Chapter 2: Questions
Pairings: GaaraXNeji, NarutoXSasuke
Previously on Impervius AI
Neji held back a laugh, shoving his fork firmly in his mouth to keep himself from making things worse. Sakura always got so upset over nothing. At least to Neji it was nothing. Sasuke was his best friend and if he wanted, he should be able to spend time with his cat. The cat that had once actually been his boyfriend, until he'd let the former blonde drink something sitting around in his lab without a label. Neji would never forget that. It was one of those screw ups you reminded your friends about for the rest of their lives. It just couldn't be helped.
"So, speaking of Naruto, have you found anything to turn him back yet?"
"What? Oh, no. Not yet."
Neji watched Sasuke's usually cool manner fall into what the Uchiha would never admit, was a pout, bordering on brooding depression.
"They've got me working on some new machine that's supposed to be able to regenerate a body from something as small as a hair. It's taking up all my free time and it doesn't even work right. The last test brought back a bloody arm with little bits of skin still stuck to it in random places."
Neji shuddered, trying not to picture the raven's all too descriptive explanation.
"But, it's been a year Sasuke. What if he gets stuck like that and never changes back?"
Sasuke looked as though he'd never thought about that. And probably never would have.
"Oh god! Can that happen?"
The horrified look on his face was priceless. Neji just couldn't help torturing the other man. Like he knew anything about science and medicine. That was Sasuke's job, he was just a pilot.
"I think I might be sick!"
-----
"Why, when you have an entire 45 minute lunch break, do you always eat at light speed and then spend the rest of your time in your jet? Don't you spend enough time there already?"
"If you feel the need to complain, than why do you keep following me back every day."
"I just think you need a little social interaction is all."
"I talk, just not with you, and I have friends."
"Yes, friends who are as deranged as you are, and you talk to your plane."
"Gaara is more than my plane."
"Oh? Is he your lover now?"
"Shut up! That's not something you should joke about."
"Bet you wish he was! But let's face it, he's a computer and why would he be interested in YOU anyway? Why you are the only one to actually have an Artificial Intelligence as your plane's computer though, is beyond me. Maybe her Supreme Leader, Lady Tsunade thinks you need a babysitter. Not that I'd blame her…"
-----
"Good luck Romeo, better not keep Juliet waiting! He might make you sleep on the couch tonight."
Neji looked over his shoulder at the jet next to his and pulled out his heat gun, zapping the door handle of Sakura's plane so she'd have to wait for it to cool down before she could open it without burning her precious hands.
"Asshole."
"Love you too, Cherry!"
Neji grinned, climbing through the hatch and leaving it open to find a smirking redhead waiting for him on his window monitor.
"Juliet."
"Romeo."
-Questions-
Gaara sat quietly humming to himself, watching Neji type away on his lap top. He'd been sitting there for a good ten minutes, being as patient as possible, but today was Wednesday. Gaara didn't like to be kept waiting on Wednesdays. Neji should have known that by now.
Feeling like he'd waited long enough, because ten minutes really was too long, Gaara disconnected the power to the outlets inside the jet, hoping for a little bit of the long haired brunette's attention.
"Gaara…"
"Yes?"
"Turn it back on."
"I don't know what your talking about."
"Bull shit. You disconnected the power, what is it you wanted?"
"Well, it's Wednesday."
"And?"
"Sometimes on Wednesdays they give out cherries at lunch! You know that. Don't tell me you forgot again."
"Then I won't."
"Bastard."
Gaara crossed his arms on the monitor and glared daggers at the other boy. Sending little spurts of electricity up through the cord and into Neji's keyboard. Watching with satisfaction as the boy's hands jumped away from the keys, giving Gaara a look that clearly stated, 'If you weren't my jet, I'd slap you."
"How would you know that there were cherries on the menu for today?"
Gaara looked off at the edge of the screen, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on the multi colored buttons dotting the walls.
"Gaara…"
"I stole a copy of the menu! I get updates everyday…"
"Your not supposed to do that."
"And?"
"Lady Tsunade might get angry."
"She'll never know. I back hacked the system through so many different drives not even a zip virus could follow me. The computer systems are fine!"
"They better be, Juliet."
Gaara glanced suspiciously back at the boy, who was now smirking back at him from the high backed chair bolted down in the center of the room. He didn't seem angry at all anymore, merely amused with something.
"What?"
"I didn't forget the cherries."
"What!? You are a bastard."
"Does that mean I can have them then?"
"NOO!! I'm sorry…"
"Good boy."
Gaara would have fried and broken the bolts holding Neji's chair up for that, but the boy was smart and new exactly when to hold up the small cup of red fruit, granting him safety from Gaara's wrath.
Transfixed and horribly excited, Gaara pressed his hands up against the monitor in hopes of getting a better look at his favorite food. He watched happily as Neji scanned the fruit into his computer, which was working again, and waited for the codes to materialize on the screen. Eventually he saw Neji hit a few buttons and look up at him.
That was the cue for him to start looking for said materializing fruit.
Gaara looked around and waited, looking for that special ripple in the pixels on the screen that came before the actual, edible image did.
And there it was, in the top left corner.
A smile spread over both boy's faces as Gaara plucked the cherries down and began eating them hungrily. They didn't give him nourishment and he didn't actually need them, but there was something about the flavor and the look of the things that he just loved.
"You never did tell me what they taste like."
"Well, they don't taste real. But then again, how can they when you scan them through a computer? They taste like… artificial cherry flavored cough drops, pure sugar. I like them, but I can't help wondering what real ones might taste like."
Gaara went quiet.
"I hope you'll be able to try them one day."
"Yeah, it's a dream. But dreams are for the silly. You know as well as I do that that's never going to happen."
"Miracles do happen Gaara."
"Not those kind. Miracles won't give me a body Neji. I understand that."
Neji and Gaara remained quiet for the next few minutes. Neji knew better than to push the redhead. He truly believed that Gaara could, in time, get a body. He just wasn't sure how, and without proof, it was hard for anyone to believe the chances were good enough.
Neji wasn't sure what to say.
So several minutes turned into half an hour before the silence was broken by a beeping coming through from the overhead speakers in the hanger. Neji ducked out of the jet and leaned against the frame so he could listen.
"Lady Tsunade needs the following people in her office immediately: Hyuuga Neji, Inuzuka Kiba, Aburame Shino, Haruno Sakura, Nara Shikamaru, Nara Temari, Uchiha Sasuke, and Uzumaki Naruto …."
The message was repeated again in the same cool, female voice of the recording, but Neji didn't wait. He told Gaara he'd be back to tell him what was going on, and quickly left the hanger. In search of the door leading to Lady Tsunade's office.
Twenty minutes later, everyone was gathered around Tsunade's cluttered desk, waiting for what she could possibly have to tell them all. Neji figured it must be serious if she had gone so far as to summon Sasuke's cat too.
It had him more worried than anything else. He was starting to feel like he worried too much.
"I bet you have no idea why I called you here."
It was a statement, but everyone nodded in agreement anyway.
"Then let me clarify. As you know, we've been losing contact with a few of the outer stations and a few of our own ships. We suspect their being abducted by some of the less friendly stations in the alliance. Not shocking, but all of you knew that anyway.
So here is something new. We're receiving threats now. Actual war threats. This may seem a concern for you personally Shikamaru, but that's not what we're here to discuss. This concerns Gaara."
Neji's heart stopped and his breath immediately caught in his throat. He hated when meetings like this were about Gaara. He was worried sick about the AI already. These things just tended to make it worse.
"Calm down Hyuuga, you look about to faint. I'm not saying he's in imminent danger, but I would like all of you to be warned. We've been informed that battleships are bringing people from the Searin Station to inspect our ships, labs, and databases. You people are the only ones who know of Gaara's existence, and it needs to be kept that way. He's a very valuable part of our system and the last thing we need is him to be in someone else's hands.
Originally he was a prototype for a new AI system to better help the pilots in flight training. However the Searin in particular wanted AIs for all of their ships. They've been pressing us for years now, to have Gaara finished and duplicated. They don't trust us and think we're keeping him to ourselves.
I'm not going to deny that we are a little selfish on this ship, but not without reason. The Searin would use Gaara for war and destruction only, they wish to be the station with the most powerful armies, it's no secret. That's what they are known for. But we've been having trouble.
Gaara can't be duplicated or copied in anyway. He's been made as a solo AI system that, when copied, self destructs and the Searin weren't happy to hear that.
Trying to put him on another ship would merely be a waste of time. And not to mention the cost of the explosion from a self destructing ship, would be incredible.
That's why you're here. I need all of you to keep silent. The story goes that Gaara wasn't installable and that he was destroyed in the destruction of the ship. No one else knows the truth, not even the council.
Hyuuga, I'm going to need you to explain this to Gaara and when the battle ships arrive, I want you to make sure he hides. Just tell him that and he'll understand. You'll have to be ready to take over all the necessary functions that Gaara usually does for you automatically. So be ready. Shikamaru, I want you to make sure Neji's used to all those functions so he doesn't embarrass us by crashing the ship in the hanger when Gaara goes into inactive mode."
Everyone but Neji nodded and Tsunade dismissed them.
They had done this sort of thing before. In case there was an emergency, she wanted Neji and Gaara to be able to handle themselves solo. Meaning during all the test runs, Gaara would disappear from the screen to be replaced by many green coded numbers moving down the monitor. The voice he heard had been altered too. Some woman's monotonic voice.
In short it meant that Neji would have to be able to fly a normal jet. Just like everyone else.
He'd been trained for that, but overall, he hated it and without daily practice, he often crashed the plane. And Gaara was never there to yell at him afterwards. That's what Neji really hated. When the redhead wasn't there waiting for him.
The boy had told him once, that it felt like putting yourself inside a small wooden crate, only to have it nailed shut behind you before you were even settled. Neji could see what he meant and hated it even more after he'd seen what it really did. Gaara never came out of it very well. There were a million numbered codes he had to input in order to pull the nails back out of said crate, and every time he did, the redhead came out pale and sick. Suffocated.
But it was necessary.
At least that's what Gaara was trying to convince him of, now that he'd gotten back to the jet and explained what was going on to the other boy.
Gaara always took it well. Better then Neji believed he should.
But after that, everything seemed back to normal for everyone else. That night and the next day passed without so much as a syllable about what was coming. Neji felt like he was really the only one bothered by it. He didn't like Gaara having to go through that. Not for anything.
Neji's friends knew this too.
Kiba and Shikamaru would walk by and squeeze his shoulder in reassurance. And Sakura would smile at him, clearly pitying him. Sasuke new better than anyone else did, being Neji's best friend, and instead of doing anything, he ignored it. Which gave Neji a chance to try to ignore it to without being reminded that he'd have to fly without Gaara again.
They all reacted the same every time. And this time was no different.
That night however, the Searin battleships were finally spotted on their cameras, and Tsunade gave the word for Neji to hide the AI systems on his jet.
And after much pacing around the small interior of his precious red plane, he did as he was told.
Gaara smiling at him reassuringly, before winking off the screens.
Here's Chapter Two! Enjoy.... the story is basically just starting... so be prepared...
Thank you to all of you who've been reviewing for me... your the only reason I remember to update! *applauds*