Second Shot

Chapter 10:

Do Not Pass Go

Morino Yuuichi slides his backpack off his back, catches it on his elbow, and uses its momentum to swing it up and send it squarely onto the table by his worn recliner. Setting down his bicycle helmet with one hand, he rubs his free hand through his short brown hair to try to brush out the helmet-induced-styling. Side-stepping around a shipping box being used as a temporary recycling bin, he steps over a stack of his old Economics textbooks, then sidles in front of his recliner and drops gratefully into it.

After scribbling through his college work for the day, Yuuichi is pleased to see that he still has a few hours to spare for The World. After taking care of a dearth of emails and guildmaster-related business, he finally lifts the M2D from around his neck and logs in. The stormy city of Fomoraig materializes around him and despite the intended gloom of the environment, Silabus takes a moment to savor the intricacy of the rainy environment before running down into the city. The dugout-style storefronts pass before he reaches the entrance to the Guild At-Home.

The stone-and-earth structure yawning up from yet another sunken dugout point, fortified by heavy timber, looks more like the entrance to a bunker than a welcoming door. Of course, it fits with the surrounding city. Making sure to wear a smile before entering, Silabus selects Canard and enters his guild. The yawning space before him looks much like the guild's At-Home back when they had earned their entrance in Breg Epona, though the entry space is at least twice as large and contains over a dozen doors (most through hallways to the sides) into rooms used for instruction and skill practice areas.

A few players mill in the expansive entry foyer, presided over by his own styled Guide Grunty. While a few team members are familiar, Silabus finds his attention drawn to the waving from an Edge Punisher in a green dress and frequent shop volunteer – Saburou. She jogs closer and greets, "Heya. Have you heard from Tudaluu? I thought we were going to wait before trying to upgrade the guild"

Silabus laughs. "Yeah. We haven't even had this guild upgrade six months and he wants to organize quest parties." He chuckles, then rubs the back of his neck. Coming in here this late reminds him of an eleven-thirty a few days ago when he logged in to see Haseo dash right past like he was an unknown player. "I've been wanting to ask someone, and you ran into Haseo before the tournaments so you might know other places he hangs out . . . have you seen him? He's been acting strange. He's on a lot, but he's always busy. Even back in the tournament, when I suspected he was doing other things, he would take a break when I invited him out on a quest. Now he's always got an excuse to be somewhere else. He's not acting like himself."

Saburou leans against the wall, mulling over the statement. After a moment she looks up at him. "I'd say that you know him better than I do. He was like a completely different person when we all met in that online party last year." Her eyes roll up and her oversized headdress jostles as she looks up. "I think I saw him a couple weeks ago, arguing with some new player with red pigtails. Haven't seen her since, but when Gaspard was at the shop last he mentioned that Haseo was going with him on a party quest."

Her eyes unfocus and Silabus can tell that she's examining the game menus. After a moment she looks back at him. "Well, he's marked as 'busy', but it says both he and Gaspard are on now. Why don't we go find him?"

…

The second-year med student adjusts her carryall bag strap on her shoulder, almost pointing upwards with the motion. The boy she's talking to still doesn't get the hint, so instead of trying a fourth cue, Kubo Moe outright states in a cold deadpan, "My eyes are up here, bub."

Her fellow student gapes once like a fish, then regains control of himself and swallows, looking all the way across the room as a blush spreads over his face. "Uh, I . . . uh . . . sorry, Kubo-chan. I just . . ."

Now Moe contains a sigh, finding no easy escape from the boy verbally tripping over himself. She's well aware that most boys are attracted to her, invitations to dates over lunch or dinner were daily occurrences when she started nursing courses. She mentally meanders around the fact that she exploited this fact to save money on food her first year of med school; playing eye candy for small benefits has gotten old and she wishes that at least the outright jerks would generally leave her alone.

"Asa mo, yoru mo, koikogarete—"

Scrambling a tad more than might be polite, Moe snatches out her phone with an 'I need to take this' gesture before she even sees her Doll Syndrome mentor's name on the caller ID. "Kubo here. What can I do for you, Miyamoto-sensei?"

At hearing her say 'sensei', her fellow student and occasional thorn-in-the-side wanders away. Moe hears the flap of paper and the shuffling of his cell phone being jammed between his shoulder and ear – she knows him well enough to guess the familiar behavior. "We just received funding. About half a dozen shell companies and a couple trust funds were just redirected to us. In the past six weeks, twenty-eight cases of Doll Syndrome have been reported in Kanto hospitals."

Moe breathes in. She was interested in solving the riddle of Doll Syndrome, but most of it was her desire to help her friend Shino. Miyamoto is one of the brilliant yet slightly eccentric researchers who can acknowledge all of the danger of a disease and still marvel on how it works. She notices with no small trepidation that while what he's describing could be both good and bad, it has that excited tone of voice that shows he thinks it is fascinating. "What else, Miyamoto-sensei?"

"Just this morning, Azai Nobutomo was found in his family's condominium in uptown Otsuki. The results of the autopsy should be in before six PM, and I wanted you back in the project."

Kubo Moe is speechless for several seconds. World-wide, there were only eleven fatalities connected with Doll Syndrome, and all of them had more serious extenuating factors like days of dehydration before being found too late. An autopsy could mean only one thing: Doll Syndrome had claimed yet another victim. But how? Almost all of the surviving victims eventually recovered following the Third Network Crisis, there were only a few with lasting, significant neurological damage. Miyamoto called mentioning the resurgence of cases before, but a death . . . "Oh gods. How?"

"It could only be the syndrome. His brother found him in his room, sitting in front of his computer. It was still running The World, though something happened to the connection and the computer was corrupted. He just had lunch at his cram school cafeteria earlier that day and was described as being in 'perfectly average health'."

Moe takes a deep breath and squeezes her brown eyes shut for a moment. It doesn't change anything. "Another case in The World. No. This can't be happening. It was fixed. Everything went away in 2020!"

"I'm afraid not," doctor Miyamoto replies gravely. "If you'll send my office your school supervisor of employment I can get started."

Tabby looks down at the slightly-too-small desks that colleges loved supplying. Starting into her third of five years in medicine, most of it now for physical therapy for more conventional injuries, has isolated her flexibility. Working with Miyamoto wasn't even a question while it was all for Shino, but now that she'd started on a new track she can't help but hesitate. "I'd love to help, Miyamoto-sensei, but I'm not even a graduate student. Wouldn't there be a lot of better-qualified neurologists in the Tokyo area?"

"I'm aware of where you stand now, Kubo-chan," he answers with an authoritative tone. "But you were one of my most productive research associates. Nobody was more determined than you and I to solve this epidemic, and now that it's coming out of relapse I ask you to come back and help us fight it."

A moment passes with nothing but shuffling of students in the adjacent hall before Miyamoto quotes Ishii Shirou, "A good doctor heals patients, a great doctor heals nations."

…

A rattling sound of metal and plastic on wood precedes the click of a door's magnetically-controlled bolt sliding out of locked position. The door of the humble apartment swings slowly open with the faintest creek of its hinges. Brushing his curly brown hair out of the way as he looks into the apartment, Shinichi takes one step inside. Hearing nothing, he glances both directions into the hall and quickly stuffs his magnetic lock-picking kit back into a pocket inside his carryall bag.

"Kenji?"

The lights are on, but there's no answer. Shinichi curses. He even tried calling Kenji's phone, but received no reply. This isn't like Kenji. After another paranoid glance into the hall, he dashes inside and looks around. The Centrix computer he left with Kenji last week is sitting neatly against the far wall, just underneath the sole window. While that was originally why he snuck inside the building, now he's concerned by the lack of word from his childhood friend. Kenji was one of the most reliable people he knew . . .

A body with long, onyx-black hair is sprawled next to the A-11 computer, posed as if somebody punched him straight from the computer. "Ken-kun!"

Shinichi drops his carryall bag and races over to his old friend. The 'blue kitsune' is out cold, and his breathing is shallow. "Ken!" He grabs his friend by the shoulders and shakes him, but it only makes the hacker's head loll over to the other side. "Kenji! Arakawa Kenji! Shit!"

Shinichi snatches out his phone, then freezes. If he called rescue services from here with his own phone, they'd be able to lock onto his time and location. Despite having encryption, he doesn't like the idea of also putting his voice through an emergency operator's station – they record, and while he's wanted throughout Kanto, the police don't have any idea he fled Kyoto thanks to a false identity. He pockets his phone, but looks up and around.

Sitting invitingly on the corner of the kitchenette's counter is the pocket tablet that Kenji uses as a cell phone. Shinichi almost trips over Kenji's body in his rush to get to it. Blinking out of sleep mode, the five-by-five grid of dots in the common smart phone security code appears. Guessing randomly, Shinichi passes his thumb over the dots, drawing a quick horizontal line and long diagonal like most people do. A second passes after his thumb lifts, and the screen returns to the grid.

"Shit man! Why do ya' gotta be so friggin' security conscious all the time?"

He tries another common combination that fails, then stops to regain control of his breathing. Kenji was always a bit of an odd duck, which is probably one reason why he fit into Shinichi's little gang back in Kyoto. "Should'a figured he wouldn't use what everybody else is doin'."

Akemi scoffs and throws the empty soda can at Kenji. The can hits the fifteen-year-old just a shade on the feminine side of androgynous and he reflexively catches the falling object, throwing it into the ground at twice the force. "Aho! I told you to stop throwing that damn sugar-water at me!"

Shinichi cuts in between his two street friends before a fight can escalate – he knows very well how easily his wanna-be-hacker friend gets mad, and it's going to get him into serious trouble some day. "Hey, both of you, chill. Aki-kun, look around for a note, people are lazy and tend to leave reminders if they forget the side door lock at work. Ken-kun, we've broken through this kinda lock before, we just don't have the full combination. Now what do you know about it?"

"Well," Kenji hesitantly ponders, fists only slowly opening. "This model of Silverlight keypad locks always uses four digits. The fact that this one is old and outside actually helps us, because it's gonna get grimy, but the buttons that are used will be slightly cleaner." He pauses and kneels down at the keypad, scrutinizing the twelve buttons. "Here, the two, see how it's a little more shiny? And the seven?"

"Yeah, yeah," Shinichi prods impatiently, glancing around for security or office workers. "The seven is the last digit, and the two's third, but that still leaves two digits. If we punch in the wrong code, it's going to ping the security office and we're never going to get out with those motherboards."

Kenji frowns for a moment, then stares at the keypad for several seconds. In a burst of motion, before Shinichi can stop him, Kenji's right arm comes up and he jabs a sequence of numbers. Shinichi is about to curse when an electrical click emanates from the door. "I don't believe it," Shinichi breathes as he opens the door. He hisses Akemi closer and she joins the trio.

As they slip inside, Shinichi smiles and smacks Kenji in the arm. "How'd you know the correct sequence?"

Kenji just smiles back. "I went with my favourite number. Always start with four."

Shinichi purses his lips, then draws the kanji for 'four'. It looks awkward in the points of the grid, but as soon as he finishes the last stroke, the tablet loads to the main menu. Breathing a sigh of relief, Shinichi brings up the phone function and dials 1 – 1 – 9.

After three rings, the phone clicks and he hears, "Emergency operator, how can I help you?"

"Help," Shinichi awkwardly grinds out in a tense, lowered voice. It sounds nothing like his or Kenji's voice, but he was never good at impressions anyway and it just needs to sound like something not him. "My heart feels like it's burning up! I can't see!"

Shinichi glances up awkwardly as the operator gives the same pointless speech about remaining calm. He gives the apartment number, but he's jumped the back wall so many times that he isn't sure what the address of Kenji's new home is. Squinting hard, the wall doesn't reveal the answer, so he goes with his best guess, an "I think", and gives his name as Arakawa Kenji, then drops the pad and bolts. He wants his old friend to be safe, but he doesn't want to take the chance that the paramedics will call the police if they find him here.

…

Author's Notes:

Some may notice here that the guild Canard can be reached through multiple points – here Silabus enters through Formoraig, and in "Old New Friends" Haseo enters through Breg Epona. This is not an accident – I always thought it was stupid that a guild could no longer access its own At-Home from a previous city after you upgraded. Think about it, that means that Canard, a noob support guild would be unusable by new players. I thought it more sensible that you can enter a guild from whichever city the guild can access, you just return to the same city you entered from.

To those curious, the lyrics heard on Tabby/Moe's ring tone is the opening line to O2 by Orange Range, the opening song to season 2 of Code Geass. The translation of the opening is roughly "During mornings, and nights too, I yearn for love. I'll become a star to protect you, without knowing the whereabouts of the battle." I considered some characters having songs specifically for different people on their call list, but inevitably somebody's boss would get Star Wars' Imperial March.

119 is the emergency number for medical and fire emergency in Japan.

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