."
"Why do I nod off only to come back to you guys talking about me?" Kitayama's sleep-rough voice groused from behind them.
"We need to be talking about something," Fujigaya said matter of factly. "And it's not like you nod off rarely enough for us to come up with original topics all the time," he added. "Care to join us? There'll be space on the couch if Wataru here moves over."
"Excuse me, Taisuke," Yokoo said primly. "I'm not the biggest of us three by a long shot." It was valid enough -- Yokoo was a veritable rake. He did move over though, making room at the end of the couch for Kitayama to sit with them if he so chose.
Fujigaya shrugged. "No, our resident fatty would be Kitayama."
"And you ask me to join you," Kitayama sniffed, feigning indignation. "Shouldn't you be worried about ending up on the floor?" With the audible, low hum of a pair of miniature reactors, he skated over and dropped into the couch.
"Oof," Fujigaya grinned, feigning offence on the furniture's behalf.
"Shut it, Taisuke," Kitayama said lazily, settling against its comfy formafoam backrest.
Yokoo gave Kitayama a certain Look, trademarked and registered. "How many times have you been told not to sleep with your skates powered up?"
Kitayama made a face. "Come on, Yokoo-san. Fujigaya had the couch. Up in the air was the next nicest napping place."
"Apart from your bed, naturally," Yokoo said. "They're reactors on your feet, you know."
"They're safe!" Kitayama donned a hurt expression. "And you know that if I went to sleep properly, you'd never get me awake again. And I'd miss out on things like this."
"You don't even know what this is," Fujigaya snerked.
"I heard my charge's name," Kitayama said dismissively. "And that--" he gestured to Senga's image on the screen "--is yours. Deduction isn't exactly rocket science, though I am surprised they know each other already..." He spared a glance at Yokoo with the implied question.
Yokoo shrugged. "A strange set of coincidences starting less than twenty-four hours ago," he explained, without really saying anything at all.
Kitayama shrugged. "Whatever."
"That totally explains nothing at all, Wataru," Fujigaya said obtusely. "Please enlighten us."
"Maybe," Yokoo grinned. "After we bet on the outcome."
Fujigaya snorted. "I say this with a great deal of fondness in my biting cynicism, but it's not as if Senga's going to be able to fight his way out of that frozen scenario anytime this millennium, right? And he can run for a very long time. Believe me when I say there's no rush."
"Is that your bet then?" Yokoo asked, eyes disappearing in a wide, crooked smile. "That things will continue this way for a while?"
"Yeah, well..." Fujigaya made a show of inspecting the screen, within which Senga was currently leaping barefoot through the treetops. "Interference from you or Iida aside, he'll just keep running from those chasers like a hamster on a wheel."
Kitayama snorted softly at that. Yokoo shook his head, amused. "It's possible."
"I bet less," Kitayama said. "Sooner rather than later, he's going to screw up and get caught."
Fujigaya raised an eyebrow. "There are two chasers after them. Only two. Aren't you underestimating my charge just a little bit there, Kitayama...?"
"Funny, when you were calling him a hamster mere moments ago."
"I can do that," Fujigaya said stubbornly. "He's my charge--"
But he derailed that train of thought for a moment and silence reigned in the common room as Senga ran out of tree to run through, and leapt out across a clearing. It seemed almost to happen in slow motion, the on-screen figure was so calm about jumping from such a ridiculous height, dropping down, down and down to land solidly against the hard floor right in the middle of it.
Yokoo imagined there would have been a billow of dust at Senga's feet, had the scenario not been frozen--
"...that would've looked a lot cooler if the scenario hadn't been frozen," Kitayama said aloud, off-hand.
"Look!" Fujigaya laughed, pointing. "Look, the rabbit's totally just cracking its eyes open now!"
"...that's the way, 21-K. Don't leave you guys silhouetted out there like targets or anything," Kitayama added as Nikaido dragged Senga out of the direct moonlight.
"Aww, how cute. They're sharing shoes!" Fujigaya laughed.
"Senga didn't enter the scenario with any," Yokoo told him with a sadistic grin. "Because his virtual big toe was still sprained and wrapped."
Kitayama laughed heartily at that. Fujigaya slapped a palm to his forehead. "Tell me how he's the best power user we've got again?"
"Power users," Yokoo recited dutifully, with an irritating smile, "are able to turn any given scenario into their virtual oyster. They don't know the code behind what they do, but neither do they need to. They are merely adept at maximising the performance of their avatars within a scenario, whatever they may be; at getting the most out of a program using only its graphical user interface."
"I knew that," Fujigaya told him grumpily. "And everyone here knows Senga can't code to save his life--"
"Dyslexia," Kitayama put in, only half joking, "probably."
Fujigaya ignored him. "--but unless he's an idiot savant, getting rid of a minor injury like that is just avatar construction basics."
"You don't think he's an idiot savant?" Yokoo cackled.
"Just shut up, Wataru."
"You wouldn't understand," Kitayama said.
"Oh, right," Fujigaya snerked, "you'd know because you've still got trouble differentiating your real and virtual selves too, don't you?"
"Answer this one, Kitamitsu~"
"It's nothing so minor as that," Kitayama told them, indicating Senga's on-screen feet, "but I got online latest of all of us. So if you ask me, Senga's just got a very solid sense of his real self--"
"Which would figure. He is mostly a dancer, after all."
"--so that his avatar construction is more subconscious than anything."
"So he just doesn't think about it," Yokoo crowed. "It's the idiot savant theory after all."
"Right," Fujigaya objected, leaning forward to eye Kitayama: "But. There's just one problem with your call. Senga's been online from a younger age than all of us. So how do you explain that?"
"Ah," Kitayama shrugged. "Then it must be just a side-effect of depression."
"What?" Fujigaya laughed.
"Well, everything gets blamed on depression doesn't it?" Kitayama snerked, amused.
It was true enough though, for the amount of legals who were prescribed drugs with their nutri-cubes or underwent scheduled therapy scenarios online. Takizawa wasn't a particular believer in either method: real interaction, he believed, cured a great deal of psychological ills. (He didn't seem terribly fussed when said real interaction, in Senga's case, meant a lot of teasing and tormenting from those senior to him. That was apparently just part of growing up.)
"Hey, wait, wait--" Fujigaya said, suddenly aghast as he pointed to the screen. "What's he doing? Wataru, what did he just yell? He totally just shouted something right in the middle of the-- aww, why don't we have audio on this thing?"
Kitayama laughed as Yokoo just rolled his eyes. "They weren't saying anything too worthwhile until just then. Excuse me."
"Of course."
Pressing the heel of his palm to his left year, Yokoo completed a circuit that activated the cochlear implant in his head. It allowed him direct remote access to Takizawa's servers from anywhere within the house, the connection untraceable from the net at large, and unjammable due to its broad range frequency. He was connected immediately. "Kyon."
On the other end, Iida was laughing. "Ah," he said, chuckles barely diminished. "Hey... need something?"
Yokoo shook his head, almost regretting having to ask already. "Taisuke wants to know what Senga just yelled. Can you rewind to just prior and play it with audio for us?"
Iida's laughter redoubled at that. "I can, but are you sure you want me to?"
Yokoo grinned, and turned to Fujigaya with an eyebrow raised. "He wants to know if you're sure you want it."
Fujigaya raised an eyebrow right back at Yokoo, before glancing briefly at Kitayama's amused expression at the other end of the couch, and looking back at Yokoo. In a split second, he weighted up his own curiosity against the (almost certain) potential that he'd lose either pride or face with this--
The curiosity won.
"I'm sure," Fujigaya said. "Of course I'm sure."
Yokoo shook his head again. "Let it rip, Kyon."
"Indeed. Enjoy~" Iida chuckled, shutting down their link.
As Yokoo lowered his hand again, the flatscreen display skipped back a few dozen seconds, and Senga's image raised his hands to his mouth. There was still no white noise -- the scenario was frozen after all -- but then two distinct voices rang out from the speakers.
"II-CHAAAN~! IF YOU'RE LISTENING, A LITTLE BIT OF HELP HERE ANYTIME SOON WOULD BE SUPER SWEET PLEAAAAASE!"
"What the fuck do you think you're doing!?"
...and then a few seconds later, the bellow of a hunting horn.
Kitayama didn't bother trying to contain his mirth at the blatant failure, laughing heartily into the armrest as he clutched his stomach.
Yokoo's grin was about a mile wide. "So~" he chuckled.
"...why are we bothering with them again?" Fujigaya deadpanned. "I mean seriously. I'd like to know."
"For the sake of seeing a revolution come to pass," Yokoo duly recited, again with the irritating smile. "We shall--"
"Right," Fujigaya said, sinking into the couch with an air of defeat. "Tono's vision and all that."
"Right," Yokoo grinned.
"But..."
"So funny... soo~ funny..." Kitayama chuckled and sighed out the last dregs of his amusement.
"Are you quite done there?" Fujigaya asked across the couch, a little peevish.
Kitayama made a show of dabbing at his eyes. "Ahh~ maybe, maybe. Thank you for filling today's quota of entertainment, Taisuke," he said. "That was good."
"You're welcome," Fujigaya told him.
"Yokoo-san, Yokoo-san," Kitayama said, grinning like a kid in a toy store as he pointed to the flatscreen's figures. "Can we keep them? I want to keep them~ ♥"
Illegal entity, 74-M. And the collection again.
( 18: superstars and cannonballs )
Tamamori was having a little difficulty. For a few reasons.
The back door had opened just fine, and was now safely closed again after him like it had never been there (apart from a little catch that'd allow him to get it open again real quick). But despite how that had gone well...
Firstly, he couldn't locate Senga and Nikaido, and had no idea where they were. Or if they were even still around. He didn't want to spread his scanners too widely, just in case he pinged off of a chaser and alerted them to his presence. While chasers weren't generally competent in his opinion, that didn't mean he wanted any after him all the same.
Which in turn meant that he was relegated to using the natural eyes and ears of his avatar only. Which was really not much better than trying to find a needle in a haystack, because the frozen part of the forest was big. And Tamamori was not so big.
He could have used a different avatar -- something far bigger, or one that flew -- but the logic against that course of action was the same as the argument against using wide range scanning: the chasers, however many there were, and the fact that they were bad news. At the moment, Tamamori was set on keeping as low a profile as possible.
He was not here to play superhero and save the day. He was here to investigate... something. And it wouldn't do to make waves until he found out what that something was. Miyata's efforts warranted at least that much. And so Tamamori would stick to ordinary code for the time being. Nothing that would raise flags.
All this aside, Senga would have needed no saving if he'd just left Nikaido be. And Nikaido... well, Tamamori had already saved Nikaido once that day. The skater boy wasn't stupid. Or, not that stupid at least. He'd survived this long, if nothing else...
Tamamori snuffled a small sigh out of his sensitive nose, licking it to keep it damp as he padded along, picking his way silently through the forest, careful to place his paws only on the bodies of leaves so as to avoid stepping on anything that would cut him.
Everything was eerily silent.
In the distance, he could hear... vague sounds, filtered through the trees. But his ears were large and highly sensitive; everybody was still far off. Which was a good thing, he supposed. He trotted along on black-socked feet, his bushy, white-tipped tail stretched out behind him for balance as he made his way over to where the action was.
:::
"You know..." Senga said, tentatively amused as he swung to a stop among the higher reaches of a random tree, and squatted casually on a thin branch, easily balanced. The branch wasn't going to break so long as the scenario remained frozen, disallowing interaction. No interaction meant that the tree had no idea Senga was sitting on it. And that was okay by him. "If it's between my feet from before," he told Nikaido, "or my shoulders now, I think the pain levels and bleeding would be about the same..."
"Hey, you can't blame neither of those on me," Nikaido countered. "You were stupid enough to run barefoot on the frozen floor, and you were the one who told me to go bunny. I don't have any other way to hold on tight enough, you know." The fact that Senga's shoulders both bore teeth marks of a totally unsexy kind was not Nikaido's fault at all.
Senga just laughed. "As long as you don't have rabies or something, I guess I'll live."
"Pfft," Nikaido grinned. "If I was gonna give you a virus, it totally wouldn't be as lame as rabies."
"Oh!" Senga said, half non sequitur: "I could get you a bunny harness for next time! I've totally seen them around, you know. People and their pets -- it's not just dogs, they'll walk anything! Like, I've seen a guy walking a goldfish before. It was totally funny. We could use one of those to keep you stuck to me."
"What? No," Nikaido said. "I'm not wearing no bunny harness. And who says there's going to be a next time, anyway?" He rubbed his paws over his nose at the lieful wish. He hoped it would be a lie anyway. Senga was kind of fun.
"Won't there be though? A next time?" Senga asked, turning his head to try and look at Nikaido, still perched on his shoulder. It was still a difficult thing, unfortunately.
Nikaido swiped a paw at Senga's nose, smacking it lightly. "Not with chasers behind us I mean, okay? Where's your Iichan or whatever anyway? Has he heard you yet or what?"
Senga frowned, chewing his upper lip. "I don't know," he admitted, and looked up at the full moon, easily visible this high up among the trees. It, too, was frozen in the sky at its post-dusk largest. "Maybe I should try calling again..."
"Uh," Nikaido said. "If by 'call' you mean like private ring, ring, dial tone, hello? and not just shouting again, because if you mean just shouting then I'm gonna have to say no."
"You're not the boss of me though," Senga pointed out.
"What," Nikaido blatted an impressive raspberry for a bunny, clearly having had practice at it. "That's bullshit. I'm the commonsense of you, is what I am!"
"That doesn't even make sense."
"You don't even make sense."
"Your mom doesn't even make sense!"
"What the hell!" Nikaido snapped. "No, she didn't, she was a crazy bitch, but that's totally irrelevant!" He jumped off of Senga's shoulder all in a huff, hopping irritatedly to the end of their branch.
Senga stared after Nikaido, surprised at the other's reaction to that silly comment. The guys back at Boss Tackey's said things like that all the time, and it'd never...
Watching Nikaido hop, Senga vaguely hoped he wasn't going to lose his footing and fall like a million metres to the forest floor and die. But Nikaido stopped safely at the end of the branch and just sat there harmlessly enough -- his back to Senga, but almost visibly fuming nonetheless. Nikaido's body language, Senga thought, was really easy to read.
"...you remember your mom?" Senga asked tentatively, voice kind of low. A little plaintive. He didn't like it when people were angry at him.
"I wish I didn't," Nikaido grumbled under his breath. "Dad either."
If the bad mood tones sounded a little funny coming out of his rabbity little voice box, then Senga wisely made no mention. "Oh," he said instead, "well I guess it's no good if they're bad memories. But I kind of wish I had some of my parents. I totally don't remember anything!" He laughed at himself, softly, a little depressed, and stared at the bark of the branch he was perched on. "It kind of sucks, because you know. When they say I've got stupid genes and stuff, I can't say I don't because I totally don't know..."
"What the hell kind of reason is that?" Nikaido snorted. "You're retarded."
"I am not!" Senga protested.
"You have stupid genes," Nikaido told him.
"...now you're just being mean," Senga frowned.
Nikaido turned around, levelling Senga with as even a stare as he could muster from his less than impressive bunny height. "Nah, my parents chucked me out of a window when I was five, you know?" he said, blasé tone incongruous with his words. He peered sideways, down toward the ground. "Actually, our place was about this high up, I think. 'Could've been I was smaller then, though."
"No way..." Senga stared right back. "Are you for real?"
"Guess if I am." Nikaido's grin was not a little sardonic around the edges. "Nah, I think they paid the reproduction tax for me, but couldn't afford to send me to school? And you know, since it's against the law to keep a kid at home and not send them to school, they picked not to keep me at home. What do you think? I never went to school, you know."
"...can you write?" Senga blinked. "Like... can you read?"
"I'm not retarded," Nikaido snorted. Not as retarded as Senga anyway. "Or illiterate." He knew his alphabet in order perfectly fine at least. That was what classroom scenarios were for. Not the official ones that the government ran, but other ones that were close enough. You could even get fake NPC teachers and fake classmates in them...
"Oh," Senga said. And tilted his head a little. "Hey, I can teach you stuff if you like? I know stuff! I like school a lot, and I can teach you it if you want."
"No thanks," Nikaido sniffed, turning his head. "I don't think you'd be much--"
He froze before finishing that sentence though, head stuck sideways and one eye fixed squarely staring at something just past Senga in apparent petrification.
Senga blinked, uncomprehending for a second -- until he glanced over his shoulder.
And came face to face with a red fox.
"Ahh!" he shouted, making shooing motions with his hands. "Stupid predator, keep away! Nika-chan's my bunny and you totally can't have him!"
:::
"That... isn't a chaser," Kitayama said, watching their miniature rendition of Senga flap and squawk on the flatscreen display. "They don't do things that way." As the action arm of government law enforcement, concepts like discretion and stealth were as foreign to the average chaser as ballet shoes on a tank.
Yokoo shook his head in agreement, on call with Iida again. "Kyon says it's actually 74-M."
"His charge?" Fujigaya raised an eyebrow. "What's this, a Junior Recruits Anonymous meeting? Since when did they all know each other already?" He turned back to the screen, growing impatient with Senga and Nikaido. "Trace his contact sequence, idiots!"
Yokoo shook his head. "74-M has a scrambler. They wouldn't know it was him again unless he told them so."
"'Again'? Wait -- Iida gave him that?"
"A less secure version in a fair trade, or so he says," Yokoo chuckled. "And 'again'. The three were in the same party earlier, before 74-M switched scenarios briefly."
"Not much of a talker is he?" Kitayama drawled. "Given he's not just 'telling them so'."
Fujigaya snerked. "Maybe he's enough of a 'lite hacker, socially speaking, that he didn't even write a speech function into that avatar."
"Well excuse us," Yokoo said disdainfully, feigning offense on his and Iida's behalf. He and Iida weren't socially dysfunctional though; there were too many other people around the Takizawa residence for one to be alone for very long. You had to socialise to survive -- an arrangement that suited Fujigaya's type more than Yokoo's, but was equally beneficial to both in the end.
"Oh," Kitayama said, "what..."
On screen, a few things happened in quick succession:
The fox sat up on its hind legs.
The fox waved.
Startled, the bunny's hind leg slipped from the end of the branch.
The bunny squeaked.
Startled, Senga made a grab for the bunny.
Senga missed.
The bunny fell.
"Ah, crap!" Senga yelled, and dove off of the branch in the bunny's wake.
...momentarily, the fox stared after the pair with the same level of disbelief that the scene's three older viewers also felt. Before the creature started to pick its own slow way down through the branches.
"You've got to be kidding me," Fujigaya declared. "I don't believe that just happened."
"Believe it," Kitayama said, as the camera tracked the junior pair's fall. "They're going to die-- At worst, they're going to die. At best, 21-K is going to die, and Senga is going to break his neck."
"Should we be ready to scramble, Wataru?" Fujigaya asked. "If 21-K leaves the scenario this way, they're going to go after his real body next."
"No, let's see how it goes first."
"You don't seem too disturbed about this impending doom, Yokoo-san," Kitayama said mildly.
Yokoo shrugged. "Kyon reckons that Senga's still in the zone." He ignored the mighty scowl on Fujigaya's face, and the way he was watching the flatscreen feed intently from the edge of his seat. "Guess we'll see if his faith pays off."
"Hey!" Fujigaya protested, attempting to turn to face Yokoo without taking his eyes off of the flatscreen display. "I've got plenty of faith in my charge."
"Sure," Yokoo snerked. "Like absolute trust in his tendency to be an idiot."
"And in Iida 'Understatement' Kyohei's ability to be too fucking calm all the time! God, he better not--"
"Which 'he'?"
"Argh, stop that!" Fujigaya stood. "I'm going to--"
"No you're not. You can't do anything at the moment," Yokoo observed.
"Yokoo," Fujigaya growled, rounding on the other. "You know I hate that phrase more than anything..."
"Oy, oy, Taisuke~" Kitayama drawled, half his mouth quirked up in a smile. He indicated the screen. "Settle down, have a closer look." He grinned, obnoxiously benign. "Believe."
Entities 21-K, 53-N. And the collection, yet again.
( 19: work it )
"Ahhhhhhhh!" Nikaido shouted.
"Noooooooo!" Senga yelled, one hand reaching out.
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!" Nikaido kept shouting. Distantly, under the wind rushing past his ears, he could hear the call of the hunting horn again -- they were probably making waaay too much noise for prey, but Nikaido didn't really give a rat's behind about that at the moment. He was going to die. He couldn't drag the appropriate codes onto his clipboard in the frozen scenario to save himself. He couldn't bring up anything he didn't already have, just the same way he couldn't leave the place, and his avatar was going to die here, then they were going to send real world chasers out after his unconscious body and he was going to die out there for real.
He hoped that stupid fox liked bunny pancake.
Stupid fox. He knew it wasn't a bad guy now, but why had it had to use the same stupid avatar as that chaser that'd caught Nikaido earlier, that had pulled him in to that stupid ocean scenario and--
There'd been the kraken saving him that time.
This time-- this time--
Did people still like bunnies?
...maybe they did...?
Senga fell faster than Nikaido, falling forcefully. Abruptly, Nikaido became aware of Senga having caught up to him -- of Senga grabbing him around the waist in an impossible stretch as the ground rushed up, Senga's other hand grabbing a low-hanging tree branch above them simultaneously. Nikaido felt something give in his weak bunny back and suddenly couldn't feel his legs anymore -- but that didn't matter; he'd stopped falling. The next second he was swung up onto the branch Senga had grabbed. They were barely a couple of metres up from the forest floor.
Scrabbling for purchase on the branch with his front paws and teeth, Nikaido tried very hard for all of two seconds, before gravity had its way with his dead-weight lower half, and he slipped off of the branch and fell to the ground with a dull thud.
"Eh?" Senga blinked, staring down at Nikaido from the tree branch he'd just swung up into himself. "Nika-chan, are you alright?" Lithely, he dropped to the forest floor just beside where Nikaido lay.
"Ernf," Nikaido muttered, winded from the minor fall but otherwise alive. "Yeah, I'm fine." He rolled over onto his stomach. When his legs took their time following, he looked at them with a measure of distaste. "Just messed up my spine when you caught me, 'cause this stupid avatar's pretty weak." It was okay though, because he wasn't hurt out in the real world, nor was he stupid enough to mistake the scenario for reality -- there'd been cases of that, where people thought a scenario was real so bad that their minds had made it actually real. But Nikaido wasn't that dumb. As soon as they got out of the frozen area and logged off, he'd be fine again. It wasn't even the first time it'd happened.
But for now...
He looked like little more than a furry penguin at present, what with the way his hind legs weren't working. And he was going to start feeling ill soon -- his body's way of telling his mind that something was wrong (... as if he couldn't just tell by looking, just because he couldn't feel it). Maybe Tamamori had been right and Nikaido should just stick to less vulnerable avatars...
Senga seemed at a loss as to what to do, staring haplessly as he crouched uncertainly by Nikaido's side.
"Well, I reinforced its back muscles, but you know..." Nikaido continued, folding his paws under his chin petulantly and frowning up at Senga. He couldn't frown too hard though -- not when Senga was covered with scratches now, visible even through Nikaido's bad close-range bunny vision, from following Nikaido's inadvertent plummet down through the inanimate foliage. Senga unfortunately hadn't been so bunny-sized... "Guess this avatar just wasn't ever meant to fall from a billion metres up. Hey, hey-- it was totally my fault, don't make a stupid face like that," Nikaido added. "I'm surprised you didn't like, dislocate your arm or anything, you know..."
Senga ignored the covert question about whether or not he was alright, still fretting, hands hovering uncertainly. "Can I--" he started, "um. Can I still pick you up, or--?" When Senga moved his arms, one of his shoulders popped disconcertingly. Nikaido's ears twitched at the sound.
"Uh," Nikaido said, "sure. Just mind the ass. But it's not like it hurts or anything." Of course it didn't hurt. His entire lower half was numb. But things could've turned out worse. "Hey, I'm not made of glass you know," he added as Senga picked the bunny up as if were a damp sheet of tissue. "Just a log off and it'll totally be fixed."
"...I totally broke you though!" Senga protested in a tiny voice, carrying Nikaido tentatively. Like a giant with a porcelain tea set.
"Um, no. Idiot," Nikaido said gruffly-- "You totally saved me from that." --and pointed to the hard forest floor with a paw over the edge of Senga's hands. "Which, FYI, I'd be a bloodsplat against if you hadn't caught me. In case you didn't realise." He looked away.
Dying in a scenario meant a forced disconnect. And because it meant there was no natural or logical transition to guide one's brain out of its online state into a regular, wakeful state out in the real world, a forced disconnect often meant being passed out as if in a deep sleep for a bit, while your consciousness swam its way back into action.
This process potentially took hours -- which were hours Nikaido wouldn't have to spare, if they knocked him out here and went after his potato sack of an unconscious body out in the real world. If they weren't doing that already. From experience, they probably weren't -- the government liked doing one thing at a time because sequences were easy to teach and drill: capture the consciousness first. Then after that, getting rid of the body was just a matter of cleanup that could easily be done by an automated Capital janitor instead...
"Hey," Nikaido said quietly against Senga's chest, changing the subject. He hoped Senga's firewall friends noticed their plight soon. Because it was really starting to go downhill now. His little bunny brain felt a definite headache coming on, for more than one reason. "Senga. We need to get going already."
:::
"Aww," Fujigaya said obnoxiously, "isn't that cute? He totally just thanked him for saving him in the classic boy way: by not saying it at all!"
"I think I'm going to win this bet," Kitayama said.
"What?"
"I quote:" Yokoo recited, "Sooner rather than later, he's going to screw up and get caught."
"Right," Kitayama said. "Senga needed to have set them running again as soon as both of them were safe on the ground, but he seems to have forgotten about the horn that sounded."
"He can still outrun the chasers though," Fujigaya pointed out. "He's not hurt, and the scenario hasn't changed."
"But he can't hit the zone with 21-K like that," Yokoo said. "The block will be psychological more than anything: he won't go that fast. He's treating 21-K more like an invalid than is strictly necessary."
"The kid's stuck as a paraplegic rabbit," Fujigaya laughed. "What the hell isn't invalid about that?"
"Point," Kitayama grinned.
"Your charge is kind of ridiculous," Fujigaya grinned across the couch. "Without the 'kind of' part."
"As if I'd try to deny that fact," Kitayama snerked -- but then switched his focus back to the flatscreen as a blur of movement caught his eye. "...here they come."
"Where do you mean?" Fujigaya asked, following Kitayama's line of sight.
"Chasers: lower left quadrant," Yokoo supplied. "They've been cornered."
"I hate betting on bad outcomes," Kitayama said conversationally, his pointed lack of surface tension belying what was happening on screen. "It takes all the happy glow out of winning."
"Freeze! Don't move," an archer said on screen, stepping from the shadows with his bow drawn, taunt and quivering, the head of an arrow glinting in the faint moonlight. "Move, and you and your bunnyfriend get skewered."
Senga's on screen figure went obediently still -- though his eyes still darted around, probably evaluating his escape options. But all he registered were two other archers emerging from the foliage, each at a hundred and twenty degrees from the first, leaving him and Nikaido totally surrounded.
"Don't do anything stupid," Fujigaya whispered an entreaty.
"Keep trying, Taisuke," Kitayama chuckled. "They might get your telepathic message yet."
"...uh oh," Senga said, the nervousness in his voice making it through even the flatscreen speakers.
"Uh oh is right," he archer smiled, teeth glinting like the notched arrows.
"...slave avatars," Nikaido murmured, voice almost inaudible but for the dead silence of the scenario.
Yokoo's eyebrows rose, and he glanced at Kitayama. "The kid knows his stuff."
Kitayama just smiled. "Of course he does. Sometimes."
"The other two are controlled by the first," Nikaido continued quietly on screen. "Limited intelligence, limited operating range away from the first--"
"Pity for you," the first archer interrupted loudly, "that the primary directive in that supposed 'limited intelligence' of theirs is to shoot you when necessary. And since they're programs, they're hardly going to miss." He turned slightly, though didn't take his eyes off the captured pair to call over his shoulder: "Captain!"
"'Captain'?" Fujigaya echoed, with a note of disbelief. "You're kidding me. Our two got caught by a supervised rookie?"
Kitayama shrugged. "You forget that 'our two' are also supervised rookies."
"Yeah, well. There are two of ours though," Fujigaya sniffed. "And we're supposed to be better than the government dogs anyway."
Yokoo sat up as the archer's captain came into view, the man dressed in the liveries of the Domoto Princes, all bold blues and reds and purples. He held what looked like a black circlet in his hand. Senga tensed, holding Nikaido close to his chest.
"53-N," the captain said. "Hand over the errant and we'll let you leave in peace. As opposed to pieces."
"No," Senga gritted out.
Nikaido said nothing in either direction, likely torn between wanting Senga to go and not wanting to be left behind. "...idiot," he mumbled, and squeezed his eyes shut.
"Kyon," Yokoo said, pressing his hand to his ear. "Monitor 21-K's vital statistics, subconscious reaction to injury. If he passes out, we'll step in to diplomat Senga out of trouble while Kitayama and Taisuke scramble for 21-K retrieval."
"Acknowledged," Iida said.
On screen, the captain took another step forward. "Hand it over," he repeated slowly. "And we'll let you leave. This is your second and final chance."
"No--" Senga said, then: "Wait, wait!" when the archer's arrows shifted ever so slightly to aim blatantly at his chest instead of keeping up the pretence of pointing at just Nikaido. "Wait..." Senga said, and took a deep breath. "He's... under our protection."
Nikaido's little eyes flew open -- though squinted again the next second. "I'm what?"
"He's what?" Fujigaya shouted at Senga, as if the other would be able to hear him. "Idiot brat!"
"Kyon!" Yokoo said.
"I'm hearing it, Wataru," Iida replied in Yokoo's ear. "Takizawa's offline. Get your pager to him ASAP."
"Mitsu," Yokoo said, unclasping the little device from his belt and dropping it into Kitayama's lap. "Take this to Tono's private quarters immediately. Bypass what you have to. Be ready to relay a message."
"Yes, sir~" Kitayama teased, throwing a lazy two-fingered salute, though it belied the speed with which he kicked his heels and was gone from the couch.
On screen, Senga's eyes were still locked with the captain's. "Um," Senga said. "I've got proof." Too fast for the frame rate to keep up with, Senga's left hand darted a movement -- and suddenly the scroll from his tunic was in his grasp.
"Hah!" Fujigaya laughed, with audible derision. "Looks like his sleight of hand tricks actually came in handy for someting other than cheating at cards."
"--hey! Hey, I told you not to move!" the archer shouted when he realised it, all three bows quivering.
The captain regarded Senga with a much calmer, steady curiosity. "You've got a scroll," he said evenly. "So what? That could be anything."
"Validate it with a scan!" Senga told him tightly, still speaking as if he was half holding his breath. "It's from Hideaki Takizawa, addressed to Prince Koichi Domoto. And contains list of protected pre-registrants. Kids who are under Takizawa's protection, pending approval of legal status."
He knew Nikaido's name wasn't actually on the list, but the government didn't have to find that out yet. If the captain bought the bluff just from the sender and recipient scan, then maybe they could both get out of it...
Hopefully...
If not, Senga was going to be charged with attempted deception, never mind the part about protecting an illegal entity. And it would be the shortest trial ever, his consciousness captured without a second thought. Nikaido's too.
The government would lock his virtual self up and keep his mind captive until it disappeared because his physical body died.
Senga chewed his upper lip. It would suck if he never got to dance in the real world again. When his last dance before this had ended up with him spraining a toe...
Please, he thought, please, please, please...
He wasn't sure who he was asking, though. Iida or Yokoo or...
Nobody seemed to be listening.
The collection. And 74-M, 21-K, 53-N.
( 20: drastic action )
"Tono," Kitayama called.
Takizawa sat up as Kitayama skated in at speed and spun to an immediate stop, his braking pirouette dropping quickly into a bended knee salute beside Takizawa's couch. The skater pressed a fist to the ground as he knelt, holding up Yokoo's pager with his other hand. Beside Takizawa, Senga's physical body seemed to sleep on in REM as his mind remained engaged online.
"What is it?" Takizawa asked aloud.
"Sir," Iida's voice projected from the pager's speakers. "Permission to add 21-K to the list of protected pre-registrants and retroactively action his paperwork to the Prince."
"Permission granted," Takizawa said immediately, glancing at Senga's inanimate form.
"Thank you, Sir," Iida said, no-nonsense as ever. He signalled the termination of their connection with an audible click.
Kitayama stood and clipped the pager onto his belt, his job done. For now.
"...so tell me how this happens," Takizawa sighed, half to Kitayama and half to himself. With an air of resigned fondness, he stroked Senga's hair -- giving Kitayama the sudden reason to be glad that Fujigaya hadn't run this errand. Kitayama respected Takizawa a great deal, but did not crave the same kinds of attentions from him as a lot of the others. He felt nothing of Fujigaya's typical jealousy at the scene before him. "I give this boy the most basic of missions and log off for an hour," Takizawa continued, "and suddenly emergency procedures are being enacted, and my door's security overridden...?"
Kitayama smiled. "It's nothing too bad at the moment, Sir. Ken-chan ran from a pair of chasers in order to protect 21-K. Watchtower's just doing some pre-burning to see if stepping in with something drastic can be avoided."
"As expected," Takizawa nodded. "Because drastic action now means offensive hacking in the presence of government agents, which is an insult to the grace the Prince has shown us thus far, and means that the government will tighten our leash next time."
"As you say, Tono," Kitayama bowed. He moved to take his leave but paused in the door. "Though it may be presumptuous of me to request it, please continue to ensure that Senga's netgear feed is not disrupted yet." Straightening, Kitayama smiled. Worse come to worst they could simply remove Senga's netgear in the physical world and forcibly log him out. He'd remain out cold for a bit, but would be fine eventually. However: "Avoiding the capture of 21-K's consciousness is currently riding on Senga staying online, so..."
Takizawa nodded. "I understand your concern, Kitayama-kun."
Kitayama bowed again-- "お願いいたします." --and left Takizawa's private quarters, the room's heavy security door sliding silently shut behind him.
"...Kitayama-kun," Iida's voice crackled across the pager. "Senga's made the government force our hand. New plan: return to the common room and, with Fujigaya, prep for the physical retrieval of 21-K; we're going to forcibly disconnect both him and Senga from the scenario on Wataru's mark."
Kitayama smiled. Well, that wasn't exactly the way he'd planned to bring his charge in personally, but he couldn't complain too much. "Understood," he told Iida, skating back through the halls. "Let Yokoo know I'm ready to go whenever he calls it."
:::
Tamamori crouched among the lower branches of the tree Senga and Nikaido had fallen through earlier, hiding among the foliage, his breath held. He'd heard keywords -- the things he was pretty sure that Miyata had heard first and wanted him to discover. Names like Hideaki Takizawa. Protected pre-registrants. The inclusion of Prince Domoto Koichi's name in affairs had startled Tamamori at first, but ultimately only served to get him thinking that maybe he'd been too quick to judge. He'd have to start that part of his investigation again later, more thoroughly... later.
At the moment, his primary concern was just how much longer Senga's crappy improvisation could keep him and Nikaido from getting killed. Tamamori's initial view of Senga (admittedly pretty dismal) was rising, bit by bit -- though not enough to stop Tamamori from thinking that he'd have to step in and help out sooner or later. He couldn't allow Senga to be captured here -- his link to Takizawa was too hot to let slide.
Just... how to help, though? Timing was going to be pretty critical; the archer's three arrows were trained on Senga just a few paces shy of point blank... and if Tamamori just brought in something disruptive like the kraken avatar, it was just as the archer had said: the archer was human, but his two slave avatars were mere programs that would not be distracted.
Moreover, it would fly in the face of the legal and law-abiding image that Senga was currently trying (and a little failing) to project.
If -- or when -- Tamamori made a move, his timing would have to be good, and it would have to be card-trick quick, too...
...not yet.
...
For the moment, Tamamori waited.
"Nice try, 53-N," the captain was saying, smiling sardonically at Senga and the scroll Senga held. "However, this errant was not on the Princes' protected list the last time I checked -- which happened to be moments before I froze this scenario."
Tamamori watched Senga chew nervously upon his upper lip, and decide to push on with the bluff anyway, despite the way it was backing him into a smaller and smaller corner: "That's because I've got your list updates here..." Senga said, waving the scroll in his hand in a tense sort of wiggle. "The new stuff, it's all in here."
But the captain's resolve seemed too stony to break. "At last check," he repeated, "our records held no forms for your errant. Forms generally do not require formalities that allow for transit time -- meaning that, if indeed this errant is listed on your scroll, your message has been hacked." Confidence oozing from his body language, the captain took a step forward.
And Senga took a step back, eyes wide. "Hey, no! Wait! Check again!" he exclaimed desperately. "Maybe you missed it! You totally must have missed it!"
"Impossible," the captain said, and gestured to the archer, and crossed his arms. "44-R, confiscate that scroll."
"Yes, Sir," the first archer said, releasing the tension in his bow and stepping up to pluck the scroll from Senga's hand. The other two archers did not move, weapons still trained...
The captain gave Senga a sharp smile when Senga's fingers paused in relinquishing their grip on the message he held. "If you have truly done nothing wrong," he said, words a smooth taunt, "you have nothing to fear."
You have nothing to fear... Stupid government creed. Tamamori held his breath, readying a slide of bulletproof glass. Senga and Nikaido were only under two arrows now -- the third point of the bracketing triangle was missing. If he was fast enough, maybe he'd be able to shove the glass between--
The archer opened the scroll. Tamamori's mental finger tightened on its trigger.
"Shintaro Morimoto," the archer read aloud. "I recall seeing his paperwork earlier today. As with that of Ryutaro Morimoto and Taiga Kyomoto." An eyebrow raised in surprise. "...the name of Takashi Nikaido is here, but I have not seen his paperwork."
:::
"What?" Senga stared, thunderstruck that his bluff had come true and Nikaido's name was on the scroll after all. He certainly hadn't hacked it there himself. Were Iida and Yokoo monitoring the situation after all? If so, why hadn't they just stepped in already?
Nikaido's jaw likewise hung open, his mind racing. Ignoring the nausea swimming around his head, he turned on Senga. "How do you know my whole name?" he shouted, bunny voice carrying like an echo. "I never told you it! I never told anyone it! I--"
He hadn't heard anybody say his first name since he was five.
Senga was immediately on the defensive, holding Nikaido's furious little form away from himself. "I don't know!" he yelled, forgetting where they were. "I don't know what you're talking about! I never--"
"My name's on that scroll!" Nikaido snapped. "Does that mean I--" Was he safe, then? Protected for real? But at what cost? Hell, did that mean that that creepy Boss Tackey freak had collected him--?
"Captain," the archer said, gritting his teeth against the melodrama.
"Agreed," the archer's captain said, turning to cast a sneer upon Nikaido and Senga's little quarrel. "Neither of your responses are in line with what would be expected if the errant's name had been protected all along. I thus conclude your scroll has been hacked under an attempt at deception and hereby place both your minds under arrest."
Accordingly, one of the archer's slave avatars turned to target Senga, the arrow of the other remaining trained squarely upon Nikaido, tracking as Senga tucked Nikaido up under his chin, hands sheltering the little bunny avatar as best he could. His eyes watched the arrows warily. The metal arrowheads glowed with strange blue electricity, what looked like incongruous black circlets floating around each...
Nikaido ran a lot of curses out under his avatar's metaphysical breath. The arrows were set to capture. It wasn't as if the government would give him even the slight chance that a forced disconnect afforded after all, where -- one in a million -- he'd be able to wake up out in the real world before a seeker pinned his location and the chasers tracked him down out there.
They were going to capture his consciousness, and his inanimate body simply wouldn't last long after that. He regretted leaving Tamamori presently -- nobody knew where he was. Nobody would protect him or keep him hydrated and stuff while his mind was locked up online -- locked up online very miserably: the nerve disruption and probable messed up vertebrae were combining to make his stomach feel super queasy already, and... Lasting a pathetic three days or a week, max, until his body died... unable to log out? He'd almost rather just die now.
At least Senga might last longer, given he knew people out in the real world, where that Takizawa guy's place was... people who'd take care of him even while his mind was away. Maybe even people who'd fight to get him out of being locked up. Senga was a legal, after all... A proper legal.
"Hey, don't give up," Senga whispered. The tense way his hands held Nikaido though, countered the hope he was trying to pass on. "Don't give up -- the scroll thing was totally Ii-chan. They're totally here... They're-- they've totally gotta be..."
"Bullshit they are," Nikaido told him, suddenly annoyed. "It's stupid to count on people." People weren't ever worth anything... Except...
Senga, maybe... Senga was probably worth quite a bit, even if his stupid avatar smelled like sweat and weird and everything, he--
All of a sudden, Nikaido felt inexplicably upset. It wasn't the thought of getting caught or dying that was anything new or depressing -- he'd been acutely aware that he was living on borrowed time ever since the first time a chaser had tried to do his head in. But... just... this...
He buried his face in the side of Senga's neck and reverted to human form -- there were just some things that couldn't be said in a stupid squeaky bunny voice. Nikaido wrapped his arms tight around Senga's neck, his legs still dead; Senga staggered a little under the sudden weight shift, but didn't let go either. "Whoa," he whispered. "You're kinda heavy when you're human."
"Gee, thanks," Nikaido said, voice dripping with watery sarcasm. But he mopped it up the next moment with an amendment. "I mean..." he said, voice just his own again, unmodified and unmodulated, slowly descending lower into a mumble. "...yeah. Thanks. For sticking around, too. I mean... People suck, but you're not too bad."
It wasn't even like they'd known each other that long or anything, but Senga had tried so hard anyway and Nikaido was... grateful? Yeah, maybe he was grateful.
"..." Senga sniffled. "Um. Well--"
"Enough of this," the captain said, stepping forward.
"Man, just sit tight and shut the fuck up for a bit alright? We're having a moment here!" Nikaido shouted, raising his head to glare at the government agent. "You're seriously pissing me--"
--off.
Was what he'd wanted to say.
But the world went black before he could finish.
Kitayama bowed again-- "お願いいたします." (onegai-itashimasu; super formal onegaishimasu/please)
1- CLIFFHANGER, LOL (sort of)
2- things suddenly got complicated. xD; feel like i'm totally losing my grip on the tech system (even if i made it up), and even the voices are mixing as well. &i think i've been repeating myself. xD;
3- nikaido has been turned into a damsel and plot device I AM SORRY. it will be fixed soon. i just couldn't think of any other way to do it. ;;
4- contradictions and loopholes make me facepalm. 8D; if you find any more, please let me know. ; <-it is what you get for making stuff up on the fly, cry. xD;
5- hm. second time around, i'll change the things to kitayama senga, and fujigaya nikaido instead. funnier that way. 8D;
6- ...miyata still exists, i sweartogod. :0
7- notes, totally tl;dr xD xD
why does gdocs eat my spaces? -_-* merf. *edit*