fic - Johnny's & Associates - The Question of Nobuta - Week 4: Nobuko
Title: The Question of Nobuta; Week 4: Nobuko
Author: virdant
Length: 5862/25530 words (4/5)
Rating: PG-13 / R
Genre: AU, Dystopia, sci-fi.
Pairing: implied Pikame, Implied Shuji/Akira
Summary: Story Summary: NOBUTA; the program's name is NOBUTA. In a world where people spend the majority of their time online playing roles, a rogue program named NOBUTA tries to be happy. But what is NOBUTA, and why does it exist?
Chapter Summary: “Hey,” Kouji said, reaching forward and poking Kame on the arm. “That friend if yours. Is her name NOBUTA?” // Kame put the coffee down. It clanked against the wooden table loudly, the liquid sloshing violently. “Don’t call her Nobuta.”
Warning: Drug use.
Notes: I use various names and nicknames very extensively in this story for the purpose of differentiating between various settings. Please keep that in mind. For more information regarding this story, including the posting schedule, please check the Masterpost and Pre-reading Notes
The Question of Nobuta
Masterpost | Week 1: NOBUTA | Week 2: Kouji | Week 3: Mariko | Week 4: Nobuko | Week 5: Shuji to Akira | Post-Completion Meta
Week 4: Nobuko
“I need to talk to you, Nakamaru.” Akanishi perched on Nakamaru’s desk at work, leaning back on his hands and staring blankly at the other man.
“What do you need to know?” Nakamaru asked tiredly. He slumped over his terminal, staring blearily at the data. A week. It had been a week since their last discoveries regarding NOBUTA, and for days all they had done was sit and stare at the latest reports of Maintenance’s new spam filter, tweaking it and fixing it so it would be perfect. They hadn’t even gone on patrols, brief breaths of tightly-controlled fresh air in a stale working environment.
Akanishi glanced at the camera in the corner, and then continued to stare at Nakamaru. “Not here. That place. Where we first started.” He didn’t say the words, tracing them on the terminal and letting the hookup that connected it to Nakamaru’s porternal carry the message to him.
“You can’t afford to get in trouble again, Akanishi,” Nakamaru murmured quietly, even though he was already tracing which districts he would have to hop through to put the watchers off his trail in his mind. What did Akanishi want to tell him?
Akanishi shrugged. “You’re behind on your work,” he said, running a finger along the implant on the back of his neck. The metal was cold against his fingers, a reminder of the six months when he had left to drill another hole in his body.
Akanishi had always been fascinated by implants, but he had mostly been fascinated by the developments towards moving implants higher and higher up the spinal cord. The first implant developments had placed the implants far down the back where it just barely attached to the spine, and it had never traveled far up, not after a series of fatal accidents when implants were attached to the skull. It hadn’t been too much of a surprise when he had informed them that he had been assigned in a government study to add a second implant for research purposes.
It had been a surprise that he hadn’t let them hide him away.
Nakamaru touched the porternal. “I’m catching up now,” he said calmly. Akanishi never meant half of what he said. None of them did. It was what allowed them to work so well together.
“Don’t fall behind,” Akanishi said, and pushed himself off the desk and out the door.
*
Junno sprawled out on the beach, watching as the waves crashed upon the shore. His hair was bright blond again, an easy cosmetic change on the Network-For just 10 points YOU can change YOUR hair color too! Or so the advertisements said. Junno tilted his head back, staring at the perfectly blue sky, enjoying the eat of the sun beating down on his face. Bright white clouds dotted the sky; seagulls cried with lazy abandon, circling high in the sky before fluttering down to the rocks by the shore.
“Junno,” Uepi said from somewhere high above Junno’s head.
“Hi Uepi.” He craned his head to stare at the other man. It was Ueda’s face, his features set in an eerily similar mold. The same eyes, the same lopsided mouth, all transformed from flesh and blood to a series of electric pulses that flashed up and down Taguchi’s spine. Uepi crossed his arms and frowned, almost identical to Ueda, but not quite. “Come sit,” Junno said, patting the sand next to him.
“Why aren’t you working?” Uepi demanded.
Junno turned away from Uepi, staring at the sea. “I was. An hour ago I followed an underage couple here, and reported them for their heinous crimes...”
“Junno,” Uepi interrupted. “I’m not here because of Management.”
Junno sighed softly. “Mm, alright.” he murmured, glancing towards the other man quickly before turning back to the sea. For a while they sat in silence, watching synthetic waves crash upon a synthetic shore.
“Junno. You didn’t tell me why you’re here.”
“Look at the sea, Uepi.” Junno murmured, waving at the ocean. “Isn’t it pretty?”
He waited.
“Sea?” Junno asked with a wry grin. He gestured towards the waves again.
Uepi sighed, settling down next to Junno. He ignored Junno’s attempt at a pun, and instead murmured quietly, “You know that the real oceans outside the Network are actually acid and nothing like this, right?”
“So depressing, Uepi,” Junno chirped, before turning back to the sea. “Of course I do,” he added sharply, his eyes narrowing. “I took the same history class as you.”
“Ah, of course you did.”
Junno closed his eyes, listening to the repetitive swishing as waves tugged and pulled at the shore. “I wanted to get away.”
Uepi waited.
Junno’s voice was thoughtful as he continued. “Look. The waves come and then they leave. But they don’t change. Ever. They’re a constant. There’s always another wave coming. There’s always the sight of light reflecting off of the water and sand drying under the sun. It’s constant. No matter what.”
“This world’s a constant,” he said, but it was more Ueda than Uepi now.
Junno didn’t say anything for a second. “A world of perpetual summer,” he said quietly.
Ueda reached over and pressed Junno’s hand into the sand. Junno closed his eyes and let himself simply feel. The prickly granules of sand dug into the soft flesh of his palm, working their way under his nails and between his fingers. The waves crashed against the shore, loud and harsh against his ears. The sand dug into the crease of his elbow, it curled between his toes.
Ueda’s hand was uncomfortably warm on his. “Are you ready to leave?” he asked quietly.
“No,” Junno said. But he sat up anyway, dusted the sand from his pants, and spread his hand towards the sea. “Look, Ueda.” It was Taguchi talking, not Junno. “Sea.” He spread his hand against the invisible wall separating them from the ocean, pressing his hand hard. The wall was smooth compared to the sand, cold to the touch. Junno wondered if it was cold from the of the chill from the ocean crashing against the shore, or cold simply because that was how it had been programmed, to be a sharp jolt against the skin compared to the warm sun.
Ueda curled his fingers around Taguchi’s outspread hand and tugged it down. “Yes. I see,” he said quietly. Another time he would have groaned and shaken his head, but not now. “Let’s go.”
Junno turned, following him. As they walked away from the waves, he murmured thoughtfully, “In one of that Akira person’s letters to Kame this week, he asked if they could go to the beach with Nobuta anytime soon. Do you think they’re talking about one like this, or one with water that laps at your feet and scours your skin with salt and wind?”
*
Kame slouched in his seat, nursing a cup of coffee. Caffeine didn’t work quite the same way in the Network, but it came close enough. Everything came close enough. He sipped the coffee, ignoring the bitterness that stuck on the top of his throat. Funny, how all it took was a cord and implant to trick the mind into believing that you were living a completely different life. It wasn’t funny at all.
He was supposed to be meeting Koki here in ten minutes. Koki wasn’t usually late, but there was always work that came up, even on the weekends. Especially on the weekends. On weekdays, people were caught up with mundane responsibilities, even on the Network. Oh, there were some servers that existed in a perpetual state of Friday Night, but those were few and rare, and Management had specialized groups that patrolled only those servers. Most servers existed as a parallel world that ambled along time in the same way Reality did.
“Hi.”
“Nakajima Yuto,” Kame replied, studying the boy. The look in the boy’s eyes wasn’t quite like Nakajima’s usually was, and he looked younger than Nakajima, but the shape of his cheeks and the way he carried himself was the same way Nakajima did.
“Nii-san,” the boy wailed petulantly. “You still don’t remember me?”
“Kiritani Kouji.” He nodded to the seat across from him. It was meant for Koki, but he wasn’t going to let Nakajima wander around, even if he wasn’t on duty and Nakajima was going by Kouji.
Kouji slumped into the seat. “So cold.”
“You deserve it,” Kame retorted, before he blinked and buried his face in the coffee.
“Can I have some?” He reached for the cup, curling his fingers around the handle.
Kame blinked and looked down at the coffee, before focusing on Kouji. “Coffee?”
He nodded.
Kame frowned and clutched the coffee closer. “No. You’re too young.”
“Then can I have some tea?”
“Can’t you buy it yourself?”
“Nii-san should treat me. How long has it been since we’ve talked?”
“Not long enough.” Kame tasted the coffee with the tip of his tongue, watching Kouji over the cup. It still tasted horrible and bitter, which meant that Nakajima wasn’t hacking the coffee at least. He sipped the coffee with faint relief.
“Caffeine isn’t good for you, Nii-san.”
Kame resisted the urge to glare, instead curling his hands around the mug tighter. “Don’t you dare hack my coffee, Kouji.”
“Nii-san, why would I ever do such a thing?”
*
Tanaka unplugged the wires, quickly scanning the room where KAT-TUN usually worked. Empty. He grabbed his porternal, tagging everybody and calling them. “Where’s Kame?” he demanded at the first connection.
“What about Kamenashi?” Jin drawled.
Tanaka paused, halfway out of the immersion chair. He sat down slowly, pulling up his shirt and reaching behind his back for his implant. “Jin,” he said slowly. “I didn’t expect you to pick up.”
“Why wouldn’t I? What’s this about Kamenashi?”
Tanaka carefully placed the porternal down on the floor, pulling his legs up to his chest. He fumbled for the wires with his free hand, ready to plug them in and escape from Jin. He wasn’t certain why he was frightened of Jin now, but there was something wrong about Jin picking up the porternal. The only reason he would pick it up, with his second implant regulating everything, would be if Management was taking an interest in their activities. Akanishi himself didn’t pick up calls like this. “What about Kamenashi?” Tanaka echoed. “He didn’t show.”
“Isn’t he hooked up where you are?”
Tanaka laughed hollowly. “He’s hooked somewhere else, I guess, since he’s not here.” He clutched the wires. “Where are the others?”
“Busy.”
“What’s Nakamaru doing?” Nakamaru had told him that he was going to do something with Akanishi later, had mentioned it when Tanaka had pressed.
“Does it matter?”
Tanaka inhaled harshly. “Yeah. Yeah, it does.”
“Your job is to find Kamenashi, isn’t it?” Tanaka could hear Jin’s lazy smile.
“Maybe.” Tanaka closed his eyes. How did this happen? Taguchi should have had the cameras permanently hacked, and they were always careful not to leave any clues when they went off and did their own thing. Management knew them, and almost sanctioned independent actions outside of their control, and damn it, they had been careful.
“What does maybe mean?” This was a Jin that Tanaka didn’t recognize-a Jin that he had hoped would slowly fade away after the shock of a new implant had been over.
“It means that I don’t recognize you,” Tanaka said coldly, hoping that Taguchi had did his homework, hoping that Management wouldn’t hear him, wouldn’t see him running away from Jin. This Jin, that he barely recognized, who had a strained quality in his voice, like he had just fully become self-aware. “It means... fuck. You’re leaving.”
“You’re wrong.”
“I’m not wrong,” Tanaka snarled. “This isn’t sanctioned, is it? You’re actually running away from Management. And you’re going to take advantage of Yuichi while you do it.”
“Koki,” Jin murmured. “I’m doing the only thing I know how to do to keep us alive. I didn’t start this. Blame NOBUTA. Blame Kotani Nobuko, because if she just hadn’t worked, then this would never have happened.”
“There’s another way,” Tanaka said. “There’s always another way.”
“Not in this case.”
“Maybe you didn’t look hard enough.” Tanaka ran his fingers around the rough gradient of the wires, their plastic covering twisted and gnarled with use. “Good bye, Akanishi.”
Tanaka felt a cold breeze on his face as he twisted the wires into his spine. He clenched his teeth, and wondered if the wind on his face was from cooling fans or from sensory feedback down his spine; he wondered if he would ever see Akanishi’s face again.
*
“Hey,” Kouji said, reaching forward and poking Kame on the arm. “That friend if yours. Is her name NOBUTA?”
Kame put the coffee down. It clanked against the wooden table loudly, the liquid sloshing violently. “Don’t call her Nobuta.”
Kouji leaned forward and tugged the coffee towards him. He sniffed the mug, and then pushed it back to Kame. He tilted his head to the side, smiling. “So you do remember her. A little.”
*
Junno nodded a little, listening to the background noise of the server as he ran a scan. Outside the small room where Junno and Tat-chan were sitting-side-by-side on a low couch-people scurried back and forth, murmuring softly to each other. They were hiding in a small room that they had cut out of an office building in a little-known server. The six of them had been in training when the server had been taken down for an upgrade, and when they had been assigned to fix it up, they had taken the time to code in a small room where only they could go.
Domoto Koichi had caught them-six of the many trainees who were told to code for the server-and after giving them a ten minute verbal lashing for disobeying orders and causing conflict, sat down and picked apart their code. “Look,” he had said. “If all six of you try to put in little cubby-holes-don’t give me that look, Kamenashi, you’re the only person who includes comments longer than 10 characters in their code-it’s not going to work. Sit down, figure out who’s going to do what, and code it together.” The next day, he had official papers from Management putting them in a team, and ordered them to: “Pick a leader so I don’t have to deal with all six of you.”
He ended up dealing with all six of them.
But as a result, KAT-TUN had a small corner in an even smaller server that was exclusively theirs.
“What do you see?” Tat-chan asked, scribbling code down by hand into his porternal.
Junno craned his head around the room. “This room,” he quipped. He looked up. “The ceiling. And is that an air vent? I never coded for that.”
Tat-chan jabbed a finger in Junno’s side-Junno yelped. “Junno.”
Junno shrugged, rubbing his side a bit. “Kotani Nobuko isn’t registered to anybody.” Junno pouted. He tapped the porternal he was playing on, an outlet trailing from the porternal into his back. Even in the Network, Junno preferred to hook himself to his porternal. He claimed it felt more like he was outside. “I’ve spent all week hacking into Maintenance files, and I couldn’t find any records of Kotani Nobuko on any server.” He tapped the screen viciously.
“Let me see,” Tat-chan ordered, taking Junno’s porternal. The screen blanked for a second-even in the Network, porternals were keyed to each person-before the programs in the room kicked in and the screen loaded. He scrolled down the list that Junno’s hacking had given him. “She’s not registered.”
“She’s like a ghost,” Junno agreed. “She also disappears when we see her.”
“Even paranormal activity is registered with Maintenance,” Tat-chan muttered, but he wasn’t paying much attention to Junno.
“Licensed paranormal activity,” Junno agreed. “Friendly ghosts, like Casper.”
Tat-chan ignored Junno’s rambles. “And Kotani Nobuko isn’t registered. Is it even possible to be invisible on the network these days?”
“Unless we’re looking in the wrong place, yes.”
“These are avatars?” Ueda asked, flicking through the registry of avatar accesses on server 520. There was surprisingly low activity for a server that had seemed so active when he had visited. “Toda Erika never logged in to server 520 last week.”
“She should be. That was definitely Uehara Mariko, and we talked to her agency and Uehara’s registered to only her. Doesn’t make any sense for her not to be there.” Junno frowned. “See if there’s information about Uehara Mariko on the list?”
“I checked,” Tat-chan sighed. “No Uehara. No Kotani.”
“So what could they be?” Junno fiddled with Tat-chan’s porternal, before pulling up the same list that Tat-chan was looking at. “This is the Network Registry for server 520. All entrances and exits are on this-”
“Don’t say it,” Tat-chan said sharply. “I don’t care about who you are, I have to listen to you go ‘Iriguchi, deguchi, Taguchi desu’ every time we talk to Management and they make you introduce yourself again, I don’t need to hear this now.”
Junno shrugged easily. “There’s barely any long-term activity. Not even actors and actresses.”
“How far back do these lists go?”
“For miles, across the ocean.” Junno laughed a little at his own joke. “For as long as Management exists, probably. When did Network Maintenance start?”
“Long enough ago.” He fiddled with Junno’s porternal. “Go back. See how far back you can go. Make a note of any irregular activity.”
Junno smiled. “Already ahead of you.” He tapped Tat-chan’s porternal. “Five years ago, when Kame-chan went to work on that special project with Yamapi.” The screen listed a series of login and logout information, Uehara Mariko included among them. “Not entirely unexpected, but interesting all the same, isn’t it?”
*
Yamashita felt Kamenashi’s forehead. Warm. Warmer than he should be, with his body functions slowed down and only his mind using energy. He was agitated then.
Kamenashi sat in one of Yamashita’s duel ports, eyes closed as he wandered the Network. They had run into each other near work, and upon hearing that Kame had a lunch date with Koki later, Yamashita had offered his home terminal.
Kamenashi had frowned, but accepted.
Yamashita sighed and picked up his porternal. “Yamapi?” Koyama called through the Network worriedly.
“Hi,” he said, quickly flicking off visual. It wouldn’t do if they found Kamenashi at his place.
“KAT-TUN’s going crazy. We need you to help pick up some of the slack that they’re leaving for us.”
“Crazy how?” Yamashita asked, but he was already sliding into the spare chair of his hookup. “What happened?”
“Akanishi Jin crazy. He’s apparently decided to jimmy his ports; it’s only a matter of time before Management finds him and decides to terminate it. Domoto Koichi’s already tracked down Taguchi, Tanaka and Ueda, and Masuda’s going after Nakamaru already-he’s not in the Network, we’re tracking him to a slum district.”
Yamashita glanced at Kamenashi. “What about Kamenashi?”
“Don’t know. We need you to find him. Didn’t you work on a project with Kamenashi before?”
Yamashita shrugged, even though Koyama couldn’t see him. “That was a long time ago.” It had been a long time ago. They had both been sent by Management to participate in a freelance program designing project. To monitor it. To make sure it wouldn’t push the boundaries that Management had set for the Network. KAT-TUN hadn’t been happy about it, and Kamenashi didn’t like thinking about that in either the Network or Reality.
“KAT-TUN’s been spending the past weeks devoting a lot of energy into hacking Management. Management wants to know why.”
Yamashita blinked. “Hacking? What type of things?”
“Records of rogue programs, mostly.”
NOBUTA, he thought. Project NOBUTA.
Maki’s serious eyes. Her voice, quiet as she addressed them. “We’ll have to work hard together. All three of us.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Alright,” he said agreeably. “I’ll find Jin.”
“What about Kamenashi?”
Yamashita stared at Kamenashi; where was he, in the Network? Did he know that Management had decided that KAT-TUN’s autonomy was unacceptable? “Kamenashi’s probably just drugged out of his mind. He likes taking hallucinogenics on the weekends.”
*
Koki opened his eyes to the ocean, surrounded by invisible walls.
“Junno,” he called. “What the hell?” He fumbled around, patting his pockets; if Taguchi saw fit to rig his next login, then he should have left a message-it was only courteous.
There was a crumpled ball of paper in his pocket. He unwrapped the paper and stared at the three colored ropes that fell out, knotted together.
“Go away,” a voice called, and Koki spun around to face a boy dressed in a military style school uniform on the other side of the invisible wall, his face eerily similar to Kame’s. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Where’s here?” Koki bent down to pick up the ropes-red and blue and yellow knotted together.
The boy set his jaw strangely. “Nobody’s supposed to be here right now,” he said quietly. “Just me. Alone.”
“Where’s here? And who are you?”
The boy crossed his arms over his chest, looking strangely lost. “Who am I? I don’t know. And where is this place? Far away. Far away from Nobuta. Far away from everybody.”
*
Nakamaru had always been mind-numbingly boring, but that didn’t mean he was stupid.
He knew Masuda was following him-they were friends, after all, so he had ample opportunity to slide one of Tanaka’s tracking chips into Masuda’s porternal years ago. There were advantages to being in a group full of people who didn’t care for getting along with each other-there was always an abundance of tracking and tapping devices and programs around.
Now, he studied the blip on his porternal that said that Masuda was slowly but certainly coming towards him. He frowned, tapping the porternal. He was so close to where Akanishi had asked him to go-“The place where we started.”
He paused, glancing down the alleyway. The slums were dirty, a twisted maze of concrete and dust. He could see people staring out at him from the corners. Masuda probably wouldn’t notice, he hadn’t ever lived here before, not like Nakamaru, Akanishi, and Kamenashi had when they had first starting fooling around with the Network and had almost gotten themselves caught. Management had found them eventually, but for a while they had hid in the only place they thought safe, the slums.
There was a kid peeking out that corner. He could probably get the kid to run a diversion, get Masuda off his tail, make his way to where Akanishi wanted them to meet. He had to pass by that alleyway, but he could double back and around when Masuda was further away.
Unless they had a tracker on him? Nakamaru frowned. He had lent his porternal to Koyama the other day.
He couldn’t let Masuda find that place. It meant cutting himself off from the rest of KAT-TUN for a second, but he could do that. They did things independently all the time. That didn’t mean he liked it, but he could do it, easily.
“Hey,” he called to the kid, holding out his porternal. This place still should be a haven for intrepid hackers. “I’ll swap you mine for yours.”
The kid grinned. “What mods do you have?”
What would Tanaka say at a time like this? “That’s for me to know, and you to find out.”
The kid slid a older model over-it was bulky, but that just meant that it was probably hiding more modifications than Taguchi and Tanaka had shoved in Kamenashi’s. “Sure. It’ll be fun trying to hack your safeguards. What other favor do you want, Mister?”
Was he always that transparent? He couldn’t lie to save his life, but sometimes the truth was just as good. “I’m being followed by a Network Maintainer. I did some hacking that they weren’t happy with. Want to get him off my tail?”
The kid grinned. Thank goodness for hackers with a hatred of Maintenance. “Sure.”
“What’s your name?” Nakamaru called.
“Don’t think that matters, Nakamaru-san. I didn’t ask you for your name, did I?”
*
“Hey, Nii-san,” Kouji said thoughtfully. “Do you even remember what her name is? Or is all you can remember NOBUTA.”
Kame shook his head. “What does it matter?”
“It matters a lot, Nii-san.”
Kame closed his eyes. It had been so long since he had thought of her as anything but Nobuta. Nobuta, who was always quiet and there. Nobuta, who understood things that nobody else could.
Nobuta wasn’t Kotani Nobuko. Nobuta was something more.
He tried to tell Kouji this, but he couldn’t force the words past his throat. How could he explain that Nobuta was the one who was always growing, and Kotani Nobuko was just the outer shell for the girl.
*
The flicker of pixels was their only warning before Koki entered their safehouse with a hiss of: “Junno, what the fuck was that?”
Junno looked up from the porternals that he was fiddling with, trying to find Kotani Nobuko. “What?”
“That... beach! With the invisible walls all around.” Koki slammed a palm against a table, and then winced at the impact. “And that boy. Who the fuck was that boy?”
Tat-chan frowned. “What boy?” He turned to Junno.
Junno frowned. “I don’t know about any boy. What happened?”
Koki scowled. “I tried to get in here, and I got directed to a beach instead. Fine. Whatever. Except I had maybe half a meter of space all around, being surrounded by invisible walls. Okay, fucked up, but I can deal. Then I get your message of three colored ropes knotted together, even though I have no idea what you were playing at. Still fine. And then you send a boy who looks like Kame to sprout nonsense at me?”
“What was the boy’s name?” Tat-chan demanded. “What did he look like?”
“He looked like Kame!” Koki shouted. “Except his hair was fucked up, and he was wearing one of those high school uniforms, the type with the collar popped up. Fuck, what the hell was all of that about, Junno?” He slammed his palm against the table and winced again.
Junno stared at his porternal. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “That isn’t one of my programs. That isn’t even a barrier that’s programmed to keep unauthorized people from this room.”
“Find out,” Tat-chan ordered. “Koki, I thought you were going to stall Kame and try to fish information out of him.”
“I was. He wasn’t at the cafe that we agreed to meet at.” Koki sighed, the anger seeming to drain out of him, leaving him smaller and more tired. “Fuck, I don’t know what’s going on.”
“NOBUTA is going on,” Junno muttered. “Look,” he added, tilting his porternal to the others. “I tracked Koki’s program-the boy who looks like Kame shares similar code with NOBUTA.” He frowned.
“What does that mean?” Koki ran a finger along the code.
“It means that NOBUTA probably sent you there. I don’t know why though-why you?” Tat-chan frowned. “That doesn’t make any sense. Unless it considered you a threat? But then why would it just let you go?”
“Fucked if I know.”
“Was Kame there?” Junno demanded. “Plugged in, I mean. Was he there?”
Koki shook his head. “He wasn’t plugged in when I got there.”
Junno sighed. “Why did you come here? Just to tell us that Kame didn’t show?”
Koki closed his eyes, remembering. “Fuck. No. Akanishi decided he wants out.”
“Of the NOBUTA thing?” Tat-chan frowned. “Why would he tell you that?”
“No. Of everything. Fuck, what did he say? He said that he was doing the only thing he knew, and that we should blame NOBUTA for this. All I know is that he’s leaving; he’s meeting Yucchi somewhere, and I don’t know where they’re going!”
“Calm down,” Tat-chan ordered as Junno furiously tapped information into his porternal. “Look, the first thing to do is to inform Management; if you’re plugged in and Akanishi’s gone, they’re probably going to move you-physically, since they can’t reach you here. Just log out, tell them that Akanishi’s gone crazy and that we’ll find him. We’ll take care of it; KAT-TUN takes care of their own.” He turned to Junno. “Hack the cameras in our room.”
Junno nodded. “Already on them. They’re at our room already.” He frowned. “Looks like Koichi-kun’s keeping you plugged in for now,” he added, running a finger along the screen. The image scrolled along until it displayed Domoto Koichi arguing with somebody.
“That’s Higashiyama he’s talking to.” Tat-chan bit his lip in thought. “This is serious.”
“Fuck.” Koki winced. “I better get back before they decide to pull the plug on me first and ask questions later. Look, if you see Jin anywhere, stop him. We’ll have to find Akanishi.” Koki shook his head. “I’ll tell them it’s a fit of rebellion and he’ll come to his senses soon, think they’ll believe that?”
“Probably not,” Tat-chan said. “But with our history, it could work. Have the two of you been talking?”
Koki snorted. “No. I don’t think any of us talk to Jin anymore.”
“I do,” Ueda said quietly.
Junno glanced quickly at Ueda. “Be safe logging out; we can’t let Management find this place.” Junno patted Koki on the shoulder. “You’ll be fine. We’ll crack this program soon enough.”
“That’s not going to get us Jin back.” Koki shook his head. “This program better be worth it,” he muttered, and logged out.
Tat-chan nodded. “I hope it is,” he murmured. He glanced at Junno. “What’s going on now?”
Junno watched the screen, watching Tanaka Koki argue with Domoto Koichi. “Log out?” he suggested. “We can go to Reality, try to track Nobuko from there.”
Tat-chan nodded, reaching into himself to find the log out protocol. “Run,” he agreed. “Before Jin ruins everything that we worked for.”
*
Yamapi found the cafe where Kame was sitting easily, hacking along the duel-hookup to trace Kame’s location. It was a small cafe on server 520, and Kame was talking to Kiritani Kouji in a booth by the window.
He tapped the window from the outside, waving cheerily when Kame turned. He took a moment to enjoy the look of surprise that flashed across Kouji’s face, and then sauntered in.
“Yamapi,” Kame said, bewildered. “What are you doing here?”
“Looking for you,” Yamapi said cheerfully. 520 was such a boring server, Management didn’t care much for it. It was funny how Kame always ended up choosing this server whenever he wanted a private meeting with somebody. “What have you guys been doing? Management’s gone absolutely crazy.”
“What have I been doing?” Kame echoed.
Yamapi studied Kame. There was something odd about his face, as if the wrong corners had been pinched and now his entire self had been rearranged. “Kazuya,” he said finally, remembering how he addressed Kamenashi when they were working on NOBUTA together.
Something in Kame’s face shifted. He blinked rapidly, as if thinking of something, and his features smoothed out into the familiar planes of his cheeks and eyes.
“What’s going on?” Kouji asked quietly. “Akira-nii-san? Nii-san?”
“We’re going to find Nobuta,” Yamapi said to Kouji, ignoring the fact that he hadn’t been called that in years. He stepped around and hauled Kame up by the arm-he was so damned light, even in the Network. To Kazuya he said, “We’ve been looking for her for ages, but we’ve been looking for her in the wrong places; if we can’t find her in our dreams, then we’re just going to have to find her in person.”
*
“I’ve found it,” Taguchi said to Ueda with a sigh. They had logged off soon after Koki and slammed every safeguard they had on the secret room, just in case Management somehow thought that Koki knew where Jin was. Now they were sitting in a hidden room in one of the most expensive districts, disconnected from the hookups that spanned the narrow room. Technically, Network Maintainers didn’t make money good enough to live in districts where actors and actresses had their hostels, but technically Network Maintenance weren’t censoring programs it didn’t like, so it all worked out.
It had only taken two weeks hacking on and off, but Taguchi had finally gotten data for Kotani Nobuko. It seemed like Kotani Nobuko was a restricted avatar to sever 520. Taguchi hadn’t heard of restricted avatars before, but he also hadn’t had so many problems with any program before he had run into NOBUTA.
“Who is is registered to?” Ueda asked.
Taguchi tapped the screen. “It’s not actually registered. Not as an avatar, which is the strange thing. But all sources point towards Kotani Nobuko and all information regarding that label belonging to a programmer. Who studied Artificial Intelligence programs.”
“Is she in Maintenance?”
“No. Freelance. She just programs. She sells whatever she develops to the government and maintenance.”
“There aren’t many of those,” Ueda said, studying the data. “There especially aren’t many who the government lets survive. She’s got to be pretty good for them to keep her around, and not take her in or just destroy her. Either that, or she’s got something that she’s holding over management’s head. What’s her name?” He tapped the projector.
Junno traced the name at the top of the dossier. “Her name is Horikita Maki, and I think she made NOBUTA.”
*
I like Nobuta, I said, when Shuji first suggested the nickname. Because I did. Nobuta was something of my own, not like Kotani, which belonged to my family, or Nobuko, which belonged to the old me.
Nobuta, I decided, would belong to us. To me, to Shuji, to Akira.
To Week 3: Mariko | Week 5: Shuji to Akira
Masterpost of Chapters here
Masterlist of fandoms here
Masterlist of Jpop fanfiction here
Author: virdant
Length: 5862/25530 words (4/5)
Rating: PG-13 / R
Genre: AU, Dystopia, sci-fi.
Pairing: implied Pikame, Implied Shuji/Akira
Summary: Story Summary: NOBUTA; the program's name is NOBUTA. In a world where people spend the majority of their time online playing roles, a rogue program named NOBUTA tries to be happy. But what is NOBUTA, and why does it exist?
Chapter Summary: “Hey,” Kouji said, reaching forward and poking Kame on the arm. “That friend if yours. Is her name NOBUTA?” // Kame put the coffee down. It clanked against the wooden table loudly, the liquid sloshing violently. “Don’t call her Nobuta.”
Warning: Drug use.
Notes: I use various names and nicknames very extensively in this story for the purpose of differentiating between various settings. Please keep that in mind. For more information regarding this story, including the posting schedule, please check the Masterpost and Pre-reading Notes
The Question of Nobuta
Masterpost | Week 1: NOBUTA | Week 2: Kouji | Week 3: Mariko | Week 4: Nobuko | Week 5: Shuji to Akira | Post-Completion Meta
Week 4: Nobuko
“I need to talk to you, Nakamaru.” Akanishi perched on Nakamaru’s desk at work, leaning back on his hands and staring blankly at the other man.
“What do you need to know?” Nakamaru asked tiredly. He slumped over his terminal, staring blearily at the data. A week. It had been a week since their last discoveries regarding NOBUTA, and for days all they had done was sit and stare at the latest reports of Maintenance’s new spam filter, tweaking it and fixing it so it would be perfect. They hadn’t even gone on patrols, brief breaths of tightly-controlled fresh air in a stale working environment.
Akanishi glanced at the camera in the corner, and then continued to stare at Nakamaru. “Not here. That place. Where we first started.” He didn’t say the words, tracing them on the terminal and letting the hookup that connected it to Nakamaru’s porternal carry the message to him.
“You can’t afford to get in trouble again, Akanishi,” Nakamaru murmured quietly, even though he was already tracing which districts he would have to hop through to put the watchers off his trail in his mind. What did Akanishi want to tell him?
Akanishi shrugged. “You’re behind on your work,” he said, running a finger along the implant on the back of his neck. The metal was cold against his fingers, a reminder of the six months when he had left to drill another hole in his body.
Akanishi had always been fascinated by implants, but he had mostly been fascinated by the developments towards moving implants higher and higher up the spinal cord. The first implant developments had placed the implants far down the back where it just barely attached to the spine, and it had never traveled far up, not after a series of fatal accidents when implants were attached to the skull. It hadn’t been too much of a surprise when he had informed them that he had been assigned in a government study to add a second implant for research purposes.
It had been a surprise that he hadn’t let them hide him away.
Nakamaru touched the porternal. “I’m catching up now,” he said calmly. Akanishi never meant half of what he said. None of them did. It was what allowed them to work so well together.
“Don’t fall behind,” Akanishi said, and pushed himself off the desk and out the door.
*
Junno sprawled out on the beach, watching as the waves crashed upon the shore. His hair was bright blond again, an easy cosmetic change on the Network-For just 10 points YOU can change YOUR hair color too! Or so the advertisements said. Junno tilted his head back, staring at the perfectly blue sky, enjoying the eat of the sun beating down on his face. Bright white clouds dotted the sky; seagulls cried with lazy abandon, circling high in the sky before fluttering down to the rocks by the shore.
“Junno,” Uepi said from somewhere high above Junno’s head.
“Hi Uepi.” He craned his head to stare at the other man. It was Ueda’s face, his features set in an eerily similar mold. The same eyes, the same lopsided mouth, all transformed from flesh and blood to a series of electric pulses that flashed up and down Taguchi’s spine. Uepi crossed his arms and frowned, almost identical to Ueda, but not quite. “Come sit,” Junno said, patting the sand next to him.
“Why aren’t you working?” Uepi demanded.
Junno turned away from Uepi, staring at the sea. “I was. An hour ago I followed an underage couple here, and reported them for their heinous crimes...”
“Junno,” Uepi interrupted. “I’m not here because of Management.”
Junno sighed softly. “Mm, alright.” he murmured, glancing towards the other man quickly before turning back to the sea. For a while they sat in silence, watching synthetic waves crash upon a synthetic shore.
“Junno. You didn’t tell me why you’re here.”
“Look at the sea, Uepi.” Junno murmured, waving at the ocean. “Isn’t it pretty?”
He waited.
“Sea?” Junno asked with a wry grin. He gestured towards the waves again.
Uepi sighed, settling down next to Junno. He ignored Junno’s attempt at a pun, and instead murmured quietly, “You know that the real oceans outside the Network are actually acid and nothing like this, right?”
“So depressing, Uepi,” Junno chirped, before turning back to the sea. “Of course I do,” he added sharply, his eyes narrowing. “I took the same history class as you.”
“Ah, of course you did.”
Junno closed his eyes, listening to the repetitive swishing as waves tugged and pulled at the shore. “I wanted to get away.”
Uepi waited.
Junno’s voice was thoughtful as he continued. “Look. The waves come and then they leave. But they don’t change. Ever. They’re a constant. There’s always another wave coming. There’s always the sight of light reflecting off of the water and sand drying under the sun. It’s constant. No matter what.”
“This world’s a constant,” he said, but it was more Ueda than Uepi now.
Junno didn’t say anything for a second. “A world of perpetual summer,” he said quietly.
Ueda reached over and pressed Junno’s hand into the sand. Junno closed his eyes and let himself simply feel. The prickly granules of sand dug into the soft flesh of his palm, working their way under his nails and between his fingers. The waves crashed against the shore, loud and harsh against his ears. The sand dug into the crease of his elbow, it curled between his toes.
Ueda’s hand was uncomfortably warm on his. “Are you ready to leave?” he asked quietly.
“No,” Junno said. But he sat up anyway, dusted the sand from his pants, and spread his hand towards the sea. “Look, Ueda.” It was Taguchi talking, not Junno. “Sea.” He spread his hand against the invisible wall separating them from the ocean, pressing his hand hard. The wall was smooth compared to the sand, cold to the touch. Junno wondered if it was cold from the of the chill from the ocean crashing against the shore, or cold simply because that was how it had been programmed, to be a sharp jolt against the skin compared to the warm sun.
Ueda curled his fingers around Taguchi’s outspread hand and tugged it down. “Yes. I see,” he said quietly. Another time he would have groaned and shaken his head, but not now. “Let’s go.”
Junno turned, following him. As they walked away from the waves, he murmured thoughtfully, “In one of that Akira person’s letters to Kame this week, he asked if they could go to the beach with Nobuta anytime soon. Do you think they’re talking about one like this, or one with water that laps at your feet and scours your skin with salt and wind?”
*
Kame slouched in his seat, nursing a cup of coffee. Caffeine didn’t work quite the same way in the Network, but it came close enough. Everything came close enough. He sipped the coffee, ignoring the bitterness that stuck on the top of his throat. Funny, how all it took was a cord and implant to trick the mind into believing that you were living a completely different life. It wasn’t funny at all.
He was supposed to be meeting Koki here in ten minutes. Koki wasn’t usually late, but there was always work that came up, even on the weekends. Especially on the weekends. On weekdays, people were caught up with mundane responsibilities, even on the Network. Oh, there were some servers that existed in a perpetual state of Friday Night, but those were few and rare, and Management had specialized groups that patrolled only those servers. Most servers existed as a parallel world that ambled along time in the same way Reality did.
“Hi.”
“Nakajima Yuto,” Kame replied, studying the boy. The look in the boy’s eyes wasn’t quite like Nakajima’s usually was, and he looked younger than Nakajima, but the shape of his cheeks and the way he carried himself was the same way Nakajima did.
“Nii-san,” the boy wailed petulantly. “You still don’t remember me?”
“Kiritani Kouji.” He nodded to the seat across from him. It was meant for Koki, but he wasn’t going to let Nakajima wander around, even if he wasn’t on duty and Nakajima was going by Kouji.
Kouji slumped into the seat. “So cold.”
“You deserve it,” Kame retorted, before he blinked and buried his face in the coffee.
“Can I have some?” He reached for the cup, curling his fingers around the handle.
Kame blinked and looked down at the coffee, before focusing on Kouji. “Coffee?”
He nodded.
Kame frowned and clutched the coffee closer. “No. You’re too young.”
“Then can I have some tea?”
“Can’t you buy it yourself?”
“Nii-san should treat me. How long has it been since we’ve talked?”
“Not long enough.” Kame tasted the coffee with the tip of his tongue, watching Kouji over the cup. It still tasted horrible and bitter, which meant that Nakajima wasn’t hacking the coffee at least. He sipped the coffee with faint relief.
“Caffeine isn’t good for you, Nii-san.”
Kame resisted the urge to glare, instead curling his hands around the mug tighter. “Don’t you dare hack my coffee, Kouji.”
“Nii-san, why would I ever do such a thing?”
*
Tanaka unplugged the wires, quickly scanning the room where KAT-TUN usually worked. Empty. He grabbed his porternal, tagging everybody and calling them. “Where’s Kame?” he demanded at the first connection.
“What about Kamenashi?” Jin drawled.
Tanaka paused, halfway out of the immersion chair. He sat down slowly, pulling up his shirt and reaching behind his back for his implant. “Jin,” he said slowly. “I didn’t expect you to pick up.”
“Why wouldn’t I? What’s this about Kamenashi?”
Tanaka carefully placed the porternal down on the floor, pulling his legs up to his chest. He fumbled for the wires with his free hand, ready to plug them in and escape from Jin. He wasn’t certain why he was frightened of Jin now, but there was something wrong about Jin picking up the porternal. The only reason he would pick it up, with his second implant regulating everything, would be if Management was taking an interest in their activities. Akanishi himself didn’t pick up calls like this. “What about Kamenashi?” Tanaka echoed. “He didn’t show.”
“Isn’t he hooked up where you are?”
Tanaka laughed hollowly. “He’s hooked somewhere else, I guess, since he’s not here.” He clutched the wires. “Where are the others?”
“Busy.”
“What’s Nakamaru doing?” Nakamaru had told him that he was going to do something with Akanishi later, had mentioned it when Tanaka had pressed.
“Does it matter?”
Tanaka inhaled harshly. “Yeah. Yeah, it does.”
“Your job is to find Kamenashi, isn’t it?” Tanaka could hear Jin’s lazy smile.
“Maybe.” Tanaka closed his eyes. How did this happen? Taguchi should have had the cameras permanently hacked, and they were always careful not to leave any clues when they went off and did their own thing. Management knew them, and almost sanctioned independent actions outside of their control, and damn it, they had been careful.
“What does maybe mean?” This was a Jin that Tanaka didn’t recognize-a Jin that he had hoped would slowly fade away after the shock of a new implant had been over.
“It means that I don’t recognize you,” Tanaka said coldly, hoping that Taguchi had did his homework, hoping that Management wouldn’t hear him, wouldn’t see him running away from Jin. This Jin, that he barely recognized, who had a strained quality in his voice, like he had just fully become self-aware. “It means... fuck. You’re leaving.”
“You’re wrong.”
“I’m not wrong,” Tanaka snarled. “This isn’t sanctioned, is it? You’re actually running away from Management. And you’re going to take advantage of Yuichi while you do it.”
“Koki,” Jin murmured. “I’m doing the only thing I know how to do to keep us alive. I didn’t start this. Blame NOBUTA. Blame Kotani Nobuko, because if she just hadn’t worked, then this would never have happened.”
“There’s another way,” Tanaka said. “There’s always another way.”
“Not in this case.”
“Maybe you didn’t look hard enough.” Tanaka ran his fingers around the rough gradient of the wires, their plastic covering twisted and gnarled with use. “Good bye, Akanishi.”
Tanaka felt a cold breeze on his face as he twisted the wires into his spine. He clenched his teeth, and wondered if the wind on his face was from cooling fans or from sensory feedback down his spine; he wondered if he would ever see Akanishi’s face again.
*
“Hey,” Kouji said, reaching forward and poking Kame on the arm. “That friend if yours. Is her name NOBUTA?”
Kame put the coffee down. It clanked against the wooden table loudly, the liquid sloshing violently. “Don’t call her Nobuta.”
Kouji leaned forward and tugged the coffee towards him. He sniffed the mug, and then pushed it back to Kame. He tilted his head to the side, smiling. “So you do remember her. A little.”
*
Junno nodded a little, listening to the background noise of the server as he ran a scan. Outside the small room where Junno and Tat-chan were sitting-side-by-side on a low couch-people scurried back and forth, murmuring softly to each other. They were hiding in a small room that they had cut out of an office building in a little-known server. The six of them had been in training when the server had been taken down for an upgrade, and when they had been assigned to fix it up, they had taken the time to code in a small room where only they could go.
Domoto Koichi had caught them-six of the many trainees who were told to code for the server-and after giving them a ten minute verbal lashing for disobeying orders and causing conflict, sat down and picked apart their code. “Look,” he had said. “If all six of you try to put in little cubby-holes-don’t give me that look, Kamenashi, you’re the only person who includes comments longer than 10 characters in their code-it’s not going to work. Sit down, figure out who’s going to do what, and code it together.” The next day, he had official papers from Management putting them in a team, and ordered them to: “Pick a leader so I don’t have to deal with all six of you.”
He ended up dealing with all six of them.
But as a result, KAT-TUN had a small corner in an even smaller server that was exclusively theirs.
“What do you see?” Tat-chan asked, scribbling code down by hand into his porternal.
Junno craned his head around the room. “This room,” he quipped. He looked up. “The ceiling. And is that an air vent? I never coded for that.”
Tat-chan jabbed a finger in Junno’s side-Junno yelped. “Junno.”
Junno shrugged, rubbing his side a bit. “Kotani Nobuko isn’t registered to anybody.” Junno pouted. He tapped the porternal he was playing on, an outlet trailing from the porternal into his back. Even in the Network, Junno preferred to hook himself to his porternal. He claimed it felt more like he was outside. “I’ve spent all week hacking into Maintenance files, and I couldn’t find any records of Kotani Nobuko on any server.” He tapped the screen viciously.
“Let me see,” Tat-chan ordered, taking Junno’s porternal. The screen blanked for a second-even in the Network, porternals were keyed to each person-before the programs in the room kicked in and the screen loaded. He scrolled down the list that Junno’s hacking had given him. “She’s not registered.”
“She’s like a ghost,” Junno agreed. “She also disappears when we see her.”
“Even paranormal activity is registered with Maintenance,” Tat-chan muttered, but he wasn’t paying much attention to Junno.
“Licensed paranormal activity,” Junno agreed. “Friendly ghosts, like Casper.”
Tat-chan ignored Junno’s rambles. “And Kotani Nobuko isn’t registered. Is it even possible to be invisible on the network these days?”
“Unless we’re looking in the wrong place, yes.”
“These are avatars?” Ueda asked, flicking through the registry of avatar accesses on server 520. There was surprisingly low activity for a server that had seemed so active when he had visited. “Toda Erika never logged in to server 520 last week.”
“She should be. That was definitely Uehara Mariko, and we talked to her agency and Uehara’s registered to only her. Doesn’t make any sense for her not to be there.” Junno frowned. “See if there’s information about Uehara Mariko on the list?”
“I checked,” Tat-chan sighed. “No Uehara. No Kotani.”
“So what could they be?” Junno fiddled with Tat-chan’s porternal, before pulling up the same list that Tat-chan was looking at. “This is the Network Registry for server 520. All entrances and exits are on this-”
“Don’t say it,” Tat-chan said sharply. “I don’t care about who you are, I have to listen to you go ‘Iriguchi, deguchi, Taguchi desu’ every time we talk to Management and they make you introduce yourself again, I don’t need to hear this now.”
Junno shrugged easily. “There’s barely any long-term activity. Not even actors and actresses.”
“How far back do these lists go?”
“For miles, across the ocean.” Junno laughed a little at his own joke. “For as long as Management exists, probably. When did Network Maintenance start?”
“Long enough ago.” He fiddled with Junno’s porternal. “Go back. See how far back you can go. Make a note of any irregular activity.”
Junno smiled. “Already ahead of you.” He tapped Tat-chan’s porternal. “Five years ago, when Kame-chan went to work on that special project with Yamapi.” The screen listed a series of login and logout information, Uehara Mariko included among them. “Not entirely unexpected, but interesting all the same, isn’t it?”
*
Yamashita felt Kamenashi’s forehead. Warm. Warmer than he should be, with his body functions slowed down and only his mind using energy. He was agitated then.
Kamenashi sat in one of Yamashita’s duel ports, eyes closed as he wandered the Network. They had run into each other near work, and upon hearing that Kame had a lunch date with Koki later, Yamashita had offered his home terminal.
Kamenashi had frowned, but accepted.
Yamashita sighed and picked up his porternal. “Yamapi?” Koyama called through the Network worriedly.
“Hi,” he said, quickly flicking off visual. It wouldn’t do if they found Kamenashi at his place.
“KAT-TUN’s going crazy. We need you to help pick up some of the slack that they’re leaving for us.”
“Crazy how?” Yamashita asked, but he was already sliding into the spare chair of his hookup. “What happened?”
“Akanishi Jin crazy. He’s apparently decided to jimmy his ports; it’s only a matter of time before Management finds him and decides to terminate it. Domoto Koichi’s already tracked down Taguchi, Tanaka and Ueda, and Masuda’s going after Nakamaru already-he’s not in the Network, we’re tracking him to a slum district.”
Yamashita glanced at Kamenashi. “What about Kamenashi?”
“Don’t know. We need you to find him. Didn’t you work on a project with Kamenashi before?”
Yamashita shrugged, even though Koyama couldn’t see him. “That was a long time ago.” It had been a long time ago. They had both been sent by Management to participate in a freelance program designing project. To monitor it. To make sure it wouldn’t push the boundaries that Management had set for the Network. KAT-TUN hadn’t been happy about it, and Kamenashi didn’t like thinking about that in either the Network or Reality.
“KAT-TUN’s been spending the past weeks devoting a lot of energy into hacking Management. Management wants to know why.”
Yamashita blinked. “Hacking? What type of things?”
“Records of rogue programs, mostly.”
NOBUTA, he thought. Project NOBUTA.
Maki’s serious eyes. Her voice, quiet as she addressed them. “We’ll have to work hard together. All three of us.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Alright,” he said agreeably. “I’ll find Jin.”
“What about Kamenashi?”
Yamashita stared at Kamenashi; where was he, in the Network? Did he know that Management had decided that KAT-TUN’s autonomy was unacceptable? “Kamenashi’s probably just drugged out of his mind. He likes taking hallucinogenics on the weekends.”
*
Koki opened his eyes to the ocean, surrounded by invisible walls.
“Junno,” he called. “What the hell?” He fumbled around, patting his pockets; if Taguchi saw fit to rig his next login, then he should have left a message-it was only courteous.
There was a crumpled ball of paper in his pocket. He unwrapped the paper and stared at the three colored ropes that fell out, knotted together.
“Go away,” a voice called, and Koki spun around to face a boy dressed in a military style school uniform on the other side of the invisible wall, his face eerily similar to Kame’s. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Where’s here?” Koki bent down to pick up the ropes-red and blue and yellow knotted together.
The boy set his jaw strangely. “Nobody’s supposed to be here right now,” he said quietly. “Just me. Alone.”
“Where’s here? And who are you?”
The boy crossed his arms over his chest, looking strangely lost. “Who am I? I don’t know. And where is this place? Far away. Far away from Nobuta. Far away from everybody.”
*
Nakamaru had always been mind-numbingly boring, but that didn’t mean he was stupid.
He knew Masuda was following him-they were friends, after all, so he had ample opportunity to slide one of Tanaka’s tracking chips into Masuda’s porternal years ago. There were advantages to being in a group full of people who didn’t care for getting along with each other-there was always an abundance of tracking and tapping devices and programs around.
Now, he studied the blip on his porternal that said that Masuda was slowly but certainly coming towards him. He frowned, tapping the porternal. He was so close to where Akanishi had asked him to go-“The place where we started.”
He paused, glancing down the alleyway. The slums were dirty, a twisted maze of concrete and dust. He could see people staring out at him from the corners. Masuda probably wouldn’t notice, he hadn’t ever lived here before, not like Nakamaru, Akanishi, and Kamenashi had when they had first starting fooling around with the Network and had almost gotten themselves caught. Management had found them eventually, but for a while they had hid in the only place they thought safe, the slums.
There was a kid peeking out that corner. He could probably get the kid to run a diversion, get Masuda off his tail, make his way to where Akanishi wanted them to meet. He had to pass by that alleyway, but he could double back and around when Masuda was further away.
Unless they had a tracker on him? Nakamaru frowned. He had lent his porternal to Koyama the other day.
He couldn’t let Masuda find that place. It meant cutting himself off from the rest of KAT-TUN for a second, but he could do that. They did things independently all the time. That didn’t mean he liked it, but he could do it, easily.
“Hey,” he called to the kid, holding out his porternal. This place still should be a haven for intrepid hackers. “I’ll swap you mine for yours.”
The kid grinned. “What mods do you have?”
What would Tanaka say at a time like this? “That’s for me to know, and you to find out.”
The kid slid a older model over-it was bulky, but that just meant that it was probably hiding more modifications than Taguchi and Tanaka had shoved in Kamenashi’s. “Sure. It’ll be fun trying to hack your safeguards. What other favor do you want, Mister?”
Was he always that transparent? He couldn’t lie to save his life, but sometimes the truth was just as good. “I’m being followed by a Network Maintainer. I did some hacking that they weren’t happy with. Want to get him off my tail?”
The kid grinned. Thank goodness for hackers with a hatred of Maintenance. “Sure.”
“What’s your name?” Nakamaru called.
“Don’t think that matters, Nakamaru-san. I didn’t ask you for your name, did I?”
*
“Hey, Nii-san,” Kouji said thoughtfully. “Do you even remember what her name is? Or is all you can remember NOBUTA.”
Kame shook his head. “What does it matter?”
“It matters a lot, Nii-san.”
Kame closed his eyes. It had been so long since he had thought of her as anything but Nobuta. Nobuta, who was always quiet and there. Nobuta, who understood things that nobody else could.
Nobuta wasn’t Kotani Nobuko. Nobuta was something more.
He tried to tell Kouji this, but he couldn’t force the words past his throat. How could he explain that Nobuta was the one who was always growing, and Kotani Nobuko was just the outer shell for the girl.
*
The flicker of pixels was their only warning before Koki entered their safehouse with a hiss of: “Junno, what the fuck was that?”
Junno looked up from the porternals that he was fiddling with, trying to find Kotani Nobuko. “What?”
“That... beach! With the invisible walls all around.” Koki slammed a palm against a table, and then winced at the impact. “And that boy. Who the fuck was that boy?”
Tat-chan frowned. “What boy?” He turned to Junno.
Junno frowned. “I don’t know about any boy. What happened?”
Koki scowled. “I tried to get in here, and I got directed to a beach instead. Fine. Whatever. Except I had maybe half a meter of space all around, being surrounded by invisible walls. Okay, fucked up, but I can deal. Then I get your message of three colored ropes knotted together, even though I have no idea what you were playing at. Still fine. And then you send a boy who looks like Kame to sprout nonsense at me?”
“What was the boy’s name?” Tat-chan demanded. “What did he look like?”
“He looked like Kame!” Koki shouted. “Except his hair was fucked up, and he was wearing one of those high school uniforms, the type with the collar popped up. Fuck, what the hell was all of that about, Junno?” He slammed his palm against the table and winced again.
Junno stared at his porternal. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “That isn’t one of my programs. That isn’t even a barrier that’s programmed to keep unauthorized people from this room.”
“Find out,” Tat-chan ordered. “Koki, I thought you were going to stall Kame and try to fish information out of him.”
“I was. He wasn’t at the cafe that we agreed to meet at.” Koki sighed, the anger seeming to drain out of him, leaving him smaller and more tired. “Fuck, I don’t know what’s going on.”
“NOBUTA is going on,” Junno muttered. “Look,” he added, tilting his porternal to the others. “I tracked Koki’s program-the boy who looks like Kame shares similar code with NOBUTA.” He frowned.
“What does that mean?” Koki ran a finger along the code.
“It means that NOBUTA probably sent you there. I don’t know why though-why you?” Tat-chan frowned. “That doesn’t make any sense. Unless it considered you a threat? But then why would it just let you go?”
“Fucked if I know.”
“Was Kame there?” Junno demanded. “Plugged in, I mean. Was he there?”
Koki shook his head. “He wasn’t plugged in when I got there.”
Junno sighed. “Why did you come here? Just to tell us that Kame didn’t show?”
Koki closed his eyes, remembering. “Fuck. No. Akanishi decided he wants out.”
“Of the NOBUTA thing?” Tat-chan frowned. “Why would he tell you that?”
“No. Of everything. Fuck, what did he say? He said that he was doing the only thing he knew, and that we should blame NOBUTA for this. All I know is that he’s leaving; he’s meeting Yucchi somewhere, and I don’t know where they’re going!”
“Calm down,” Tat-chan ordered as Junno furiously tapped information into his porternal. “Look, the first thing to do is to inform Management; if you’re plugged in and Akanishi’s gone, they’re probably going to move you-physically, since they can’t reach you here. Just log out, tell them that Akanishi’s gone crazy and that we’ll find him. We’ll take care of it; KAT-TUN takes care of their own.” He turned to Junno. “Hack the cameras in our room.”
Junno nodded. “Already on them. They’re at our room already.” He frowned. “Looks like Koichi-kun’s keeping you plugged in for now,” he added, running a finger along the screen. The image scrolled along until it displayed Domoto Koichi arguing with somebody.
“That’s Higashiyama he’s talking to.” Tat-chan bit his lip in thought. “This is serious.”
“Fuck.” Koki winced. “I better get back before they decide to pull the plug on me first and ask questions later. Look, if you see Jin anywhere, stop him. We’ll have to find Akanishi.” Koki shook his head. “I’ll tell them it’s a fit of rebellion and he’ll come to his senses soon, think they’ll believe that?”
“Probably not,” Tat-chan said. “But with our history, it could work. Have the two of you been talking?”
Koki snorted. “No. I don’t think any of us talk to Jin anymore.”
“I do,” Ueda said quietly.
Junno glanced quickly at Ueda. “Be safe logging out; we can’t let Management find this place.” Junno patted Koki on the shoulder. “You’ll be fine. We’ll crack this program soon enough.”
“That’s not going to get us Jin back.” Koki shook his head. “This program better be worth it,” he muttered, and logged out.
Tat-chan nodded. “I hope it is,” he murmured. He glanced at Junno. “What’s going on now?”
Junno watched the screen, watching Tanaka Koki argue with Domoto Koichi. “Log out?” he suggested. “We can go to Reality, try to track Nobuko from there.”
Tat-chan nodded, reaching into himself to find the log out protocol. “Run,” he agreed. “Before Jin ruins everything that we worked for.”
*
Yamapi found the cafe where Kame was sitting easily, hacking along the duel-hookup to trace Kame’s location. It was a small cafe on server 520, and Kame was talking to Kiritani Kouji in a booth by the window.
He tapped the window from the outside, waving cheerily when Kame turned. He took a moment to enjoy the look of surprise that flashed across Kouji’s face, and then sauntered in.
“Yamapi,” Kame said, bewildered. “What are you doing here?”
“Looking for you,” Yamapi said cheerfully. 520 was such a boring server, Management didn’t care much for it. It was funny how Kame always ended up choosing this server whenever he wanted a private meeting with somebody. “What have you guys been doing? Management’s gone absolutely crazy.”
“What have I been doing?” Kame echoed.
Yamapi studied Kame. There was something odd about his face, as if the wrong corners had been pinched and now his entire self had been rearranged. “Kazuya,” he said finally, remembering how he addressed Kamenashi when they were working on NOBUTA together.
Something in Kame’s face shifted. He blinked rapidly, as if thinking of something, and his features smoothed out into the familiar planes of his cheeks and eyes.
“What’s going on?” Kouji asked quietly. “Akira-nii-san? Nii-san?”
“We’re going to find Nobuta,” Yamapi said to Kouji, ignoring the fact that he hadn’t been called that in years. He stepped around and hauled Kame up by the arm-he was so damned light, even in the Network. To Kazuya he said, “We’ve been looking for her for ages, but we’ve been looking for her in the wrong places; if we can’t find her in our dreams, then we’re just going to have to find her in person.”
*
“I’ve found it,” Taguchi said to Ueda with a sigh. They had logged off soon after Koki and slammed every safeguard they had on the secret room, just in case Management somehow thought that Koki knew where Jin was. Now they were sitting in a hidden room in one of the most expensive districts, disconnected from the hookups that spanned the narrow room. Technically, Network Maintainers didn’t make money good enough to live in districts where actors and actresses had their hostels, but technically Network Maintenance weren’t censoring programs it didn’t like, so it all worked out.
It had only taken two weeks hacking on and off, but Taguchi had finally gotten data for Kotani Nobuko. It seemed like Kotani Nobuko was a restricted avatar to sever 520. Taguchi hadn’t heard of restricted avatars before, but he also hadn’t had so many problems with any program before he had run into NOBUTA.
“Who is is registered to?” Ueda asked.
Taguchi tapped the screen. “It’s not actually registered. Not as an avatar, which is the strange thing. But all sources point towards Kotani Nobuko and all information regarding that label belonging to a programmer. Who studied Artificial Intelligence programs.”
“Is she in Maintenance?”
“No. Freelance. She just programs. She sells whatever she develops to the government and maintenance.”
“There aren’t many of those,” Ueda said, studying the data. “There especially aren’t many who the government lets survive. She’s got to be pretty good for them to keep her around, and not take her in or just destroy her. Either that, or she’s got something that she’s holding over management’s head. What’s her name?” He tapped the projector.
Junno traced the name at the top of the dossier. “Her name is Horikita Maki, and I think she made NOBUTA.”
*
I like Nobuta, I said, when Shuji first suggested the nickname. Because I did. Nobuta was something of my own, not like Kotani, which belonged to my family, or Nobuko, which belonged to the old me.
Nobuta, I decided, would belong to us. To me, to Shuji, to Akira.
To Week 3: Mariko | Week 5: Shuji to Akira
Masterpost of Chapters here
Masterlist of fandoms here
Masterlist of Jpop fanfiction here