AFTERMATH: HACK
Part 1 – The Spoils of Battle

Chapter 18 – Inconclusive
Kengo

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Kengo isn't sure why Emma calls, or why he humours her. Maybe that's what normal siblings do. Still, it somehow ends with him exploring less criminal options for hacking and programming skills. It somehow ends with him suggesting she pursues debugging as a temporary job until she finishes her degree.

Though, talking to her, the degree is more a cover-up than actual future prospects. He still thinks he's missing something but some people just like the thrill of living life at the edge. But if that's the case, he knows Emma's already started the process of settling down. She just hasn't seen it yet. Just won't admit it yet.

He'll prod her then. That's what older brother do, right?

And in the meantime, he still has his desk job to fall back on while Link VRAINS is closed. Yes, pockets of time open up but he's still working on the Soltis as well. Zaizen Akira has his own team working on it, but he's happy to pay a token out of pocket for Kengo's individual research as well. He's even asked for something specific, something he won't have the research team explore.

"I want to be sure the Ignis won't come back," he says. "I want to be sure it's all over."

And he knows Kengo is one person who'll never take the Ignis on board, even if they were offered on a platter lined with gold.

He was tired of the tedium earlier – and maybe that was part of the Ignis' plan, to make the Soltis code so long and convoluted that most of the time was spent in clearing out the trash. But Emma was a nice direction. Perhaps she timed it. Perhaps she didn't. Either way, he's had his break now, knows Emma isn't tearing across Den City in her motorcycle ignoring the speed limit, and he can get back to his little side-job.

He's chopped the code into a quarter, now, but he's saved the rest of it anyway just in case. The parts not necessary to the programming, and the parts that are. He's sure the people at SOL Technologies will just delete it. He should, by all rights, just delete it, but something nags at him and he's not sure why. He knows the Ignis is petty enough to waste all their times but maybe he isn't. Maybe there's another message hidden in there.

When he thinks that, he thanks himself for the foresight of having saved some of the data on the locks and traps left at SOL Technologies, as well.

And the data on over a hundred SOLtis, with two different varieties…

No, three. He frowns at the one he currently has open. This one's been rewritten; there are soft traces of it everywhere. Data scars, if he had to call it something. He can see traces of people and duels: Soulburner, Playmaker, Revolver, the Zaizen siblings, Go Onizuka, the Knights of Hanoi, Queen from SOL Technologies…

He wonders if this is the original. If, he can dig out the scraps and restore the memory data, he can discover what happened in that duel between him and Playmaker.

He knows Zaizen Akira isn't asking for this. That Emma wouldn't do this. Emma wouldn't even search for Playmaker on SOL Technologies' request, citing that she owed him, so he doubted she'd invade his privacy in such a manner. But he has no such qualms, and he needs confirmation more badly than Zaizen Akira seeks it.

Or maybe Zaizen Akira has another way of getting it. He was somehow able to contact Playmaker and his cohort. He must have known a way to contact them. He must have a way to contact him now.

But Zaizen Akira is just an employer, and Kengo doesn't particularly want to be able to contact Playmaker. He can gain more from this, he thinks: programmes that are finite, restricted and don't surprise.

But the Ignis are none of that and that's the problem. Their programmes self-update and change and he can see traces of that all round.

And then he finds it, late at night when his eyes are burning and the dregs of coffee in his cup have gone cold. But he finds it, and settles back into his chair to watch the big reveal.

And he frowns, because that's an idiot of an Ignis, at the end of the day. After having spent so long with humans, he doesn't think they can exceed his expectations? Doesn't think Playmaker, for all his duelling and winning against the odds, had anything to do with that himself?

Is it simply that arrogant, he wonders, or can it not grasp the possibilities beyond the box?

Still, it's an ending. The Ignis says it's destroyed itself and all its copies. Playmaker didn't back down from it, in the end. He'd make a good Bounty Hunter, if that was something he sought to pursue in the future. But looking at that look on his face… Who knew? He'd give it a fifty-fifty shot if he was a gambling man.

He isn't. He's a man who played to win and played with the favour of the odds.

But he ponders on the conversations, on the duel. The duel itself is beyond what he's capable of – he knows that, even if it grates – but the conversation is essentially between two children. It's funny, actually, given Playmaker began as a vigilante working alone and rose to popularity by inadvertently saving Link VRAINS in his crusade. But Playmaker is still a child, just like Zaizen Aoi is still a child. But Zaizen Aoi grew up with a bit of help from Emma, and Playmaker's regressed.

Or maybe he's being too hard on Playmaker. Maybe he's just experiencing a proper childhood and interactions with other people for once.

But that doesn't matter, given the way it ends. He knows enough about the Lost Incident to know the backstory, even if it has nothing to do with his own hatred of AIs. Playmaker, he thinks, should have hated them too. Playmaker and Soulburner too. It's almost a variant of Stockholm Syndrome. He wonders, then, where it leads when the victim finally does away with the perpetrator?

Though, of course, the true perpetrator is the creator of Ignis, the arrogant human beings who thought they could escape their own mortality. He can't help but feel sorry for those children, though. Children who had their lives twisted by AI through no fault of their own. But now that they're involved, they can't let it go.

Revenge is a festering, ever-growing cancer and trauma is the same. He knows this. He knows it well but the Lost Incident kids aren't his concern anymore, if they ever were. As long as this chapter closes, as long as Playmaker and Soulburner and the knights of Hanoi don't appear in Link VRAINs again, as long as someone doesn't get it into their head to try and replace humanity again…

He sighs, and shuts down his computer. He got what he wanted from the memory data but the code itself just goes on and on, like there's no end. The old, the new –

He freezes, then hurriedly reboots his computer. How could he have looked over that? How could he have been so blind? The time of the duel, the time of Ai's defeat, was yesterday night. That girl from SOL Technologies found the deactivated SOLtis not long after. Playmaker had been there, reeling from his victory. Likely, Playmaker had dashed off as soon as he heard or saw her approach. Likely, she'd gotten such a poor glimpse of his shadow that she wasn't sure if he'd been there at all.

But the Ignis, if he deleted himself at the conclusion of their duel, shouldn't have any data beyond that. Shouldn't have seen Hayami staring down at him. Shouldn't have any changes to the code…

And he won't know that until he compares it to the copy he took earlier in the day.

He does, when the computer finally reboots. It's subtle, but there are changes.

The code is changing, slowly but surely.

Is it like a snake's tail still flopping around after it's been severed from it's body? Or are the Ignis immortal?

He's picked up his phone without realising it. He drops it again; it clatters, noisily, in the empty apartment.

Not now. Now yet. He's jumping to conclusions.

But now the idea that it might not be over yet won't leave him alone.

He makes himself a new pot of coffee and starts checking over all the other data. He won't be sleeping anyway. Not until he knows, one way or another.