Chapter 13: Top – secret project
10:24 AM (Honolulu Time), Thursday June the 26th…
"… MARCO!"
"M-my lady?"
"What day is it today?"
"Huh? Well… Thursday…"
"What day of the month!"
"W-well… The 26th…"
"And this is the year 2008, right?"
"Eh… Yes… But… Why…?"
"DAMN IT ALL!"
"HUH? My lady?"
"Damn my memory!"
"Huh? Did you forget to order something, my lady?"
"MARCO! Don't you remember? 5 years ago!"
"2003? Summer 2003…?"
"No! Early 2003…!"
Anaya had been sitting in a white plastic hammock set in a terrace protruding from a large volcano in an island somewhere: she'd been sunbathing given how she had a purple plain bikini on and sunglasses on plus had been reading a magazine when she suddenly gasped and got to her feet in a rush: Izono rushed in at her call (he wore a black tuxedo and black pants): she turned to face him.
"Huh… Early 2003…? Huff… Let's see… If the 3 guys are about 25 each and they have been around for 9 years… It'd been 4 years by then and we'd sent all of them to handle on their own already…"
"We're forgetting about "IT"!"
"What, the Palace? It got blown up, my lady."
"NO! Antarctica!"
"A-Antarctica? Why's that? Is there someone you know who is part of a scientific exploration mission or…?" He trailed off and frowned.
"Heck! Don't you remember?" She snapped.
"I'm sorry, my lady, but… It's foggy for some reason or another."
"JEEZ! The Project…!"
"Project…? Some project proposed back then…?"
"Yeah! A project we underwent you and I in top secret! No one else knows about it to begin with! It's top-secret!"
"Could it be…?" Izono gasped.
"It's exactly what you're thinking of, Marco!"
"But then… The set date was…?"
"Tomorrow! Friday June the 27th!"
"But it's already the 27th in Japan!"
"But we set the system to use the Honololu time frame because that's where we used to send the shuttles! The original plan was for a shuttle to escort them to the landing site of the "Palace" and then get in before we jumped back into HEO…! And this magazine helped me remember!"
She showed him an article which was titled "PROJECT TO DIG INTO ANCIENT ANTARCTIC LAKE: COULD THERE BE ANCIENT MICROSCOPIC LIFE THERE?" occupying two pages along with maps, drawings and photos.
"Whoa! Then we were lucky to remember and that Twilight rescued us with enough time to remember this… Say… What do we tell the guy about this? Won't he feel betrayed or…?"
"Hum. Good point. We could explain that we didn't think of it back then."
"True… We wanted to try out a new methodology after all."
"Thanks goodness I remember! Can you image them starting up, leaving the lab and then… No clue of what to do next? No transmission? No coordinates?" Anaya told him.
"By all the… 5 years' work… Turned into a vain thing! No result! No future and no progress!" He gasped in horror.
"Exactly! Damn it! I should've written down a memo even if it was something vague like "IMPORTANT: JUNE THE 27th, 2008" and no – one would've thought about it. I could've said this: "Hah! My Maria instinct tells me MGS4 is gonna come out then!" and even Vadous and the others would've fallen for it… I'm such an idiot!"
"So? What do we tell Twilight?"
"Let's not say anything until we secure their arrival here."
"Good. Do you still remember where the lab was at?"
"Under that old Indian outpost, Gondwana… The entrance was properly hidden and no – one should've bothered to check the hanger… Luckily we found out about another thing which "Dimensional Converters" could do when we built our own system to absorb environment EM to recharge: the resulting "Dimensional Area" had to renew from time to time but it protected the vehicle nevertheless… Building a "super energy" engine to it was wise because otherwise storing fuel for 5 years in Antarctica and then getting it to work on the vehicle…" Anaya trailed off.
"No wonder we had to start work in early 2003 and we couldn't leave everything set up until that summer…"
"Exactly. Alright. I'm starting to draw a rough schematic of what we're going to do with them."
"Are we going to follow the same pattern?"
"No! We're going to just train them to be useful in Net Battles. We're missing that: I know Twilight's good at hacking and that he's got the Darkloids but nevertheless… It would be fitting…"
"As an opponent to Hikari Netto and Rock Man…?" Izono quickly caught up and lifted his eyebrows slightly.
"Exactly."
"And should we chase our goal from about 4 years ago?"
"What was that again? Ah! Have those two become merchandise? No point on it: without the "Palace"… And that's why Vadous and the others locked us in Louisiana anyway." She shrugged.
"So should we have the project…?"
"No! I've had a better idea. Nothing."
"Excuse me?"
"We'll them NOTHING of sex, S&M and anything related to it! We'll just airbrush our own tale, say we were playing Star Wars by coming up with those 3 plus imitating MGS… And say they locked us 'cause… Meh! We just were trafficking with drugs and guns… And they came for us 'cause we didn't have any political ties… Make it look like they picked on the weakest when they should've gone for the big birds in Mexico and the southern Ameroupe nations…" She rubbed her hands.
"I see. To avoid them from getting scandalized…"
"And we'll have Twilight be their mentor in Net Battles. I'll speak with the guy so that he says nothing of the stuff either. He knows how to obey so he won't go outside his orders. Besides… The programming… It will be an insurance to make sure they have no interest on that…" She sneered.
"Oho. I'd forgotten we purposely programmed them like that… Well. Now we need to figure out how to contact the lab and prove it's us."
"I think that the surveillance program had some keywords stored on them for quick ID… We could use those."
"Good. We should hope the armor we designed is good enough because it's winter down there by now. And a really fierce winter…"
"True. But since they'll soon get into the vehicle then… No worries."
"We should warn Mr. Opoulos about their arrival, right?"
"Obviously. And I need him to tell me the exact coordinates of this place: the air traffic controllers will only be told "someone" will be coming over and to expect them." Anaya replied.
"Plain enough… And we should make it think that the "visitor" is someone Mr. Opoulos called for as well?" He suggested.
"Yeah. I'll tell him the deal when they get here." She replied as she leant on the terrace handrail and looked out into the ocean.
"By your will, my lady."
He made a courteous bow and came out while Anaya sneered and picked up the magazine again.
"Science… Heh! You ended up saving our lil project so I'll praise you yet for the time being. Heh, heh, heh. Let's call the guy over and get an update on things…"
She headed back to the hammock and picked up a walkie-talkie: she pressed the call button and stopped: a reply rang out and soon enough Yoru Yami stepped into the balcony.
"Twilight. How are things in Japan?"
"They're slowly rebuilding Internet City and overall 57% is back to what it was: but the train and ambulance thing did get a lot more publicity than we'd expected… They're now obsessed with trying to find any accounts in tax havens, ma'am…" He calmly reported.
"Hmpf! Let them look: like they'll find us like that…"
"Truly. I will plant some red herrings. Do excuse me."
"Go, bad boy, and give them some headaches. Tee, heh, heh."
Yoru Yami bowed and walked out as well while Anaya resumed reading and sunbathing.
"I'm a genius! No one else but I could come up with this! Tee, heh, heh!"
07:44 AM (Japan Time), Friday June the 27th…
"… Phew! In the end we did take down those guys."
"Yeah. And the final clash between both of those giants was spectacular: I hate to admit it but…"
"I know…"
"Mwah, hah, hah. Of Clash and Spectaculars goes Spectacular-Clash Man & co."
"Sigma! I can't stand that randomness! It drives me mad!"
"Stop pestering Saito – kun, Sigma! It makes me feel mad too."
The twins were discussing at home while wearing their street clothes (Netto had his usual ones while Saito had a blue vest instead and jeans) and facing each other: Sigma came up with a silly pun which Blood Shadow didn't like to begin with.
"And that of the explosive ambulance and train was creepy."
"Yeah. At least Aoki – san was unharmed. It turns out she used to Mejin – san's girlfriend."
"Maybe that's why they picked her?" Sigma asked.
"Dunno."
"And Twilight keeps on toying with us without really proving his force: he provokes us by appearing using 3D images…" Netto sighed.
"Yeah. The creep…"
"At least… Vadous – san thinks that Anaya won't come for us. That'd be predictable and she hates being predictable."
"That's the good news, I guess."
"News & Good Man came out of the closet!"
"Oh come on! Sigma! You go tell that to an RSS feed service." Blood Shadow challenged Sigma next.
"Why not… Heh, heh, heh… Heh, heh, heh…"
He ran off and the three of them sighed in relief: they heard a yelp and Program – kun rushed in.
"A black demon! A black demon! A black demon!"
"Oh come on. Sigma loomed over him to scare him."
"By the way, Blood… Shadow Man sent a mail…"
"… I know. He called me "Samus Aran's little half-brother"… And that's an irony because Boss got inspired on her armor made by the Bird-folk Tribe which is known as "Chouzo" overseas due to some mistake… The name stuck… But the original is "Choujin-zoku"…"
"Oh. Is that so?"
"Bang, bang! Lucky Luke came to fire ya~!"
"Oh come on! Sigma. Go out troll with Shadow Man."
"Sure. With Shadowy~ Ninja~ Man!"
"Commander Omega is about to run out of patience!" Blood Shadow warned him.
"YIKES!"
"Net Navi Sigma has departed the LAN and into the WAN through Port 80, TCP & IP, of the firewall." An automated voice reported.
"Finally!" He exasperatedly sighed.
"Huh? A call… Dekao. What happened now?"
"I beat Bubble Man to a pulp! I'm the strongest!" Dekao grinned.
"Bubble Man doesn't count. He's a weakling and the comic relief guy of all "Darkloids" out there… Try beating a "Neo Gospel" jerk instead and maybe then I'll praise you." Netto dully replied.
"Hah! I knew it. Chu. Niichan always forgets that Bubble Man doesn't count and tries to play strong guy! Chu! But fails at it! Chu!"
"Wha~h! Chisao!" He gasped.
"No, niichan! Chu! Face reality! Chu!"
"Meiru – chan! Fate is cruel to me~!"
"You're the one who lives in a fantasy world to begin with." Saito sighed and rolled his eyes.
"Saito~! Back then Meiru – chan teamed up with me!"
"Back then? Oh. When Fire Man wanted to have a rematch in late September, 2004? It's been almost 4 years. People change. So why don't you accept that Meiru – chan has changed too and made it clear she never thought of you of being anyone but a classmate?"
"No way~!"
"Guts, guts! Guts Man will marry Roll – chan."
"I'm skeptical." Blood Shadow muttered.
"What's "skeptical", de guts?"
"I don't believe it." He simplified.
"Why, de guts? Guts Man is strong! Guts Man beat Bubble Man!"
"You couldn't beat Sigma 3 years ago and despite how much you've tried your so-called "Mugen Vulcan Spawn Strategy" failed because Sigma's armor is resistant to bullet attacks: you only got them to bounce off his body and waste your Folder." Saito sighed.
"No way, de guts!" He gasped.
"Try using the head… Gorilla Man." He settled.
"Yeah. Chisao! Give Dekao an earful. He's asking for it, anyway."
"MEIRU – CHA~N!"
"Baka niichan! CHU~!"
"Here we go again: the city goes weird in the summer, doesn't it?"
13:07 PM (Honolulu Time), Thursday June the 26th…
BEEP… BEEP… BEEP… BEEP…
Sounds rang out in an armored cubical chamber somewhere: this chamber had few objects on it but there was one which stood out.
And that "one" was a tall cylinder with two cone-shaped ends set in the exact middle of it: the main body was over two meters tall and the ends were about 50cm tall each.
The front half of it had two perfectly sealed curved panels of blackened thick glass while the rear half was a curved metallic body.
Two LCD monitors had been set a few centimeters away from the SW and SE corners and were linked to the main cylinder by wires secured on the ground.
The left monitor displayed life-signs graphs like heartbeat, blood flow and EEG activity: the heartbeats were surprisingly low and slow and the EEG line was flat.
The right monitor displayed a Navi's frame which was unlit: they were floating about 10cm over the ground while surrounded by four purplish rings forming a sphere of purple energy around them: most of their body was hidden by a purple robe and hood but they seemed to be slightly over a meter and eighty tall.
The north end of the room had two huge armored metallic doors with four large hydraulic locks placed along their height and keeping it locked up: it looked very hard to force open.
A path had been painted using purple pain from the doors to the front of the cylinder where some small metallic steps allowed one to climb up to the height of the cylinder's main body.
The room was rather silent save for the almost silent life-support system monitor and some occasional humming of a machine hidden somewhere out of sight.
Two pairs of switched off fluorescent tubes were set in the ceiling.
"… Code D7K5B3… ID: Izono Marco… Unit "I"! Awaken."
"… Huh…? Unh… Huh… Uh…"
The Navi seemed to slowly awake and some holographic windows with graphs and data on them popped out followed by another displaying Izono's face.
"Mr. Secretary…? It's been… too long, sir…" They sluggishly replied.
"Is everything alright over there?"
"Yes, sir… Please wait a minute, sir… I need to update my clock with the computer's clock… Honolulu time… HUH! Tomorrow! Tomorrow is THE DAY…! I know I awoke on the 1st to carry out the trimester revision but I hadn't thought the time had finally come…!" The Navi gasped.
"I'm sending coordinates. There'll be a slight change of plans but no big deal: the rendezvous location has just changed… Follow the written protocol step by step and don't rush it up."
"Roger, sir… We have waited 5 years, sir… I don't mind waiting another few hours, sir… Finally… My watch-man duty will end… And my true mission will commence…!" The Navi sounded eager.
"Good enough. Sorry for the long time without contacting but, to be honest, we'd almost forgotten about you two… We'll tell you when you get here safe and sound… Nothing to be concerned about… Is the vehicle in a good status as well?" Izono asked as if to check up.
"Hmmm… Hanger sensors say so, sir…"
"Excellent. Phew. Close, way TOO close…! Anyway… Let's meet tomorrow, Unit "I"… Izono, out."
The screens faded and the Navi mumbled before seemingly falling asleep again but not before producing a small chuckle.
Finally… 5 years of waiting will come to an end… In less than 24 hours from now! Heh, heh, heh. I'm impatient already to see your evolution, my room-mate… Soon you will become my new Operator and pal… Heh, heh, heh!