DotHack: Rejoinder

A DotHack fanfiction by Renfro Calhoun

Disclaimer: Project .Hack and attached concepts are property of Bandai and Cyber Connect. They are used without permission, but with the utmost respect.

Notes: I'm sure you're all tired of hearing me apologize; a rather nasty combination of technical problems from an OS upgrade, work-related stress, and holiday-related insanity has quite neatly sucked up the majority of my capacity for clear thought. Dragon Age: Origins and the Nameless Mod for Deus Ex had a rather firm hold on my free time as well, sadly. Well, not 'sadly' so much, as they're pretty awesome games, but you know what I mean.

I'll be frank. The extended hiatus between chapters eight and nine (nine and ten according to the site) did not help my ability to keep the story straight, and I was worried it was starting to show. I took the time to also reread and re-plan things, and hopefully everything will make sense in time. Fortunately, I've got the next chapter well under way, and with any luck it should be easier to keep the ball rolling now. With all that said, let's read on, shall we?

Nexus

"So, wait, you're saying the guy is literally made of swords? That's what that means?"

"Something like that," said Hiroshi into the phone, swerving around a mailbox. "I guess you have to play the game to get it."

"And here I thought it was just Engrish," Dean muttered through the line.

"It could still be that, I just know about it from Yasuhiko. I'll ask him to burn you a copy."

"Groovy, thanks. But to get back on topic, it sounds like we both had a hell of a day," said Dean, his voice cracking with static. "How are you holding up?"

Hiroshi glanced up the street as he crossed, ensuring the way was clear. "I'm okay, but I am worried," he said into his cell phone; in truth, he'd been grateful for Dean's momentary digression. "If what you said - what Lios said - is true, then it wasn't a glitch I saw. Someone's trying to make us think Poet was data drained."

"Which means someone is anticipating this, or maybe even controlling it." Dean sounded relieved, almost enthusiastic. "This is starting to make some sense. Whoever, or whatever, Poet is, someone is trying to throw us off the scent. The way Lios put it, it could also be a shot across the bow for some wavering board members. I'm not gonna know for sure until I get in and check out the office."

"Didn't you say the police were tailing you?" Hiro asked, dropping his voice so a passing cluster of teens wouldn't overhear.

"Yeah, and they're not the only ones," Dean sighed. "I'm working on that. But you may have just saved me a lot of time. What are you all up to right now?"

Horns honked as the light changed behind Hiroshi, cars beginning to flow into the intersection. "We're looking into who Poet could have been. Balmung, Orca, and I think this may be tied to the history of the company. Whoever she is, she knows enough about everything we've been through to try and stage a data drain. Since Harald's work started with Fragment, this may even give us an idea of what we're up against."

"Good a place as any to start from."

Hiro took his phone away from his ear to check the time; he'd forgotten his watch. Sunlight glinted off the screen, nearly blinding him. "Balmung's player, Keisuke, just sent a message to both of us to meet him at the library. He said it was important, but wouldn't say why. Akira's also meeting some friends of hers that know about the Epitaph, she said they might know something about Fragment."

"Here's hoping. All right, I got some prep work to do before tonight, I'll probably talk to you tomorrow. Good luck!"

Hiro turned towards an old three-story building on the corner of the intersection; the public library Balmung had mentioned. "You too, Dean. Be careful!" he said, then flipped the phone closed.

He calmly pushed through the revolving door, out of the humid afternoon air and into the welcome arms of air conditioning. It didn't take long to spot Yasuhiko, waiting by the front desk with an eye on the door. The boy nodded to Hiro and waved him over, stepping away from the desk.

"Hey Hiro," said Yasu, leading them towards the nearest aisle of books. "We're over this way."

"What's going on?" asked Hiroshi, carefully stepping around a footstool. "His message was pretty vague."

A shadow hung over Yasu's face, unnerving his younger friend. "I don't know, I just got here a few minutes ago. He seemed kinda nervous, and he said something about some email he got this morning."

Hiro's imagination took over, guessing any number of possible clues or warnings Balmung could have received. If it shook him up, it can't be good news.

Yasuhiko led him around a corner to a small table, and as Hiroshi caught sight of Keisuke it occured to him the two had never actually met offline before. Even if he hadn't known beforehand, Hiro could see some resemblances to Balmung: tall, athletic, longish brown hair hanging down over his forehead and accenting his narrow, piercing eyes. Keisuke paced back and forth around the table, worry writ into his brow and one hand palming his chin, only partially dispelling the 'stoic prettyboy' image he shared with his avatar.

He turned to Hiroshi and Yasuhiko as they joined him at the table, and immediately accosted the younger boy with questions. "Did you see anybody on the way in? Were you followed??" he asked in a hurried voice.

Off-put and puzzled, Hiro fumbled his reply. "N-no... wait, what? What's going on? Followed by who?"

"It's okay, nobody was following us," said Yasuhiko, holding his hands up and motioning for Keisuke to calm down. "Now tell us: what's the problem? Why did we have to meet here?"

Kei gulped quietly, trying to reassert some control over himself. "Sorry guys, I... I mean, here's what happened. Overnight I received two emails. One was from... you remember when we were looking for Hokuto, and I sent several emails to old addresses looking for her? I explained who I was and what we were dealing with, and asked if she still played the game. I also asked if she knew where Albireo had gone. Most of the emails just bounced back right away, but one replied. If it's to be believed, it's her."

Hiroshi blinked, giving Yasuhiko a questioning look. The taller boy simply shrugged back, then asked, "What'd she say?"

Kei swallowed and shifted his weight, an awkward movement out of character for the veteran blademaster he played. "She said she hadn't played in a while, and that Albireo's player was... in hiding."

"That doesn't sound ominous at all," Yasuhiko remarked with a sarcastic scoff. "Did she say where?"

"Not exactly, and she sounded suspicious of me as well. She said they were taking precautions, and they had to leave Tokyo..."

"'They' makes it sound like she's hiding with him," Hiro muttered.

"...but she said he'd be willing to meet with one of us down in Osaka. I'm to reply for further instructions."

Yasuhiko crooked his head to one side, recoiling slightly. "That's hardly in the neighborhood. How do we even know it's her?"

Keisuke shook his head, the concern on his face growing more obvious. "I don't know, the whole thing's weird. But the really strange one came just minutes later, and... I don't know what to make of it. It was an unknown sender, but it was addressed to me. The subject read "Don't go." The rest was just, "You'll just lose another friend, Balmung." That's it."

The words hung in the air, the threat a little more than implied. Each youth was silent, all chilled by words that went unsaid; words like, 'we know who you are,' and 'we're watching you.' Yasuhiko tried to say something, but his mouth opened for nothing. Keisuke just hung and shook his head, himself lost for useful words.

Hiro kept still but mentally reeled in horror, his mind recalling a more direct threat from over a year ago. In his thoughts he saw a smoking, coal-black gun barrel, pointed unsteadily in his direction through an open doorway. He was close enough to smell spent gunpowder. Shouts came from the hallway beyond, followed by the groans of a dying man, and then running footsteps. It was all soon buried under the sound of Hiroshi's pounding heart.

"So what the hell do we do?" asked Yasuhiko, almost rhetorically; he wasn't expecting an answer.

Kei replied anyway. "I don't know. We have to... warn somebody, do something. A vagrant AI wouldn't have sent him into hiding. These people know about us. This is real. This is TOO real."

"Just come with us and we won't hurt Aura," said a voice in the back of Hiro's mind, a blatant threat that hinted how much the speaker knew. Unconsciously, he started to breathe faster, shorter; the words of his friends were faint and distant to him. "Not Aura, not your friend BlackRose, not anybody."

"But what do we do, just go to the police? And tell them what?"

No... it can't be. It's not happening again. The quiet, serene library started to darken and dim to his eyes, taking on a menacing touch. His vision spun as he drew in short, shallow gasps, and something cold and sharp started to dig hard into his chest.

"Maybe we can... hey, Hiro?"

The world seemed so far away. He heard his friends from far off, their voices echoing down a long, dark tunnel. Between them he heard shouts, shots, police sirens; voices he knew and trusted, but memories tainted by violence and fear. He felt constricted, bound, and whatever it was only got tighter with every passing second.

"Hiro!"

The sensation in his chest slowly faded, and Hiro shook his head vigorously to dispel the shadows. Slowly his sight refocused, and he saw his two friends standing close to him, both looking concerned. "Um... s-sorry guys," he meekly muttered between controlled breaths, his cheeks flushed.

Yasuhiko looked grimly at him, knowing more or less why Hiro had zoned out. He then turned to Keisuke and nodded to him. "Tell Hokuto we'll agree to meet her," he said. "We can't just run around Osaka ourselves, but we'll let Lios know. He'll want to meet Albireo."

"It's as good a plan as any," said Keisuke. He glanced again at Hiroshi, watching the younger teen calm himself. "You okay, Hiro?"

"Yeah... yeah, I'll be okay." Hiro swallowed past a lump in his throat, nodding unconvincingly to Keisuke. "Just bad memories."

Yasuhiko gently patted his friend on the shoulder, a faint glimmer of fear in his own expression. "It's all right," he said with a tremor in his voice, in spite of his best efforts to control it. "It's... it's gonna be all right."

Hiroshi sighed and slid into a nearby chair, hunching over the table. An unseen weight caused his shoulders to sag, and as he glanced up at Keisuke and Yasuhiko, he swore he could see them buckling under the same weight. Even as a voice inside urged him to toughen up, to persevere, a small part of him wanted nothing more than to just set it all down.

For the first time he could remember, Hiro felt ready to do just that.

The teenaged girl set the can of soda down on the diner table and unhooked her backpack. She traded looks with her friends as she slid into the seat, setting the back down by her feet. "Thanks for waiting, you two."

Akira smiled. "No problem, Yuuko. Thanks for coming. Sorry if I sounded a little vague over the phone."

"Risa said she had something to do afterwards," said Shouko, seated next to Yuuko in the booth. "But anyway, you were asking about Fragment?"

"Yeah, it's... complicated." Akira frowned, folding her hands and pressing her thumbs together. "Lately some strange stuff has been happening in The World, and we're starting to think it's related to how the game began."

Yuuko nodded, popping open her soda can. "I did some basic research a while ago, but there's a lot of conflicting information. Supposedly the core idea for Fragment originated with an internet start-up back in 2000. They went under when the tech bubble burst, but a larger company..." she trailed off, pulling a small notepad out of her backpack. "Here we go, Reprise Software, out of Germany, they bought rights to the idea. The lead programmer for Reprise was none other than Harald Hoerwick."

"So Harald didn't actually start Fragment?" asked Akira, confused.

"No no, he did. At the time Fragment was just a basic online game template," said Yuuko to clarify. "It was Harald who added the details to it. But then later, Reprise was absorbed by Cyber Connect during a hostile takeover, along with most of their intellectual properties. I'm not clear how, but Fragment remained Harald's property, though he wound up selling it to CC anyway. Although Harald didn't have any supervisors for the project, his immediate superior was one Aldous Rosenberg."

"Where have I heard that name before..." Akira muttered dryly, knowing well where she had.

"The Asara CEO?" Shouko asked in her stead. "The one that got busted for that big heist from Cyber Connect? You're saying he was Harald's boss?"

"That's what it says. But more importantly, it's suggested that Harald secretly had help in testing Fragment, and that the whole thing was a mechanism for developing the ultimate AI. It's unclear who, and this gets into rumor territory, but three separate posters said more or less the same thing: he knew it was going to work because they had tried it before. All three said 'they', not 'he'."

Akira pursed her lips, mentally parsing the information. "Huh."

"Wonder why all the mystery, though," said Shouko. "I mean, you hear a lot about Harald in connection to The World, but it's like he's supposed to be some mythical figure. I mean, a project that big would've had to have investors, people to test it..."

"Exactly," said Yuuko. She passed the pad over to Shouko, showing a cirled name amongst her scribbled notes. "I was able to find a name in connection to all this, Emiko Shirai. She was another member of Reprise, and she put forward some theory on AI development that was the foundation of Fragment after Reprise got it. I wasn't sure what else to look for, so I looked into the theory, called AIDA."

Her two friends looked at her oddly, but said nothing "It stands for Artificially Intelligent Data Anomaly," Yuuko explained. "She theorized that true AI wouldn't arise from internal programming. You couldn't make a function complex enough to simulate human growth, or so she argued. An actual AI, or something close enough to be called one, would instead have to develop itself inside a specially-designed environment. If these rumors are accurate, that's what Fragment was supposed to be."

"And that would become The World," said Akira, starting to connect a few dots in her head. "So it's designed to... grow AI?"

"Sort of. It's designed to modify the program based on external data. I don't know how that makes it easier to do, but she was a Nobel candidate for the theory, and one poster seemed certain that she'd actually built a prototype of this system. However, she couldn't get investors and ultimately had to scrap it, which was simply called the 'black box'. That's all I could find, though."

"So Harald was intent on developing a real artifical intelligence," said Shouko, looking from the notepad back up to Yuuko. "And he worked with someone who built a program to do just that. And this black box... it was real?"

Yuuko nodded. "Yeah, it sounds like some kind of server farm built to house the algorithm. At least, that's how the summary reads. The details only get more vague after that. Of course, most of this is from old forum posts, so I really don't know how much is accurate. But they're all telling the same story."

"Hiro-kun was told that the poem left things behind," said Akira, letting her eyes wander as she pondered aloud. "If this..."

There was a brief silence from her friends, long enough for Akira to notice the curious stares of her friends. She trailed off in midsentence and caught Shouko quickly averting her eyes, while Yuuko tried her best to hide a tiny smirk. "Wh-what is it?" BlackRose's player hesitantly asked.

Yuuko suppressed a giggle, waving off her friend's concern and breaking the mood. "It's nothing, it's nothing."

Akira frowned. "What, is there something on my face? What is it?" she repeated.

Shouko threw her seatmate a flat look, then turned back to Akira. "Sorry, I just never heard you call him Hiro-kun before."

"Wha... huh?" Akira blinked, then blushed a bit; she hadn't even realized she'd used the suffix. She couldn't remember ever using them, least of all with a boy two years her junior. With anybody else it might not have been a big deal, but she knew her friends took a too-active interest in her love life. In her haste to reply she tripped over her tongue, more embarrassed thanks to her company than from what she actually said. "S-so what? Hiro and I... well... y-you know! What's the big deal, right?"

Yuuko laughed a little harder. "Now I'm really glad we didn't invite Hagiya along," she said, earning her a death stare from Akira and a sharp elbow to the ribs from Shouko. "Ow! Hey, I'm just saying..."

Shouko rolled her eyes, but she had the look of biting her own tongue to keep from laughing with her friend. "It's just funny how things turned out, in spite of your planning."

"There you go again with that 'your plan' stuff, like it wasn't you who got her to watch his concert..."

Akira could imagine the same scene in any of a dozen or so of her country's animated exports, and it made her want to beat her head against a wall. "Ugh! Let's just focus here, okay? This 'black box,' if it's real, could it be responsible for all that's happening in The World?"

Yuuko's smile faded, and she could only shrug. "Honestly, I don't know. It seems like it could, but... it's just hard to believe. And like I said, you have to consider the source. All we have to go on are rumors."

"From what I've heard, this outbreak shares a few similarities with the last one," Shouko said, also straightening up. "That doesn't prove it's the same thing happening again, but if The World is basically one giant 'black box,' then maybe what we're seeing is one of these anomalies in effect."

"So it doesn't all come from Harald," Akira mused. "We know he based Fragment on the Epitaph, and that Aura was supposed to be the daughter he and Emma Wielant could have had. But it's sounding more and more like this... what was her name, Emiko? It sounds almost like she was..."

"...the mother," Yuuko finished quietly. "The real mother."

"Can I help you, sir?"

The young delivery man strolled up to the receptionist's desk and cleared his throat. "Yes, I'm here for a pickup from Mrs. Cook, she called it in this morning."

"Mrs. Cook?" the girl wrinkled her brow, then her face lit up in recognition. "Ahh, of course. Just a moment, sir."

The Cyber Connect desk clerk leaned over in her chair, pushing aside a pile of papers and producing a clean, sealed envelope ready for shipping. The package had struck her as odd; she hadn't known of anyone named 'Cook' that worked in the building. Still, she gave it little thought as she handed the document over, and the delivery man deftly scanned it in.

"Busy day?" she asked, flashing him a cheerful smile.

He smiled back as he turned away, a small scab marring his lower lip. "Just getting started, I'm afraid. Have a nice day, ma'am!"

"You too, Mr. Koda! See you tomorrow!"

Saito strode purposefully across the sunlit Cyber Connect lobby, out the doors and down the steps away from the building. He passed the substantial foot traffic of people entering and leaving for lunch, and hopped into the waiting delivery truck. Confident that nobody could see exactly what he was doing, he tore the package open and pulled out the few sheets of paper within.

A small black USB drive tumbled free from the envelope, plopping into his hand. Attached to it was a simple post-it note, bound by a rubber band and marked with hurried pen scratches: "These should be authentic enough to convince them. Move when he does, and be discreet."

The thin-faced thug carefully put the drive away and set the envelope on the seat next to him. Whatever you say, 'Seaen,' whatever you say.