AFTERMATH: HACK
Part 1 – The Spoils of Battle
Chapter 2 – Swimming
Aoi
.
Aoi is in a daze after Akira awakens. At first, she doesn't even notice; she's nodded off thinking about Akira and Ai and Playmaker and she can't help but wonder what the latter is doing now. He doesn't show up for school that day (and she can't judge him because neither did she) and Kusanagi at his little cart hasn't seen him either. And surely, despite what she and Revolver and Akira have said, he's still thinking he needs to be the one to stop Ai…
And then Akira's awake and stumbling into the kitchen more disarrayed than she's seen him in a long time, and the laughter that bubbles out of her is part amusement and not simply pure hysterics. Still, Akira takes it as hysterics and hugs her warmly. Their maid robot is powered down in the corner, it's sleep-mode button flashing on and off.
Hayami calls in the midst of that and they pull away from each other reluctantly, and they hurriedly dress and drive down to Sol Technologies. What greets them is a mix of employees recently fired by Ai, and a scatter of powered-down Soltis bots.
Does this mean Ai was defeated? Aoi wonders. It's hard to say when they have no definitive proof, when there's easily over a hundred Soltis lying in the production line who look like him and none of them active as far as Hayami knew. It's easier to say when she mentions one purposefully arranged and covered with a cloak, and easier still when she mentions a shadow she lost sight of along the way.
It's probably Playmaker, and Aoi wonders where he's gone now, and where he will go after all this. Will he return home, return to school, return to a façade of an every day life? Or maybe he's found some peace amongst all of this – and if it hadn't been Ai as the final boss, she would have said he had found that peace. But who knows, now. How knows why Ai did what he did the way he did. Who knew if scars from ten years ago would truly fade because she sees those scars in Miyu as well, and the strained way she forces a smile on her face every time they visit her. But Aoi will stand by her side anyway, just like Akira will always be on her side. She thinks Kusanagi and maybe Soulburner as well will also stand by Playmaker's side, but who knows if Playmaker will come back to them. Whether he'll say hello when they pass each other at school, whether he'll return to the duel room, whether he'll keep on working part time at Café Nagi and whether he'll ever return to Link VRAINS. She wonders if Emma and Go and Blood Sheppard will ever know his true identity as well.
She wonders, fleetingly, how a lone wolf like Playmaker collected so many allies, but maybe it's because they've all fought for peace in different ways and it's drawn them all together. And maybe that's why Ghost Girl and Blood Shephard are here as well, because if Hayami didn't contact them, perhaps Akira did. She doesn't see Go, though, and last she knew he was still employed by Sol Technologies. Maybe he'd some later. Maybe he wouldn't come at all.
Regardless, Akira organises the personnel they have, then heads with Hayami into the building. They follow, of course, because the whole reason they're functioning as a duel team is in case there are any traps around or the Soltis start up again. They pass only slumped robots at first, and Hayami sighs in relief.
She's gone through these halls before, so Aoi supposes it would be a relief to find they haven't activated in her brief absence.
They don't go to the production area. That can wait, even if all of them are burning with curiosity. They head to the central computer instead: the area most important to secure. Then the tea room, as Emma had pointed out half-jokingly. But Aoi remembers Playmaker telling about his time in captivity, how food had been their only driver when hope abandoned them, how they'd had to win duels for their food and starve and try again if they lost until they didn't. A group of grumpy employees probably doesn't rank on the same scale, but there's no denying they'll be happier and more efficient with access to sustenance.
But first they needed to be able to work, and that meant freeing the central computer. Though, the rate they're going, Aoi wonders if they'll wind up just marching right up to the computer.
Unfortunately, that's not the case, and maybe she's tempted fate by thinking otherwise. There are traps on the door to the server room, both Sol Technologies and Ai's. Duel puzzles, one after another, until Blood Sheppard punches the console and Emma starts flicking through her inventory of viruses to see if she has something that might break the endless loop while Aoi holds the fort because none of them want to find out what happens if they get a duel puzzle wrong.
Eventually, Emma finds something and the ghost fizzles out in the middle of activating his face down card (and unlike most duel puzzles she's come across in the past where every provided card is necessary, there've been a few dud face downs including a magic card that had triggered the ghost's own Aegis of Gaia and finished him off). Hayami sighs in relief. So does Aoi, but less noticeably. Blood Shephard simply shoves hard at the doors, and that's where they run into the second problem. The door remains locked, even despite Akira's priority pass and them breaking through the loop of duel puzzles.
Or maybe that's the problem, Aoi muses as she regards Emma's sheepish look. Maybe force is the wrong answer. But when shoving the door doesn't work, Blood Shephard pulls out a small computer and a few wires and sets about attempting to dismantle it.
"He's rewritten the entire code." Akira frowns at the screen. "If he's done this to all the security area… Not to mention there aren't that many people who can break Ignis code."
Luckily, Aoi thinks, Blood Shephard doesn't seem to be having too much trouble with the Ignis code.
"He replicated it well enough to trick Playmaker and Soulburner," Akira points out, when the panel flicks green. He gives the doors a push and they open.
There are more Soltis inside, one slumped over at the desk of every computer. Aoi stares at the façade of them in human work roles, but the Soltis look too much like humans and it's more frightening than bizarre to behold. Hayami, surprisingly, marches up to one and pushes it off, then jumps when it hits the floor. Perhaps it's her desk, or perhaps she's just walked up to one at random.
Akira climbs the stairs to his own desk. There's no Soltis in his seat, but maybe that's because the Soltis are artificial intelligence and don't need sub-leaders in the mix. Still, the computers are accessible once they clear out the Soltis… and then question then becomes: what are they going to do with all the Soltis?
They'll have to withdraw the data chips, of course, but Ai wasn't a data chip so how did he move? There's also the question of what to do with their physical bodies, especially now that they'd amassed several times their carrying capacity.
"Let's put them in the parking level," Akira says, finally. "We can use the trolleys we use to move computers and other hardware to help us."
"And then what?" Blood Shephard asks, scowling. Aoi doesn't think she's seen a smile from him still… or heard his real name, for that matter.
"Repurpose or dismantle them, I suppose." He shrugs. "Honestly, if they stay inactivated, then what do with them is pretty low on my priority list. Especially since we've all street-parked tonight anyway."
But lifting the limp Soltis is awkward work, even if they only have to carry them onto and off the trolleys. Aoi, being younger smaller than the others, winds up being slower as well but slowly they empty out the room. The data chips they leave in a pile on one of the desks for the maintenance staff to have a look at.
And once about half the desks are cleared, they fetch the others in and they start getting to work.
And Aoi and Emma leave them to it and start looking for the kitchens instead.