Chapter Seven: Operation: Information, 操作信息

"Do we really have to go through Mirkwood?" groaned the hobbit. "Yes, you do!" said the wizard, "if you want to get to the other side. You must either go through or give up your quest… There are no safe paths in this part of the world." – J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

"Okay, now let's try this one more time…" Tomo sighed as he started the stopwatch. "Can't I relax for a …minute?" I huffed.

"The timer's going…" Tomo tapped the timer's glass screen lazily. I took a deep breath and ran towards the makeshift obstacle course we had designed at the park using the playground equipment. I took a running start to the swing set and landed on the seat on my stomach. As soon as the swing lurched forward I tucked into a ball and rolled onto the dusty ground, forcing myself to get up despite the muscle aches. I wanted to whine when I realized what part I was coming to: the monkey bars. But I couldn't just swing across them like you're supposed to, oh no, that'd be too easy. I had to weave in and out of each bar like a snake. I climbed up the ladder and began to do the painful sequence. The first ten attempts had resulted in a lovely collection of bruises and cuts. I hoped that this one would be different. Up…Down…Up…Down…Two more to go! I leaned forward going down a little too much and saw that I was going to fall…again. I fell headfirst, putting my hands out in front of me to cradle my fall. "OOF!" I grunted as I landed smack dab on my face, sending up swirling clouds of playground dirt. Tomo helped me up and shook his head.

"You almost had it!"

"Thanks Sherlock."

"Remember, it's all about balance--."

"Easy for you to say." I grumbled, caressing the new bloody gash on my arm.

"I guess we should call it a day. We need to clean you up before you get home…" Tomo grabbed my arm and guided me to the water fountains.

"Tomo, we've been training for, like, three weeks. Nothing has happened yet. I'm starting to think that everything is just a coincidence." I winced as I washed off the dirt and blood with murky playground water.

"You can never be too sure. And anyways, we're breaking into that guy's lab tomorrow and you need to be in top shape!"

"WHAT? You still want to break into that lab? That's it; I'm officially declaring you insane." I shook my head, compressing the gash with my t-shirt. Tomo gripped my shoulders. "But just think of what we could learn!"

"Just think of what they'll do to us if we get caught!"

"Um…actually, only you will get caught. I'm a ghost, remember?" Tomo pointed to his slightly transparent figure.

"Even further reason why I'm not going to do it."

Tomo sneered mischievously, the frightening glint returning to his eye. "Do you still have that ninja costume from Halloween?"

"Yeah, why?" I asked, realizing what Tomo's plan was. "I mean, no! I threw it out a long time ago!" I lied. "Let's go get you suited up." Tomo dragged me back all the way home.

"This is so wrong." I shook my head as Tomo slipped the ninja mask over my head. Mom and Dad had looked at me funny when I had walked in the door covered in dirt and blood from head to toe, but they didn't ask any questions. They'd rather not know what goes on in a teenager's head. Right now it was two in the morning and I began to question my sanity as I slipped into the tight-fitting ninja costume from last year's Halloween. Tomo shoved a mug of coffee in my hands, adding two extra spoons of sugar into it. "You need to be wide awake. And if Mr. Suzuki can go a week without sleeping on fifty-six cups of coffee, I'm sure you can go a couple of hours on just one."

"This is so wrong." I repeated as Tomo loaded a satchel with all sorts of equipment and god knows what else.

"Will you shut up? This mission is absolutely necessary." Tomo flung the bag into my arms and opened the window, tying one end of a rope to the latch and flinging it out. "Okay, Mr. Ninja. Let's see what you've learned." Tomo smiled as he triple-knotted the rope and tugged on it a few times to make sure it was tight enough.

"B-But…" I tried, but I couldn't find anything to argue with. I groaned and propelled down the thin rope as quietly as I could. Tomo didn't even bother using the rope: he just launched himself off the windowsill and landed on the ground before I was even halfway down. "Show-off." I muttered, cautiously hopping off the rope and onto the ground.

"Um…now what?" I shrugged. Tomo snuck through the shadows and dragged me behind him. "We break into Café Mew Mew. Let Operation 'Information' begin!" I could have sworn his eyes glowed with excitement. The café didn't look like anything grand in the way of security: no barbed wire, no cameras, no guard dogs. "Where's the lab at?" I breathed in Tomo's ear as we slithered around in the café's shadows. "It's underground."

"Then how am I supposed to get down there?"

"Watch and learn." Tomo's body collapsed into a thick white mist, clouding the entire area. I can't see anything! Something tapped my shoulder and pushed me forward. "Oh, I see now…" I whispered, watching the mist remove an air vent covering and tossing it on the grass. Tomo's mist steadily emptied into the air duct; I clambered up the café's wall and gracelessly nose-dived into the shaft, cursing. "You're such an idiot." Tomo's voice airily mocked.

"Tomo, what exactly are you doing?" I asked.

"I can disperse my form. It's just in case there are some security cameras. Keep your wits about you, though; I can help you with infrared sensors, but I can't really do anything about weight sensors."

"Weight sensors?"

"There are pressure-sensitive panels under the floor and every time it senses weight, it measures it to make sure it's the approved weight that's been programmed into the sensors."

"So how am I supposed to get in this place if I can't touch the floor?" I blanched.

"You'll see." I could imagine Tomo's grin stretching across his face. I can't believe I'm actually doing this. I inched through the endless maze of air vents with nothing but Tomo's intuition guiding me. "We'll come in through that vent right down there." Tomo's mist took a sharp turn downwards.

"You've got to be kidding me! I'll fall right through!" I whispered sharply as I attempted to slide down the slippery shaft.

"Climb down headfirst. When you get into the other room, get the rope from the satchel and tie it to something sturdy." Tomo instructed. I could just imagine the James Bond theme song playing as I crawled down the shaft like a drunken sloth. I pulled a long section of rope out of the satchel and secured it around the slot where the bolt went to hold in the air vent. Tomo sat the vent down gently on a desk in the corner of the spacious room.

"Climb down the rope and wait for my signal." Tomo whispered. I climbed down and waited for whatever signal Tomo could make as a mist. He floated to a panel in the far right corner, yanking out all the wires attatched to it but one. "I disabled the security system; you can come down now." I hopped onto the floor and took in the room. It sure wasn't like the laboratories that you always see in the movies with bubbling beakers everywhere, monsters in cages, and Mr. Hydes running amuck. All sorts of contraptions were carelessly stacked on high metal shelves, dusty machinery lay unused on the floor, cables and wires were everywhere sticking out in dangerous angles. The place was an extra tetanus shot waiting to happen.

"Tomo, how do you know how to break into buildings?" I asked.

"Well, it's actually pretty interesting--."

"Never mind. I don't think I want to know." I put my hand up. "So…exactly what are we looking for?"

"That." The mist sucked in and the regular Tomo pointed at the biggest computer screen I'd ever seen attached to an entire wall. He sat in the cushy leather chair sitting in front of the computer and typed in 'Mew Project'. A plethora of data popped up, including tons of video clips.

"Dude…Three hundred results?" Tomo gawked. On the other side of the lab we heard a door open and slam shut. We looked at each other and knew we were thinking the same thing: "Oh shit." Tomo pulled a UMD from the outer pocket of the satchel and stuck it into the computer's hard drive, telling the computer to copy all the files. Hurry! The computer was amazingly fast and had half of the data saved in just a few seconds. Unfortunately we didn't seem to have any extra seconds to spare as the person's footsteps came closer. "Hide. I'll make a distraction. Get the disk and make a run for it. I'll meet you back at your house." Tomo whispered then collapsed back into a mist and floated towards whoever had come in. 'Copy Complete' popped up on the screen and the computer ejected the disk. I snatched it and stuffed it into the backpack, making a wild run for the rope. As I clambered up the rope I heard a man's voice. "What on Earth is that? Ow!" It sounded like Tomo had grabbed a piece of machinery and socked the guy in the head with it. I huffed as I stuffed the rope back into the satchel and commando-crawled through the maze of vents.

"If you ever make me do something like that again I swear I'll kill you!" I growled at Tomo as I tossed the ninja costume in my closet, hoping it would never see the light of day again.

"Yeah, but we got what we came for!" Tomo waved the UMD in my face. "Let's look at it!" Tomo said, excitedly going towards my laptop. I shook my head.

"It's four in the morning and I seriously need some sleep. We can look at it in the morning." I grumbled as I pulled the bed covers up to my chin. "Meanie." Tomo muttered under his breath.

Café Mew Mew

"Ryou! Ryou! Are you okay?" Keiichiro slapped Ryou's face a couple of times. "W…What?" Ryou grunted, rubbing a huge bump on his forehead and wincing.

"What happened?" Keiichiro helped Ryou to his feet.

"There was this…mist…and…it hit me with something…" Ryou breathed, looking around the lab. "Look for signs of an intruder." Ryou said suddenly, running over to the Master Computer. "Computer, show video feedback from your camera in fast forward from two A.M. to four A.M." Ryou commanded. On the computer a window opened, showing nothing in near the computer at two o'clock. It wasn't until about three thirty that something came up. "Computer, pause." Ryou grinned and pointed at the screen. "There are our infiltrators." Ryou analyzed the two figures: the one sitting in the computer chair looked pretty normal, except he was slightly see-through; probably a glitch in the film. The other, clothed in a ridiculous ninja outfit, stood behind the boy seated in the chair.

"Dude…Three hundred results?" the boy in the computer chair gazed at the screen intently. In the distance a door could be heard slamming. Both looked at each other and froze. "Hide. I'll make a distraction. Get the disk and make a run for it. I'll meet you back at your house." The boy in the computer chair whispered urgently. Ryou's eyes widened when he saw what the boy did next: his body dispersed into a cloud of white mist, going off-screen. The 'ninja' grabbed a UMD out of the hard drive and ran off-screen. "Computer, show security feedback during the same hours." Ryou said.

"Feedback is not available." The computer stated in its monotone voice. "What? What do you mean 'not available'?" Ryou yelled.

"Between the hours of two and four the security system was disabled and is still disabled."

"Where was it disabled?"

"Searching……Found. Security was disabled by the use of tampering with the fuse box wires." Ryou slammed his fist on the keyboard and cursed loudly. "Computer, do a full scan of the lab for any foreign DNA." Ryou smiled crookedly. They're not going to get away so easily. A unit of robots was dispatched from the Master Computer; they began to comb over every inch of the lab, sweeping the floors for any hairs and scanning the floor for prints. "Securibots have located a foreign eyelash. Would you like to scan it?" the computer announced after just a few minutes."Yes." Ryou sat in his chair and looked up at the screen anxiously as the hair was scanned.

"One match confirmed. Would you like to view the data file?"

"Yes."

"DNA belongs to Tokyo resident Taro Yamamoto. Seventeen years of age, attends Takashima High school, straight A's with the exception of English, owns a 2020 Kawasaki sport motorcycle, son of Kiyoshi and Komori Yamamoto." The computer recited clearly. Ryou's eyes widened. Kiyoshi and…Komori?

"Computer, specify on subject's parents."

"Kiyoshi Yamamoto: renowned researcher in genetics. Komori Yamamoto: Stay-at-home mother; also a songwriter."

"Wait, this is Komori's son?" Keiichiro asked, aghast.

"I think it's time I said hello to the family." Ryou grinned.

Author's Corner!

UMD- Universal Media Disc (just in case you didn't know). I want a Securibot! They sound really cool!...Even though I don't think they've been invented yet…Oh well. I might not post the next chapter for a while, though. I need to write more of the story first and a few medical issues have popped up too. Oh! Just so there's no confusion (because I know someone is bound to ask): the Master Computer's camera is separate from the security mainframe, which is why it wasn't disabled ((smile)). ((Imagines Taro in ninja suit)) Pfft! Sorry, I couldn't resist.