Chapter 3: A Call For Help
Hiro was done for the day. It was about six o'clock at SFIT, and he was finished up with everything he needed to be. Since he needed Wasabi to drive him home, Hiro decided to wait in the main labs area for everyone, except for Fred, who was already there.
"Hiro, my man," Fred said enthusiastically. "You waiting for Wasabi too?"
Fred was sitting on a table, so Hiro plopped next to him. "Yeah," he said.
"What's wrong?" Fred asked. "You seem so distracted."
"Huh,oh it's… nothing."
That was a lie.
Ever since Hiro found Hibiki's e-mail, he was debating whether or not to share it with his friends. They deserved to be shown this, especially Jenna. But, Hiro was afraid that if he did show it to them, they would be angry with him for not presenting it sooner. On the other hand, if he didn't show it to them, they might find out about it, and be angry for him not showing it at all. Hiro had no clue what to do.
"Dude, I know you better than that," Fred said, seeing right through his lie. "For real, what's up?"
"I'll… i'll tell you when everyone's here." Hiro had made up his mind.
Everyone began coming out of their workspaces, and Hiro spotted the rest of his friends.
"Alright guys," Gogo said, "Let's hurry up, i've gotta go help my dad work on his car."
"Actually," Hiro said, "can we wait a few minutes, i've got to show you guys something."
"What is it Hiro?" Honey Lemon asked hanging her labcoat on a hanger.
"Wait right here." Hiro ran back to his lab to grab his laptop. He rushed back to the main labs so he wouldn't keep his friends waiting.
"Alright," he said turning on the laptop, "so… about three months ago I got this e-mail, but I just found it today. I wish I had known about it sooner."
Hiro played the video. Everyone gasped when they saw Hibiki appear on the screen before them. Jenna had tears rolling down her eyes the entire time the video was playing. As soon as it ended she was the first to speak.
"Hiro…" she was trying to talk while she was sniffeling.
"I'm sorry," he said. "You probably hate me for not showing you this earlier. I'm the worst kind of fr-"
Jenna pulled Hiro into a tight hug.
"Sorry?" she said. "Hiro are you kidding me? I haven't seen Hibiki in months, and now I just saw him give full closure. There is literally not one other thing you could've done to make me happy. Thank you."
Hiro hugged Jenna back. "You're welcome, oh and here." Hiro grabbed the nearest flash drive and stuck it into his laptop. He then downloaded Hibiki's message on to it and handed it to Jenna.
"Now you can see him anytime you want."
"Thanks Hiro." Jenna put the flash drive in her pocket.
"So does this mean you're going to stop looking for Hibiki?" Wasabi asked.
"I… I don't know. He doesn't want me to, but I still want to tell him he doesn't have to leave."
"Hiro," Honey Lemon said, "it's nothing anyone did that made him leave. He wanted to because of choices he made. You don't have to tell him anything."
It was true. Hibiki felt bad for what he did, so he left. Hiro didn't know why he felt obligated to tell him he shouldn't feel bad.
Wasabi drove Hiro home and Hiro said his goodbyes to his friends. Hiro walked into the Lucky Cat Café, where the last two customers of the night sat in tables munching on pastries. Cass came from behind the counter and smiled when she saw her nephew.
"Oh hey honey," she said giving a leaving customer a to-go bag. "How was school?"
"Better than I thought it was going to be," Hiro said heading upstairs. "I'm going to bed early, I am so tired."
"Okay hon," Aunt Cass said. "Don't forget to feed Mochi on your way up.
After dumping an entire bag of cat food on Mochi's food bowl, Hiro headed for his room.
"Ow," he said to activate Baymax.
The white robot inflated out of his charging station and turned to Hiro.
"Hello Hiro," Baymax said. "Is there something you need?"
"Yeah, there is. Can you put on a movie for me? I want to watch something before I go to bed."
"Before I ask you which movie you would like to watch, I should inform you that while you were at school, I received a message for you."
"Ugh," Hiro groaned. "I need to start bringing you to school with me. I'm always getting messages right when i'm about to go to sleep. Who's the message from?"
"I'm not sure. The ID was anonymous, and I was unable to trace where the message was sent from."
"That's weird. What's the message?"
"Displaying message now." Baymax's belly screen lit up, showing some kind of a text message. Hiro didn't even know he could do that. The text read, Big Hero 6. Krei Labs. Now.
"What the hell?" Hiro read the message again to make sure he was reading it right. :Why does Krei want us?"
"From the knowledge you gave me about Alistair Krei, he is a rich asshole who-"
"Ba, ba, ba, ba," Hiro said to stop Baymax from continuing in the long list of names Hiro called the philanthropist. "You don't have to continue with that knowledge. No matter what I say about him, he's smart enough to get a message to you, and he doesn't seem to be messing around. We better go."
"Calling Gogo, Wasabi, Fred, Honey LEmon, and Jenna.
Hiro knew something weird was going on when the team entered the lobby of Krei Labs and a woman told them Krei was expecting them.
They all walked to an elevator, except for Fred, who had to take the stairs because his Kaiju suit wouldn't fit. Hiro could have had Baymax take the stairs, but he wasn't going to let some Krei Labs scientist find him and do god knows what to him. They had to go to the top floor, where Krei's office was. Everyone was silent the whole way up until Gogo spoke up.
"Alright, if he asks us to pay for damages, we run."
"Why would he make a big deal out of paying a few bills?" Hiro said.
"Uh, Hiro," Wasabi said, "we've destroyed the guy's property, twice. I think that would call for a meeting."
"Ah, no," Hiro said." Callaghan destroyed his property once and Hibiki destroyed his property twice. We were just there."
"Well, yeah, but you can't bill a guy from jail, and Hibiki's nowhere to be found. So that leaves us paying for damages."
Hopefully it wouldn't come to that, ot Hiro would take Gogo's advise and run like hell.
After about five minutes of annoying elevator music, the team arrived at the top floor to be greeted by Fred.
"Fred?" Honey Lemon was shocked. "How did you get here before us?"
"Oh, well the stairs are set up all spirally, so I just boost jumped up the middle."
"Ah, you're here."
Everyone looked down the hall to find Krei walking towards them.
"Please, follow me to my private office."
As they walked in silence down the hallway, Gogo, again was the only one to speak up.
"So did you invite us here to pay bills? Because i've got enough things to worry about, and I want money to not be on that fine list."
"Of course not, " Krei said. "I just- Hey don't touch that."
Fred was off to the side of the hallway, poking at a vase with intricate designs on it."
Fred looked over. "Huh? Oh, sorry."
Krei forgot to continue his thought as the group made their way down the long neatly decorated hallway. Hiro had never been inside of Krei Las, nor did he ever want too. Krei had tried to steal one of Hiro's microbots. He even made Callaghan's daughter disappear, causing him to become the Yokai, and seek revenge. At that moment it dawned upon Hiro that if Krei had taken more safety measures, Abigail wouldn't have disappeared into the portal, and Callaghan wouldn't have tried to steal Hiro's microbots… and the fire that killed Tadashi wouldn't have started. No.. no. Hiro wasn't about to start blaming people again for his brother's death.
The hallway finally ended at two large oak doors which Krei opened, revealing a large modern office. There was a large window behind desk that overlooked the entire city. Man, Krei was living the life.
Krei sat down in his desk and looked at the Big Hero 6.
"So," he said, "the reason I called you here is because," he sighed as if he didn't want to say the words, "I need your help."
"You," Hiro said, "need our help? Okay where are the hidden cameras?"
"I'm being sincere," Krei said firmly. "Something's… gone wrong."
"Enlighten us," Gogo said emotionlessly.
Krei stood up and looked out his large window.
"You may have heard of Akuma Island. It's where I tested the portal device. Well. there was more on the island than that. I used the island to test my most dangerous inventions. In case something happened I didn't want people getting hurt."
"And you didn't want people seeing what a screw up you are," Hiro added.
"Anyway, there wa one invention in particular that I didn't work as well as it was supposed to. called it the Virus Annihilation and Detection Artificial Intelligence. VADAI for short. She was built as a program to be able to combat any form of virus or malware within seconds of the device being infected.
"So what went wrong?" Wasabi asked.
"It was my fault. When we were programming her, I told her her purpose was to .. destroy things that make it hard for other things to function. She took the explanation all wrong. One day I sent one of my finest scientists to go and see if she wa functioning properly. After four days, no one had heard from him.
"What… what happened to him?" Jenna asked.
VADAI killed him. She searched through her data base on things that made it hard for other things to function, and she kept coming back to one conclusion: mankind. She thought I meant to 'delete' all of mankind."
"So..so let me get this straight," Hiro said trying to progress the information, "you pretty much told an AI to kill off all humans. What the hell is wrong with you?!"
"I didn't expect her to take it so literally. I managed to shut her down, but I still sent engineers every month to check on her."
"Sent?" Honey Lemon said, noticing the past tense.
"About a week ago, a couple of engineers went to go a routine check up, and they didn't come back, and neither did the team that was sent to search for them."
"What exactly are you asking of us?" Hiro asked.
"I want you to shut her down. Everyone I sent in there never comes back. But you… you seem to be able to endure anything. That's why I need you to go to Akuma Island and shut down VADAI."
"What happens if we don't?" Hiro said skeptically.
"Then she finds a way to make it to the mainland and this city is reduced to nothing but bodies and rubble."
(A/N) Okay, so now you know what's going on. This is like Big Hero 6's version of Ultron. Alright i've been up all night typing the rest of this and can't come up with anything to talk about really, so without further adieu, That's DaydreamDepartment out of your hair! ;)