fic - Johnny's & Associates - The Question of Nobuta - Week 5: Shuji to Akira
Title: The Question of Nobuta; Week 5: Shuji to Akira
Author: virdant
Length: 4412/25530 words (5/5) Complete
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: “I am Akira,” Yamapi confirmed. “Just like you are Shuji. You can't produce NOBUTA without people to define her.”
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 5: Shuji to Akira
“I’ve been here for a week already,” Nakamaru hissed as Akanishi stumbled into the room where they had first learned how to hack. “What’s going on?”
“Management’s going on,” Akanishi muttered, dropping into a splintery chair. The square room was tiny, barely fitting three hookup chairs-he remembered sitting down and fiddling with wires, trying to fix a discarded chair to hook themselves up. “Anyways, you shouldn’t be talking about this to only me; Kame ran away too.”
Nakamaru sighed. “I know. Taguchi mailed me.” He fished out the heavy porternal that he had traded his own slick newer model for with one of the many hackers who stayed in the slums. He suspected that the reason the slums were such a hacker-friendly area was Kame’s doing-he had always had a peculiar protective fondness for intrepid hackers. He tapped the screen with his fingers, hacking his way through the safeguards. Taguchi had sent him mail informing him that Kamenashi had requested a leave of absence, Tanaka was holding down the fort with Management, and Ueda and Taguchi were sitting at a safe place trying to crack NOBUTA under loosely interpreted orders from Management. “I’ve been here for a week though,” he added. “What did you need to tell me? And why did you leave?”
Akanishi hesitated. “I left because I needed to.”
Nakamaru nodded. “Are you going to tell me why?” he asked. Ueda and Tanaka would have demanded an explanation, and Taguchi would have added a thoughtless: “You can tell me if you want.” Kamenashi... Nakamaru wasn’t certain what Kamenashi would do anymore-the Kamenashi he used to know wasn’t the same as the Kamenashi that replied to his mails now.
“I hate Management.” Akanishi gestured vaguely in the air. “I don’t want to run maintenance for the rest of my life-I’d rather do work in implants.”
“You said this before,” Nakamaru said quietly. “That’s why you went away to get your second implant.”
“I’m going to do it.” Akanishi reached behind his back, tracing a finger around the cold metal at the nape of his neck, continuing with his conversation as if Nakamaru had never spoken. “I’m really going to do it.”
“And leave us?”
Akanishi nodded.
“Why now?” Nakamaru asked quietly. “Why did you pick now? Why not in a few months? Why now?” He clenched his hands together to keep them from shaking. “Akanishi,” he tried to say, but the words clogged in his throat.
“Remember when Kamenashi went to work on that project with Yamashita?”
Nakamaru nodded, staring at the spaces between the old hookups.
“Do you remember who else they worked with?”
Nakamaru shrugged. “Who knows? Kamenashi doesn’t like talking about it, and Management doesn’t like mentioning it either.”
Akanishi frowned a little. “Horikita Maki-do you recognize that name?”
Nakamaru shrugged. “So what if I do?” he mumbled, uncomfortable.
“She’s a hacker.”
“So are you,” he replied, understanding that Akanishi wasn’t talking about hackers like the kids that clustered around the slums. He was talking about actual hackers, who actively went against the government, who actively undermined Maintenance and Management, who dedicated their lives to subverting the influence that Maintenance had over the Network. He realized, dimly, that he was shaking. “Damn it. Akanishi, do you know what you’re doing?”
“What they made, the three of them; it’s bigger than this cycle of maintenance. It’s more than just finding people who disagree with Management’s point of view and quashing them. It’s doing something.”
“Didn’t know you knew the word quash,” Nakamaru muttered, clutching at himself. It didn’t sound like him, like somebody else was talking through his voice.
“I need to do something,” Akanishi said quietly, a warm hand on Nakamaru’s shoulder. “I can’t just keep sitting around, doing what Management wants me to do. This is wrong, you know that, right?” He squeezed. “Controlling what information gets said, eliminating the children of people who disagree with Management, taking people and lying to them because Management’s the only person who can control the Network... that’s wrong.”
“That isn’t what happens,” Nakamaru closed his eyes, so he didn’t have to see Akanishi looming over him. “What we do... it’s to maintain order. Without us, people would just do whatever they wanted on the Network, without us, the worlds would be in disorder...”
“Don’t parrot their words, Nakamaru,” Akanishi whispered. “I asked you to come here because it’s our place. Us two, and Kamenashi, back before we decided that we didn’t want the slums anymore, and we wanted to be the ones hunting instead of the ones that were hunted. This place, it’s ours, before our parents signed us over to Maintenance. Think about you.”
Nakamaru shook his head. “I’ll report you,” he murmured, reaching up to wrap a hand around Akanishi’s wrist.
“I know you will. I wouldn’t expect anything else from you.” It was a strangely thoughtful Akanishi that wrapped Nakamaru in a careful hug before pulling away. Affection and touch wasn’t common in Reality, but Akanishi was always different anyways. “I wanted you to know that I was leaving... from me, not from anybody else.”
Nakamaru nodded.
“How much of a head start are you giving me?”
Nakamaru shook his head. “Is a week enough to get overseas?”
“More than enough. I’ve got everything worked out. Thanks for this.”
“But first, Jin-kun.... Tell me what’s been going on.” He tugged on Akanishi’s wrist. “I know you know more than you’ve been letting on.”
*
“We’ve been here for a week,” Kame said quietly, staring out the window at the beach. “When are you going to explain things?”
Yamapi shrugged. “I shouldn’t need to.”
“Pretend you do.” Kame turned away from the window to focus on Yamapi. “Lay it out for me.”
“You already know this though,” Yamapi pointed out. “You were there.”
Kame stared back at Yamapi. “Pretend I wasn’t,” he said quietly.
Yamapi shrugged. “If that’s what you want. Five years ago, we went to work on a project with a rising programmer named Horikita Maki. Management sent us, the way they always send a couple of Johnnies into projects that they think will threaten their control over the Network. Of course, officially, we were to assist in the program, but you know what we were doing unofficially.” Yamapi grinned lazily at Kame, who stood quiet and still. “Watching to see if we should eliminate her.”
*
“The NOBUTA project, or Producing NOBUTA, as it was called among those working on it, was a project originally designed by Shiraiwa Gen, a “reformed” child of “Insurgents Against the Government,” Ueda read off the porternal, the information they had collected through digging through Horikita Maki’s files for the past week. He snorted a little; no reformed child was ever reformed, even though Maintenance liked to deceive themselves into believing that they were. “His goal, to create a world where anybody could live in.”
“Except in order to do that, he needed to be able to create niches free from Maintenance control.” Taguchi shrugged easily, a grin spreading across his face as he began processing the information. “So he set to work creating NOBUTA, whatever it was supposed to be.”
“She,” Ueda corrected. “NOBUTA is a girl.” He tapped the porternal, pulling up Horikita Maki’s picture. “A girl who looks eerily similar to Horikita Maki. What are the odds of that?”
Taguchi smiled.
Ueda smirked back.
*
“NOBUTA was a program designed to take knowledge from the outside environment and break it down, learning from the people in the world about what a perfect world for said person was,” Nakamaru echoed. “Confusing.”
Jin nodded. “kNOwledge Breakdown and Universal Thinking Application. Or NOBUTA.”
“Sounds about as bad as Management, ripping information from somebody’s brain.”
“Except it’s not a program that goes into your brain. It’s a person-NOBUTA was always designed as an AI, as the basis for an AI program. It's an AI that you meet, that you talk to, that you interact with. It learns about you from what you do.” Jin shrugged. “They picked a server to test all of this, Shiraiwa Gen and some of his crowd of “Reformed” kids, and then they went about to find programmers to design their AI.”
*
“Horikita Maki,” Kame said quietly. “And us.”
Yamapi nodded.
“And Nakajima Yuto...” Kame tapped the glass thoughtfully. “He wasn’t a programmer.”
“No.”
“Shiraiwa liked hackers, didn’t he.” It wasn’t a question. “Nakajima was brought on to be a test, to see how foolproof NOBUTA was. If an up-and-coming hacker couldn't break NOBUTA, then Management shouldn't be able to. That was the idea.”
“Yeah.” Yamapi shrugged a little. “I saw him, a few weeks back. He said that he talked to you.”
Kame nodded. “He did. He called me Nii-san. It took me by surprise-I had forgotten that there were people other than us who still remembered NOBUTA.” He stepped away from the window, focusing on Yamapi. “You said we were going to find Maki in Reality, Yamapi. You’ve been talking to her since NOBUTA?”
“We met a few times about four years ago.” Yamapi shrugged. “It was a long time ago, and she was going by Yoshikawa Tsurara then.”
“But you know where she is.”
Yamapi shook his head. “I know where all programmers who aren’t tied to Maintenance are. You do too.” He grinned. “Don’t lie to me, Kame-chan. I know where you came from. I’m friends with Jin, aren’t I?’
*
“But none of this explains Kamenashi’s actions,” Ueda said quietly. “Even if he was involved in NOBUTA, that was still over five years ago. It doesn’t explain his actions now, and it doesn't tell us where he is, or where Nakamaru is.”
“You’re not mentioning Akanishi,” Taguchi pointed out.
Ueda closed his eyes. “Akanishi leaving, I can understand. He's had the groundwork down for years, ever since he got his second implant. Kamenashi and Nakamaru don’t make any sense though.”
“Of course not,” Taguchi agreed. He stood up, unfolding himself and reaching up to touch the ceiling. “But you know where Nakamaru is. Kamenashi, of course, is another story because nobody’s seen him since last week, but you know exactly where Nakamaru is, and so does Tanaka Koki. You’re lying to Management.”
“You can tell them where Nakamaru is if you want,” Ueda murmured.
“You’re the liaison between KAT-TUN and Management.”
Ueda laughed. “Clever.” He tapped his porternal. “Keep your hands clean. Very clever. Too bad that Management isn’t going to care about that when they catch you.”
“We’ll be alright.” Taguchi grinned. “Ready to go tell Management that we figured it out and that rogue program won’t cause any more problems?”
“What did we figure out though?” Ueda murmured. “We didn't figure out anything; we still don't know why NOBUTA does what it does, or how.”
“Does it matter? NOBUTA isn't hurting anybody.” He stared distantly his porternal, not quite focusing on the information on the screen. “What Management doesn't know can't hurt them.”
*
“Goodbye, Jin-kun,” Nakamaru said quietly.
“I’ll come back,” Akanishi began.
Nakamaru was quiet for a moment, Akanishi and Nakamaru simply staring at each other as cooling fans in the tiny cramped room blew warm air across their faces. “Of course,” he said, quietly. “I don’t doubt it.”
Akanishi hesitated. “Give me six months,” he began. “I’ll change things.”
Nakamaru held up a hand. “Take all the time you need for yourself, Akanishi, but don’t bring the rest of us into this.” He smiled a little. “I don’t want to leave Maintenance.”
Akanishi shook his head. “I’ll change things,” he said again.
“I believe you will. But I’ll be watching from here.” Nakamaru faced Akanishi firmly-he was never as bright or brilliant as Akanishi or Kamenashi, always following them from one step behind, but he would stand in the position he had been given until he had nothing left to give. “Go and change things,” he said quietly, hoping that Akanishi would understand that there was no place for him overseas. “I will stay here.”
*
“Have you heard about Jin?” Yamapi asked, stepping forward and opening the window. A burst of sea air rushed in through the open window as he stuck his hand out. “He decided he was going to run away.”
“You told me,” Kame said, moving away from the window. “Did he tell you?”
Yamapi shrugged easily, grinning at Kame. “Maybe.”
“Just like maybe you know where Horikita Maki is,” Kame said calmly. “Maybe you know. Maybe I know. But nothing is certain.” He stepped backwards, towards the door.
“Are you going to log out?” Yamapi asked.
“Maybe,” Kame said with a sardonic smile. “Are you going to stop me?”
Yamapi stepped towards Kame in careful measured steps. “I’d follow you,” he said. “Shuji-kun.”
“And leave behind NOBUTA?”
Yamapi didn’t blink. “Yes.”
Kame opened his mouth.
“I did it before, didn't I?”
*
It was perfectly quiet in the room when Tanaka began to talk, a low drawl just to shift the still air in the room. “Kamenashi is the epitome of the perfect Maintainer,” he drawled, leaning back with his eyes closed. “You can’t possibly to telling me that he up and ran.”
No response.
“Kame is part of KAT-TUN. Akanishi up and leaving, whatever. But Kamenashi? And Nakamaru? Pull the other leg.” He laughed. “Oh wait, you already did.” He winced, wriggling his toes. “What do you think I know?”
Quiet.
“I know this trick. The wait for the suspect to spill the beans trick. You taught it to me, Koichi-san. What I want to know is why you’re using it on me when I don’t know anything. You know I don’t know anything because I told you that Akanishi up and left when you came to confront me about it. Kame never showed up for our lunch date, and I don’t know what’s going on with Nakamaru.”
“I know, Koki-kun.”
“Then you should know that keeping me here is pointless.”
“Not exactly.”
“What do you want to know?”
“What do you want to know?”
Tanaka thought for a second. “What happened five years ago?”
“Nobody knows. Well, no, that's not quite true.” Domoto Koichi shrugged. “Everybody knows that the project was a success. And everybody knows that Kamenashi was part of the project. But nobody knows exactly what the project was supposed to do. Except you do.”
“I don’t.”
“Of course not,” he agreed easily. “You'd never tell us. Don't forget that I worked with all of you before, Tanaka-kun. I know how loyal you lot are to each other.”
“I don't know anything, Domoto Koichi-san.”
“We have records of you associating with the remnants of Project NOBUTA just two weeks ago. Care to explain?”
“The remnants? Of Project NOBUTA?” Tanaka flexed his fingers behind his back. “You mean Kotani?”
“What did she want, Tanaka Koki?”
“Kotani’s a program?” There was no way that shy girl could have been a program. She read as human!
“Answer the question, Tanaka Koki.”
What did she want? Tanaka shook his head to himself. Who knew what that program wanted. Who knew what Kamenashi wanted.
“I don't know.” Tanaka laughed shortly. “Kamenashi's involved in this, isn't it. You're looking into Project NOBUTA because Kamenashi's gone missing, and you think that he's involved. But why not investigate the Gokusen proejct in that case? Because Akanishi's gone missing as well, hasn't he?”
“We know why Akanishi left.”
“Then what is this all about? You can't be telling me that Yamashita's gone missing.”
*
“Akira,” Kame said quietly. He recognized that tone. It was the same tone that had defined Akira when they were producing NOBUTA.
“I am Akira,” Yamapi confirmed. “Just like you are Shuji. You can't produce NOBUTA without people to define her.”
“Shuji. And Akira,” Kame echoed. “The parameters for NOBUTA.”
Yamapi smiled, staring out at the ocean from the small room the two of them were in. He quoted the words that had defined their work on NOBUTA. “A person can only be defined by their relationships. Therefore a person's ideal world is truly a person's ideal relationship.”
“The parameters for NOBUTA,” Kame confirmed. “Shuji and Akira were defined as opposites that were both acceptable.”
“Shuji and Akira were the main ones,” Yamapi said. “There were other parameters.”
“Mariko.”
“The ideal girl. Yes.”
“Do you know where she is now?”
“Mariko?”
Kame shook his head. “Toda Erika.” He smiled. “If you know where Horikita Maki is, then do you know where Toda Erika is?”
“Toda Erika isn't a programmer.”
“I know. But neither was Horikita Maki when we first found her.”
*
“An interesting fact,” Ueda said softly to Taguchi as he scrolled through the data on his porternal, “is that Horikita Maki started out as a Network Actress.”
“What changed?”
“NOBUTA, I suspect.” Ueda smiled faintly. “Programming isn't an easy talent to pick up. But I imagine that learning how to program for the sake of Shiraiwa Gen's vision wasn't too hard a sacrifice.”
“Learning how to program for a perfect world sounds like a perfectly acceptable sacrifice.”
“A pity that it'd never come true.” Ueda smiled faintly. “After all, all the perfect worlds mean nothing if you can't access them.”
*
“I don't know where Kamenashi is.” Tanaka laughed shortly. “And neither do I know where Yamashita is. If you're so hung up on NOBUTA, then they're probably together.”
“We know that they're together.”
There was something in Domoto Koichi's words that made Tanaka blink. “You mean they've been spending time together even after the project ended.”
“Every other weekend.”
“So why aren't you looking for them wherever they spend their time together?”
Domoto Koichi laughed. “Because Yamashita and Kamenashi didn't go to their normal rendezvous this week. In fact, they've been quite... unreachable. Which only means one thing. They're trying to be unreachable. So what could make the two of them both decide to be unreachable at the same time?”
“You think it's NOBUTA.”
“Only two weeks ago, you located Kotani Nobuko. That would be enough to send Kamenashi and Yamashita into enough of a panic to run away and hide. Now all I need to know is where they are.”
Tanaka laughed again. “So you can torture their secrets out of them.”
“No, you fool. So I can find out if I really need to eliminate them for screwing with Maintenance, which I sincerely hope I don't have to.” Domoto Koichi shook his head. “You're young, so you don't understand. Rebellion is best done slowly. Carefully. So nobody notices until it's too late.”
Tanaka snorted.
“Do you really think that Maintenance could have taken over the Network if they did it on one stroke? Think! Of course not. It was slow. Gradual. A minimal stripping of more and more freedoms, done under the guise of protection and copyright. You'll be surprised what people can get away with if it's simply tagged with an official sounding name.
“It's why even though the best and the brightest are in the slums, nobody takes them seriously until they're in Maintenance.”
*
“She's in the slums.” Kame said quietly.
“Of course she is. It's the safest place for her.”
“Hiding in plain sight.” Kame laughed softly. “Subverting the influence of the Network with NOBUTA while we stand in the guiding light of Maintenance.”
“It's not exactly a guiding light,” Yamapi said quietly. “It's more of a blinding light. Like a spotlight shining into your eyes until the only thing you can see is whiteness where the world is supposed to be.”
“I'm logging out.”
Yamapi snorted. “Are you running away from the truth? Can't face what you've been doing, Kame?”
“I don't want to listen to this.”
Yamapi reached forward and grabbed Kame by the shoulder. “Listen to me, Kame.”
Kame twisted out of Yamapi's grasp. “Listen to me, Akira,” he spat out. “It doesn't matter what Management does. It doesn't matter what Maintenance does. All that matters is making sure that nobody gets hurt. That people are happy. And if people are happy with Maintenance, then let them be!”
“Is that fair?”
“I'm logging out.”
“Is that fair? Is it fair that people aren't hearing the truth? Is it fair that people aren't aware of anything past the boundaries of their personal spotlight?”
Kame closed his eyes and activated his logout procedures.
“Is that fair, Kame?” Yamapi shouted as Kame began to slip out of the Network. “You're letting them be ignorant. You're encouraging them to keep their eyes closed!”
“I don't want to listen to this,” Kame mouthed as he returned to Reality, Yamapi fading away as the dull surroundings of Yamashita's room took over his vision.
*
Ueda tapped on his porternal, writing a report on rogue program incident #2994315. “In conclusion, the rogue program has been neutralized.”
“Clever.” Taguchi grinned. “A wordplay worthy of myself.”
Ueda laughed. “A wordplay far superior to yours, Taguchi.”
*
Yamashita opened his eyes in Reality to see that Kamenashi had already left the room where he kept his hookups. Wires trailed over the arm of a chair, and the door was faintly ajar.
“Kamenashi?” Yamashita called.
There was no reply.
Yamashita shook his head, scooping up his porternal and stalking out the door. There were two places that Kamenashi could have gone: the bar, for his weekly dose of hallucinogenics, or the slums, to find Horikita Maki.
Yamashita closed his eyes. He would place his ration tab on the bar.
*
Nakamaru waited an hour after Akanishi left to leave the room. The slums were swarming with Maintenance personnel, but none of them would bother him. The Maintenance who would still be around were like him: hackers who had eventually turned to Maintenance. Nobody in the slums had particular fondness for Maintenance.
He followed a path that was watched by street kids peering around corners with their fingers tapping on porternals until he reached a small house that looked as though any breath of air would blow it down.
“Hello, Nakamaru-kun,” the girl inside greeted him after he had cracked the encryption and let himself in. She didn't look up from the projection, but peered at him through the program she was writing. “I heard that some of your friends met Kotani Nobuko.”
“Hello, Horikita Maki.”
The girl smiled faintly at him. “I was expecting to see Yamashita or Kamenashi after NOBUTA was tagged as a rogue program.”
“They're in hiding,” Nakamaru said on autopilot. “I'm sorry that they aren't here to see you.”
“It's fine.” Horikita smiled. “Three together is happiness, but Nobuko is used to being alone. But Shuji? Shuji needs Akira.”
“I'm sorry,” Nakamaru said again. “Are you alright?”
Horikita laughed quietly. “I told you, it's fine. NOBUTA takes up all my time. A program that creates your perfect world. Can you imagine what that is? Can you imagine what it's like when it meets two different people? How do you create a perfect world for two different people who don't understand each other?”
*
Kamenashi was already palming a hallucinogenic when Yamashita arrived at the bar.
The bartender looked at him as Kamenashi's eyes closed. He nodded at him in greeting, flicking his eyes towards a pinprick of light that shone from behind a line of bottles.
“Maintenance?” Yamashita asked quietly, sliding into a seat next to Kamenashi's and accepting a pill. The same one that Kamenashi just took, judging by the look that bartender gave him.
The bartender nodded once.
Yamashita smiled tightly. “I'd ask you not to let them disturb my body, but I don't think you'd really be able to stop them, considering the legality of this location.”
The bartender shrugged and wiped a glass with a dirty rag.
“Cheers,” Yamashita mouthed to Kamenashi before downing the drug.
*
“What are you doing here, Akira?” Shuji snapped as Akira sauntered down the stairs with him, their school bags over their shoulders.
“I told you, didn't I?” Akira sang. “I'll follow Shuji anywhere.”
“You left Nobuta behind!”
“Nobuta said: it's alright.” Akira laughed. “Nobuta brought Shuji and Akira together. Nobuta gave Shuji and Akira what they needed most.”
“And what's that?” Shuji snapped, dodging a few stray classmates.
Akira smiled. “Each other.” He flung his arms around Shuji before Shuji could finish making his bewildered face and sang into his ear: “Shuuji-kun!”
“Get off of me! People are watching! And don't say stuff like that!”
Akira laughed and kissed Shuji's nose with a fox hand. “Nobuta understood. Shuji-kun needs somebody that understands him the most. Just like Akira needs a Shuji-kun that understands Akira.”
*
“A world that you can live in. I’ll make one for you.” Shuji said that to me, when we first met.
“That’s right. He’ll make one for you,” Akira drawled.
And I replied, “I don’t need one.”
I did, but I didn’t want to admit it. I think the reason you said that you wanted to make a world that I could live in because you needed one.
So I made one for you, and you made one for me.
We made one for each other.
End.
To Week 4: Nobuko | Post-Completion Meta
Masterpost of Chapters here
Masterlist of fandoms here
Masterlist of Jpop fanfiction here
Author: virdant
Length: 4412/25530 words (5/5) Complete
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: “I am Akira,” Yamapi confirmed. “Just like you are Shuji. You can't produce NOBUTA without people to define her.”
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 5: Shuji to Akira
“I’ve been here for a week already,” Nakamaru hissed as Akanishi stumbled into the room where they had first learned how to hack. “What’s going on?”
“Management’s going on,” Akanishi muttered, dropping into a splintery chair. The square room was tiny, barely fitting three hookup chairs-he remembered sitting down and fiddling with wires, trying to fix a discarded chair to hook themselves up. “Anyways, you shouldn’t be talking about this to only me; Kame ran away too.”
Nakamaru sighed. “I know. Taguchi mailed me.” He fished out the heavy porternal that he had traded his own slick newer model for with one of the many hackers who stayed in the slums. He suspected that the reason the slums were such a hacker-friendly area was Kame’s doing-he had always had a peculiar protective fondness for intrepid hackers. He tapped the screen with his fingers, hacking his way through the safeguards. Taguchi had sent him mail informing him that Kamenashi had requested a leave of absence, Tanaka was holding down the fort with Management, and Ueda and Taguchi were sitting at a safe place trying to crack NOBUTA under loosely interpreted orders from Management. “I’ve been here for a week though,” he added. “What did you need to tell me? And why did you leave?”
Akanishi hesitated. “I left because I needed to.”
Nakamaru nodded. “Are you going to tell me why?” he asked. Ueda and Tanaka would have demanded an explanation, and Taguchi would have added a thoughtless: “You can tell me if you want.” Kamenashi... Nakamaru wasn’t certain what Kamenashi would do anymore-the Kamenashi he used to know wasn’t the same as the Kamenashi that replied to his mails now.
“I hate Management.” Akanishi gestured vaguely in the air. “I don’t want to run maintenance for the rest of my life-I’d rather do work in implants.”
“You said this before,” Nakamaru said quietly. “That’s why you went away to get your second implant.”
“I’m going to do it.” Akanishi reached behind his back, tracing a finger around the cold metal at the nape of his neck, continuing with his conversation as if Nakamaru had never spoken. “I’m really going to do it.”
“And leave us?”
Akanishi nodded.
“Why now?” Nakamaru asked quietly. “Why did you pick now? Why not in a few months? Why now?” He clenched his hands together to keep them from shaking. “Akanishi,” he tried to say, but the words clogged in his throat.
“Remember when Kamenashi went to work on that project with Yamashita?”
Nakamaru nodded, staring at the spaces between the old hookups.
“Do you remember who else they worked with?”
Nakamaru shrugged. “Who knows? Kamenashi doesn’t like talking about it, and Management doesn’t like mentioning it either.”
Akanishi frowned a little. “Horikita Maki-do you recognize that name?”
Nakamaru shrugged. “So what if I do?” he mumbled, uncomfortable.
“She’s a hacker.”
“So are you,” he replied, understanding that Akanishi wasn’t talking about hackers like the kids that clustered around the slums. He was talking about actual hackers, who actively went against the government, who actively undermined Maintenance and Management, who dedicated their lives to subverting the influence that Maintenance had over the Network. He realized, dimly, that he was shaking. “Damn it. Akanishi, do you know what you’re doing?”
“What they made, the three of them; it’s bigger than this cycle of maintenance. It’s more than just finding people who disagree with Management’s point of view and quashing them. It’s doing something.”
“Didn’t know you knew the word quash,” Nakamaru muttered, clutching at himself. It didn’t sound like him, like somebody else was talking through his voice.
“I need to do something,” Akanishi said quietly, a warm hand on Nakamaru’s shoulder. “I can’t just keep sitting around, doing what Management wants me to do. This is wrong, you know that, right?” He squeezed. “Controlling what information gets said, eliminating the children of people who disagree with Management, taking people and lying to them because Management’s the only person who can control the Network... that’s wrong.”
“That isn’t what happens,” Nakamaru closed his eyes, so he didn’t have to see Akanishi looming over him. “What we do... it’s to maintain order. Without us, people would just do whatever they wanted on the Network, without us, the worlds would be in disorder...”
“Don’t parrot their words, Nakamaru,” Akanishi whispered. “I asked you to come here because it’s our place. Us two, and Kamenashi, back before we decided that we didn’t want the slums anymore, and we wanted to be the ones hunting instead of the ones that were hunted. This place, it’s ours, before our parents signed us over to Maintenance. Think about you.”
Nakamaru shook his head. “I’ll report you,” he murmured, reaching up to wrap a hand around Akanishi’s wrist.
“I know you will. I wouldn’t expect anything else from you.” It was a strangely thoughtful Akanishi that wrapped Nakamaru in a careful hug before pulling away. Affection and touch wasn’t common in Reality, but Akanishi was always different anyways. “I wanted you to know that I was leaving... from me, not from anybody else.”
Nakamaru nodded.
“How much of a head start are you giving me?”
Nakamaru shook his head. “Is a week enough to get overseas?”
“More than enough. I’ve got everything worked out. Thanks for this.”
“But first, Jin-kun.... Tell me what’s been going on.” He tugged on Akanishi’s wrist. “I know you know more than you’ve been letting on.”
*
“We’ve been here for a week,” Kame said quietly, staring out the window at the beach. “When are you going to explain things?”
Yamapi shrugged. “I shouldn’t need to.”
“Pretend you do.” Kame turned away from the window to focus on Yamapi. “Lay it out for me.”
“You already know this though,” Yamapi pointed out. “You were there.”
Kame stared back at Yamapi. “Pretend I wasn’t,” he said quietly.
Yamapi shrugged. “If that’s what you want. Five years ago, we went to work on a project with a rising programmer named Horikita Maki. Management sent us, the way they always send a couple of Johnnies into projects that they think will threaten their control over the Network. Of course, officially, we were to assist in the program, but you know what we were doing unofficially.” Yamapi grinned lazily at Kame, who stood quiet and still. “Watching to see if we should eliminate her.”
*
“The NOBUTA project, or Producing NOBUTA, as it was called among those working on it, was a project originally designed by Shiraiwa Gen, a “reformed” child of “Insurgents Against the Government,” Ueda read off the porternal, the information they had collected through digging through Horikita Maki’s files for the past week. He snorted a little; no reformed child was ever reformed, even though Maintenance liked to deceive themselves into believing that they were. “His goal, to create a world where anybody could live in.”
“Except in order to do that, he needed to be able to create niches free from Maintenance control.” Taguchi shrugged easily, a grin spreading across his face as he began processing the information. “So he set to work creating NOBUTA, whatever it was supposed to be.”
“She,” Ueda corrected. “NOBUTA is a girl.” He tapped the porternal, pulling up Horikita Maki’s picture. “A girl who looks eerily similar to Horikita Maki. What are the odds of that?”
Taguchi smiled.
Ueda smirked back.
*
“NOBUTA was a program designed to take knowledge from the outside environment and break it down, learning from the people in the world about what a perfect world for said person was,” Nakamaru echoed. “Confusing.”
Jin nodded. “kNOwledge Breakdown and Universal Thinking Application. Or NOBUTA.”
“Sounds about as bad as Management, ripping information from somebody’s brain.”
“Except it’s not a program that goes into your brain. It’s a person-NOBUTA was always designed as an AI, as the basis for an AI program. It's an AI that you meet, that you talk to, that you interact with. It learns about you from what you do.” Jin shrugged. “They picked a server to test all of this, Shiraiwa Gen and some of his crowd of “Reformed” kids, and then they went about to find programmers to design their AI.”
*
“Horikita Maki,” Kame said quietly. “And us.”
Yamapi nodded.
“And Nakajima Yuto...” Kame tapped the glass thoughtfully. “He wasn’t a programmer.”
“No.”
“Shiraiwa liked hackers, didn’t he.” It wasn’t a question. “Nakajima was brought on to be a test, to see how foolproof NOBUTA was. If an up-and-coming hacker couldn't break NOBUTA, then Management shouldn't be able to. That was the idea.”
“Yeah.” Yamapi shrugged a little. “I saw him, a few weeks back. He said that he talked to you.”
Kame nodded. “He did. He called me Nii-san. It took me by surprise-I had forgotten that there were people other than us who still remembered NOBUTA.” He stepped away from the window, focusing on Yamapi. “You said we were going to find Maki in Reality, Yamapi. You’ve been talking to her since NOBUTA?”
“We met a few times about four years ago.” Yamapi shrugged. “It was a long time ago, and she was going by Yoshikawa Tsurara then.”
“But you know where she is.”
Yamapi shook his head. “I know where all programmers who aren’t tied to Maintenance are. You do too.” He grinned. “Don’t lie to me, Kame-chan. I know where you came from. I’m friends with Jin, aren’t I?’
*
“But none of this explains Kamenashi’s actions,” Ueda said quietly. “Even if he was involved in NOBUTA, that was still over five years ago. It doesn’t explain his actions now, and it doesn't tell us where he is, or where Nakamaru is.”
“You’re not mentioning Akanishi,” Taguchi pointed out.
Ueda closed his eyes. “Akanishi leaving, I can understand. He's had the groundwork down for years, ever since he got his second implant. Kamenashi and Nakamaru don’t make any sense though.”
“Of course not,” Taguchi agreed. He stood up, unfolding himself and reaching up to touch the ceiling. “But you know where Nakamaru is. Kamenashi, of course, is another story because nobody’s seen him since last week, but you know exactly where Nakamaru is, and so does Tanaka Koki. You’re lying to Management.”
“You can tell them where Nakamaru is if you want,” Ueda murmured.
“You’re the liaison between KAT-TUN and Management.”
Ueda laughed. “Clever.” He tapped his porternal. “Keep your hands clean. Very clever. Too bad that Management isn’t going to care about that when they catch you.”
“We’ll be alright.” Taguchi grinned. “Ready to go tell Management that we figured it out and that rogue program won’t cause any more problems?”
“What did we figure out though?” Ueda murmured. “We didn't figure out anything; we still don't know why NOBUTA does what it does, or how.”
“Does it matter? NOBUTA isn't hurting anybody.” He stared distantly his porternal, not quite focusing on the information on the screen. “What Management doesn't know can't hurt them.”
*
“Goodbye, Jin-kun,” Nakamaru said quietly.
“I’ll come back,” Akanishi began.
Nakamaru was quiet for a moment, Akanishi and Nakamaru simply staring at each other as cooling fans in the tiny cramped room blew warm air across their faces. “Of course,” he said, quietly. “I don’t doubt it.”
Akanishi hesitated. “Give me six months,” he began. “I’ll change things.”
Nakamaru held up a hand. “Take all the time you need for yourself, Akanishi, but don’t bring the rest of us into this.” He smiled a little. “I don’t want to leave Maintenance.”
Akanishi shook his head. “I’ll change things,” he said again.
“I believe you will. But I’ll be watching from here.” Nakamaru faced Akanishi firmly-he was never as bright or brilliant as Akanishi or Kamenashi, always following them from one step behind, but he would stand in the position he had been given until he had nothing left to give. “Go and change things,” he said quietly, hoping that Akanishi would understand that there was no place for him overseas. “I will stay here.”
*
“Have you heard about Jin?” Yamapi asked, stepping forward and opening the window. A burst of sea air rushed in through the open window as he stuck his hand out. “He decided he was going to run away.”
“You told me,” Kame said, moving away from the window. “Did he tell you?”
Yamapi shrugged easily, grinning at Kame. “Maybe.”
“Just like maybe you know where Horikita Maki is,” Kame said calmly. “Maybe you know. Maybe I know. But nothing is certain.” He stepped backwards, towards the door.
“Are you going to log out?” Yamapi asked.
“Maybe,” Kame said with a sardonic smile. “Are you going to stop me?”
Yamapi stepped towards Kame in careful measured steps. “I’d follow you,” he said. “Shuji-kun.”
“And leave behind NOBUTA?”
Yamapi didn’t blink. “Yes.”
Kame opened his mouth.
“I did it before, didn't I?”
*
It was perfectly quiet in the room when Tanaka began to talk, a low drawl just to shift the still air in the room. “Kamenashi is the epitome of the perfect Maintainer,” he drawled, leaning back with his eyes closed. “You can’t possibly to telling me that he up and ran.”
No response.
“Kame is part of KAT-TUN. Akanishi up and leaving, whatever. But Kamenashi? And Nakamaru? Pull the other leg.” He laughed. “Oh wait, you already did.” He winced, wriggling his toes. “What do you think I know?”
Quiet.
“I know this trick. The wait for the suspect to spill the beans trick. You taught it to me, Koichi-san. What I want to know is why you’re using it on me when I don’t know anything. You know I don’t know anything because I told you that Akanishi up and left when you came to confront me about it. Kame never showed up for our lunch date, and I don’t know what’s going on with Nakamaru.”
“I know, Koki-kun.”
“Then you should know that keeping me here is pointless.”
“Not exactly.”
“What do you want to know?”
“What do you want to know?”
Tanaka thought for a second. “What happened five years ago?”
“Nobody knows. Well, no, that's not quite true.” Domoto Koichi shrugged. “Everybody knows that the project was a success. And everybody knows that Kamenashi was part of the project. But nobody knows exactly what the project was supposed to do. Except you do.”
“I don’t.”
“Of course not,” he agreed easily. “You'd never tell us. Don't forget that I worked with all of you before, Tanaka-kun. I know how loyal you lot are to each other.”
“I don't know anything, Domoto Koichi-san.”
“We have records of you associating with the remnants of Project NOBUTA just two weeks ago. Care to explain?”
“The remnants? Of Project NOBUTA?” Tanaka flexed his fingers behind his back. “You mean Kotani?”
“What did she want, Tanaka Koki?”
“Kotani’s a program?” There was no way that shy girl could have been a program. She read as human!
“Answer the question, Tanaka Koki.”
What did she want? Tanaka shook his head to himself. Who knew what that program wanted. Who knew what Kamenashi wanted.
“I don't know.” Tanaka laughed shortly. “Kamenashi's involved in this, isn't it. You're looking into Project NOBUTA because Kamenashi's gone missing, and you think that he's involved. But why not investigate the Gokusen proejct in that case? Because Akanishi's gone missing as well, hasn't he?”
“We know why Akanishi left.”
“Then what is this all about? You can't be telling me that Yamashita's gone missing.”
*
“Akira,” Kame said quietly. He recognized that tone. It was the same tone that had defined Akira when they were producing NOBUTA.
“I am Akira,” Yamapi confirmed. “Just like you are Shuji. You can't produce NOBUTA without people to define her.”
“Shuji. And Akira,” Kame echoed. “The parameters for NOBUTA.”
Yamapi smiled, staring out at the ocean from the small room the two of them were in. He quoted the words that had defined their work on NOBUTA. “A person can only be defined by their relationships. Therefore a person's ideal world is truly a person's ideal relationship.”
“The parameters for NOBUTA,” Kame confirmed. “Shuji and Akira were defined as opposites that were both acceptable.”
“Shuji and Akira were the main ones,” Yamapi said. “There were other parameters.”
“Mariko.”
“The ideal girl. Yes.”
“Do you know where she is now?”
“Mariko?”
Kame shook his head. “Toda Erika.” He smiled. “If you know where Horikita Maki is, then do you know where Toda Erika is?”
“Toda Erika isn't a programmer.”
“I know. But neither was Horikita Maki when we first found her.”
*
“An interesting fact,” Ueda said softly to Taguchi as he scrolled through the data on his porternal, “is that Horikita Maki started out as a Network Actress.”
“What changed?”
“NOBUTA, I suspect.” Ueda smiled faintly. “Programming isn't an easy talent to pick up. But I imagine that learning how to program for the sake of Shiraiwa Gen's vision wasn't too hard a sacrifice.”
“Learning how to program for a perfect world sounds like a perfectly acceptable sacrifice.”
“A pity that it'd never come true.” Ueda smiled faintly. “After all, all the perfect worlds mean nothing if you can't access them.”
*
“I don't know where Kamenashi is.” Tanaka laughed shortly. “And neither do I know where Yamashita is. If you're so hung up on NOBUTA, then they're probably together.”
“We know that they're together.”
There was something in Domoto Koichi's words that made Tanaka blink. “You mean they've been spending time together even after the project ended.”
“Every other weekend.”
“So why aren't you looking for them wherever they spend their time together?”
Domoto Koichi laughed. “Because Yamashita and Kamenashi didn't go to their normal rendezvous this week. In fact, they've been quite... unreachable. Which only means one thing. They're trying to be unreachable. So what could make the two of them both decide to be unreachable at the same time?”
“You think it's NOBUTA.”
“Only two weeks ago, you located Kotani Nobuko. That would be enough to send Kamenashi and Yamashita into enough of a panic to run away and hide. Now all I need to know is where they are.”
Tanaka laughed again. “So you can torture their secrets out of them.”
“No, you fool. So I can find out if I really need to eliminate them for screwing with Maintenance, which I sincerely hope I don't have to.” Domoto Koichi shook his head. “You're young, so you don't understand. Rebellion is best done slowly. Carefully. So nobody notices until it's too late.”
Tanaka snorted.
“Do you really think that Maintenance could have taken over the Network if they did it on one stroke? Think! Of course not. It was slow. Gradual. A minimal stripping of more and more freedoms, done under the guise of protection and copyright. You'll be surprised what people can get away with if it's simply tagged with an official sounding name.
“It's why even though the best and the brightest are in the slums, nobody takes them seriously until they're in Maintenance.”
*
“She's in the slums.” Kame said quietly.
“Of course she is. It's the safest place for her.”
“Hiding in plain sight.” Kame laughed softly. “Subverting the influence of the Network with NOBUTA while we stand in the guiding light of Maintenance.”
“It's not exactly a guiding light,” Yamapi said quietly. “It's more of a blinding light. Like a spotlight shining into your eyes until the only thing you can see is whiteness where the world is supposed to be.”
“I'm logging out.”
Yamapi snorted. “Are you running away from the truth? Can't face what you've been doing, Kame?”
“I don't want to listen to this.”
Yamapi reached forward and grabbed Kame by the shoulder. “Listen to me, Kame.”
Kame twisted out of Yamapi's grasp. “Listen to me, Akira,” he spat out. “It doesn't matter what Management does. It doesn't matter what Maintenance does. All that matters is making sure that nobody gets hurt. That people are happy. And if people are happy with Maintenance, then let them be!”
“Is that fair?”
“I'm logging out.”
“Is that fair? Is it fair that people aren't hearing the truth? Is it fair that people aren't aware of anything past the boundaries of their personal spotlight?”
Kame closed his eyes and activated his logout procedures.
“Is that fair, Kame?” Yamapi shouted as Kame began to slip out of the Network. “You're letting them be ignorant. You're encouraging them to keep their eyes closed!”
“I don't want to listen to this,” Kame mouthed as he returned to Reality, Yamapi fading away as the dull surroundings of Yamashita's room took over his vision.
*
Ueda tapped on his porternal, writing a report on rogue program incident #2994315. “In conclusion, the rogue program has been neutralized.”
“Clever.” Taguchi grinned. “A wordplay worthy of myself.”
Ueda laughed. “A wordplay far superior to yours, Taguchi.”
*
Yamashita opened his eyes in Reality to see that Kamenashi had already left the room where he kept his hookups. Wires trailed over the arm of a chair, and the door was faintly ajar.
“Kamenashi?” Yamashita called.
There was no reply.
Yamashita shook his head, scooping up his porternal and stalking out the door. There were two places that Kamenashi could have gone: the bar, for his weekly dose of hallucinogenics, or the slums, to find Horikita Maki.
Yamashita closed his eyes. He would place his ration tab on the bar.
*
Nakamaru waited an hour after Akanishi left to leave the room. The slums were swarming with Maintenance personnel, but none of them would bother him. The Maintenance who would still be around were like him: hackers who had eventually turned to Maintenance. Nobody in the slums had particular fondness for Maintenance.
He followed a path that was watched by street kids peering around corners with their fingers tapping on porternals until he reached a small house that looked as though any breath of air would blow it down.
“Hello, Nakamaru-kun,” the girl inside greeted him after he had cracked the encryption and let himself in. She didn't look up from the projection, but peered at him through the program she was writing. “I heard that some of your friends met Kotani Nobuko.”
“Hello, Horikita Maki.”
The girl smiled faintly at him. “I was expecting to see Yamashita or Kamenashi after NOBUTA was tagged as a rogue program.”
“They're in hiding,” Nakamaru said on autopilot. “I'm sorry that they aren't here to see you.”
“It's fine.” Horikita smiled. “Three together is happiness, but Nobuko is used to being alone. But Shuji? Shuji needs Akira.”
“I'm sorry,” Nakamaru said again. “Are you alright?”
Horikita laughed quietly. “I told you, it's fine. NOBUTA takes up all my time. A program that creates your perfect world. Can you imagine what that is? Can you imagine what it's like when it meets two different people? How do you create a perfect world for two different people who don't understand each other?”
*
Kamenashi was already palming a hallucinogenic when Yamashita arrived at the bar.
The bartender looked at him as Kamenashi's eyes closed. He nodded at him in greeting, flicking his eyes towards a pinprick of light that shone from behind a line of bottles.
“Maintenance?” Yamashita asked quietly, sliding into a seat next to Kamenashi's and accepting a pill. The same one that Kamenashi just took, judging by the look that bartender gave him.
The bartender nodded once.
Yamashita smiled tightly. “I'd ask you not to let them disturb my body, but I don't think you'd really be able to stop them, considering the legality of this location.”
The bartender shrugged and wiped a glass with a dirty rag.
“Cheers,” Yamashita mouthed to Kamenashi before downing the drug.
*
“What are you doing here, Akira?” Shuji snapped as Akira sauntered down the stairs with him, their school bags over their shoulders.
“I told you, didn't I?” Akira sang. “I'll follow Shuji anywhere.”
“You left Nobuta behind!”
“Nobuta said: it's alright.” Akira laughed. “Nobuta brought Shuji and Akira together. Nobuta gave Shuji and Akira what they needed most.”
“And what's that?” Shuji snapped, dodging a few stray classmates.
Akira smiled. “Each other.” He flung his arms around Shuji before Shuji could finish making his bewildered face and sang into his ear: “Shuuji-kun!”
“Get off of me! People are watching! And don't say stuff like that!”
Akira laughed and kissed Shuji's nose with a fox hand. “Nobuta understood. Shuji-kun needs somebody that understands him the most. Just like Akira needs a Shuji-kun that understands Akira.”
*
“A world that you can live in. I’ll make one for you.” Shuji said that to me, when we first met.
“That’s right. He’ll make one for you,” Akira drawled.
And I replied, “I don’t need one.”
I did, but I didn’t want to admit it. I think the reason you said that you wanted to make a world that I could live in because you needed one.
So I made one for you, and you made one for me.
We made one for each other.
End.
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