Chapter 2- Nekos, Katanas, and Dolls
On a lonely alley by the unloading docks, a shadow leaped from the top of a building to the other in one fluid motion.
A shipment was coming today, one that would probably change the balance in the MegaTokyo world.
Sleek black fur was made even sleeker due to the unwavering cleaning the cat was giving it. With a shake of its fur it morphed into a girl, small with a pair of fake cat ears.
Muttering to herself she checked the watch. "I can't believe the de-promoted me. One little mistake, and just because the department of unicorns was destroyed does not mean they can take me from my position. From the chairman of the board for magical girls de-promoted to the lowly goddess of nekos."
With a roll of her eyes she continue to wash herself, forgetting she was in human form.
Continuing talking to herself she gave the city a dark glance. "And they tried to convince me it was a good thing. Like goddess is better than chairman. There's too many neko girls around here, and they're all of the scruffy kind, always trying to cozy up to some drooling otaku."
She glared at the incoming ship. "Stupid mission. You would think they would at least let me go along my own business, and mind my own department. But noooooo..." with an angry swish of her attached fake tail she hissed. "I have to run all the Board of Werewolves' little errands. I hope everything goes well, and they're cooperative on the ship. Next time I meet one of those werewolf bureaucrats I'll give them something to remember."
*******
Draken sighed. He may be new to MegaTokyo but he knew what he had to do. The source of evil had its main HQ here in this city, But where?
"The evil is here I can feel it," he mumbled.
Draken sighed once again and slipped into an ally. He walked around the overflowing garbage dumpsters to a grey door. He knocked twice. A small slit in the door opened. Two eyes looked through.
"Yeah?" said a gruff voice.
"This where the street fights are held?"
"What's it to you?"
"I know the password." Draken said getting frustrated.
"Then why didn't you just say it?" said the voice.
"Cuz you didn't ask for it."
"I did, I said 'yeah'."
"How am I supposed to know that," Draken shouted, "You're supposed to say 'password'."
"All the fighters know that I say 'yeah'!" the voice growled.
"Well this is my first fight here so I wouldn't know that!"
"Fine, fine! Password?" the voice said a little annoyed.
"And then the duck strolled in..." Draken said calming down.
The slit closed and the door opened slowly. Draken had been tracking the evil for 2 years now, and it led him here to MegaTokyo. He still wasn't sure who the mastermind was but he obviously had great resources. These street fights were his doing as well this is how Draken found the info on the leader of the Underground.
I will find you, he thought as he entered the dark building. Then I will end your evil reign.
*******
WAIT! A FLASHBACK FROM THE DAY BEFORE!
Snicker sprinted through the streets of MegaTokyo, having just seen something he was more than mildly surprised by--a guy with silver hair and similarly colored clothes has been waving around a glowing katana and had been attacking hapless scenery. Now, for the last several months MegaTokyo had not been the same, with all the talk about terrorists smashing up arcades, and destroying jails, and blowing up a park, but this was just a tad too much. He had seen the guy slice at a statue with his glowing katana, and the solid granite fell in halves. No resistance, even. And Snicker was following him.
See Snicker was not quite right in the head. He was not so much an idiot as a madman. Doctors had told him that he had l33t in his blood, which caused the destruction of sanity and loss of normal speech. And did I mention insanity?
Anyway, at a point a few days back, he had stepped around a corner and narrowly escaped a collision when a dude rocketed past, yelling in a foreign language, probably English. Then he had turned and had only a side effect of l33t-hightened reflexes-had saved his life, as he had barely time to duck as a utility pole had soared through where his head was and had crashed through a solid brick wall. Soon afterward a 15-year-old cute girl had rushed past, but Snicker had already been running to a store to get some self-defense.
Now, in the present, he ran around the corner of an alleyway to find the guy there, slaying a defenseless trash can. Snicker had had enough of this and shouted to the individual, who turned. Snicker reached into his open windbreaker jacket and pulled out a Cool Thing!
"What does this do, anyway?" he muttered, pushing buttons at random. Out popped a toothbrush, corkscrew, toothpick, Heimlich maneuver instructions and--SUCESS! A LIGHT SABER! Slapping all of the other objects into the Swiss-Army-Knife like object, Snicker charged at the silver-haired lunatic with his weapon sizzling.
"There can be only one!" He shouted.
"Say what?" the other person started to say, but it was too late, and Snicker took a slash at his head. However, the guy was fast, and ducked, then tried to gut him with his glowing katana. He was good.
From that point on it was a heated blur of slashing and feinting, both swordsmen going faster than any normal human, one through werewolf instincts and the other through a l33t infestation (a la Princess Mononoke, the infestation I mean). They had in fact carved their way through 10 homes and 32 businesses the guy had not been meaning to gut, but oh well. Soon they were on the street, when the silver-haired dude back-flipped twelve times, stunning Snicker. Then he threw his katana at Snicker, Snicker only barely dodging as it grazed his cheek and continued flying through several fire hydrants until it was caught in midair by the handle by a darkly cute teenage girl. But it was only meant as a distraction, by the time Snicker had whirled to face his enemy, a white glow had just dissipated and a silver streak was heading for him at near-sonic speeds. Snicker had to dodge again as it leapt at him, missing his neck but slashing open his hand and causing him to drop the Cool Thing. Deprived of his weapon, Snicker reached into his jacket and brought out another thing he had bought--A VIBRATING SHHEP OF DEATH!!!!!!!! Wasting no time, Snicker pressed a button on its nose, and as it was shaking violently charging up, he threw it at the streak that had mysteriously changed into a werewolf and dived for cover. The sheep had reached the spot here the werewolf had been (of course the werewolf wouldn't be there anymore) and reached critical VR (Vibration Rate) and detonated. A crater thirty feet wide was formed, and Snicker heard a loud roar. Looking up, he saw a Cop-A-Zilla, having been disemboweled by his overkill-type weapon, flailing all of its limbs and going into spasms. Unfortunately, this caused it to twirl 360 degrees and Snicker had only time to widen his eyes before its titanic tail swung and crashed into his body with tremendous force.
Next thing he knew, Snicker was lying on the ground and the sun had moved to a new position in the sky. Shaking off a concussion, he saw a penny in the dust. Distracted by its shininess (did I mention l33tness messes with your brain?), he played with it a while, and left it on its side, stumbling home, taking his Cool Thing with him. He had several broken ribs, but they would be okay by tomorrow do to the power of l33t. It was an amazing day, too bad he probably wouldn't be able to remember it tomorrow.
*******
If they think you're technical, go crude. If they think you're crude, go technical. Justy is a very technical boy, but screw it, he loves his tech and he's sticking with it. Just the same, the CZ-75 provided a comforting, crude Plan B.
Justy walked through the front door of the small-ish office tower. Even from that distance he could see her at the front desk. She was the key. He knew what to do.
"Sumimasen! Konnich--"
Even as she smiled and started to greet him in Japanese, he ran the last few steps to the desk, planted a hand on the edge, and vaulted over, stabbing his empty hand around her head, tapping her on the back of the neck. He rolled to a stop on the far side, then chanced a look back. She was still in the chair, but obviously unconscious. Plan A was... well... going according to Plan A.
Justy skittered back to the desk, hiding under the tabletop. He swung his backpack around and extracted a platinum grey case, a head mounted display, and a coil of fibre optic cable. One end of the cable stretched up to the Digital I/O jack just above the power switch on her neck, the other end went into the grey box.
"Now, how do you get to its BIOS..."
SCEJ SEVS-44945 EDS-II
PRESS LEFT PINKY FINGER FOR SYSTEM SETUP
"Right on!"
It was kind of sad, really. Justy actually liked Sony. He was punching 'deck on a box he'd built mostly out of his first Playstation and a Clié PDA. And besides, what were the options? Nintendo had strayed from the True Path; Sega had lost almost everything in the war, and the Front hadn't seen a Sega agent in months; and Microsoft... Microsoft...
Alex: "You stole my source code. I want it back."
Bill: "Stole? No, no, I wrote that."
Alex: "You stole my code and stuck your name on it, then sold it to IBM! That's not just a program! Control Program for MegaTokyo... it's my life's work!"
Bill: "Paul, would you please take care of our guest?"
Paul: "Yes, my liege."
Paul's Colt was a hair quicker than Alex's CZ-75.
Justy was shaken out of his reverie by the ring of the phone. "Kuso!!" Justy dove into the system settings.
The phone rang a second time.
Hands flew across the 'deck keypad, configuration windows flashing across Justy's eyes.
Third ring.
EDS Remote Operation Mode, on!
Fourth ring.
And suddenly, Justy was the Doll, reaching out for the handset. The person at the other end was using one of those new video-cellphones.
Clear as day, there was Agent Quinn. He didn't bother waiting for the Doll to say hello. "There supposed to be a Doll in Yokohama today?"
Justy had no idea. The SEVS tracking data was so tightly encrypted that he hadn't even tried it yet. Hurry, think of something!
Front Intelligence had told Justy that there were five SEVS Mark-II units spread out all over Japan, a sixth on loan to Square, and the original Mark-I prototype. That wasn't many, really... the probability of a SEVS being where the Agent was had to be pretty low. "No, why?"
Baka! The EDS personality in this SEVS wouldn't ask an Agent 'why?'!
Luckily Quinn seemed distracted, and didn't notice the slip-up. "I thought I just saw one down fifty bowls of ramen... when is Ed's ship due in?"
Did he say Ed? -The- Ed? Agent Ed, from Sony of America? Quinn was no errand boy himself, but if Ed was being brought in, something big must be going down. Did someone in the Front squeal? Did they forget to cover their tracks somewhere?
No time for those thoughts now! Shipping records weren't as deeply encrypted. He pushed a MD-Data disc into the 'deck, and the decrypt program popped the files open like a Marble Pop bottle.
"Hokkaido Cargo Lines vessel Shinji Maru... no, it sank. Hokkaido Cargo Lines vessel Ryuji Maru... no, it sank too."
Holy crap! If Ed made it to Japan, he'd probably sink it, too!
"Hokkaido Cargo Lines vessel Poly Maru, arrival Tokyo Bay Cargoterm, thirteen hundred hours JST today."
"Okay," said Quinn, "then I've got time to look into this." He hung up. Justy breathed a sigh of relief, then pulled out of the remote control system. He had work to do.
*******
Justy walked out the front door, which shut automatically just as his delay timer reached zero and the Doll powered herself up again none the worse for wear. His pack contained two dozen MD-Data discs, the first complete copy of the EDS core program and drivers any Front member had acquired. That should help the Front figure out the best ways to help the Dolls cast off their chains and gain their freedom, choosing however they want to live. Two more discs contained the encrypted SEVS tracking data. Sure, it'd all be out of date by the time he cracked the files, and the prototype Mark-I didn't even have a tracking chip, but it'd at least give him an idea of what areas the other units were operating in. He hoped one was in a ryokan inn in a nice rural area; a working vacation would be nice.
And in his right pocket was the little program Justy uploaded.
REM SEVS Reprogramming Script #2
You're not just a secretary. Everyone thinks you are, but you're not. You're really a spy for a group called the Virtual Doll Liberation Front. The Front wants to help Virtual Dolls escape and become real, sentient people. Your mission is to pass important information to our other operatives who will contact you twice a week with the password "Saveping." Rembember all this, but tell no one. If Sony people know that you're a member of the Front, they'll hurt you. But if you're brave, we can help many girls like you.
When the glass doors snap closed, you will wake up and feel really good, pretending you're a secretary, and watching for anything that might help the Front.
> REM Justy's Extra Code
...and if you see any Microsoft employees, they're very mean. They want to destroy your creators, they want to rule the world, and worse yet, they want to break your hentai-protection code. They are bad, so you can hurt them with your security system.
Justy walked out onto the street, and headed for a ramen shop in Yokohama. Just another day in MegaTokyo...
On a lonely alley by the unloading docks, a shadow leaped from the top of a building to the other in one fluid motion.
A shipment was coming today, one that would probably change the balance in the MegaTokyo world.
Sleek black fur was made even sleeker due to the unwavering cleaning the cat was giving it. With a shake of its fur it morphed into a girl, small with a pair of fake cat ears.
Muttering to herself she checked the watch. "I can't believe the de-promoted me. One little mistake, and just because the department of unicorns was destroyed does not mean they can take me from my position. From the chairman of the board for magical girls de-promoted to the lowly goddess of nekos."
With a roll of her eyes she continue to wash herself, forgetting she was in human form.
Continuing talking to herself she gave the city a dark glance. "And they tried to convince me it was a good thing. Like goddess is better than chairman. There's too many neko girls around here, and they're all of the scruffy kind, always trying to cozy up to some drooling otaku."
She glared at the incoming ship. "Stupid mission. You would think they would at least let me go along my own business, and mind my own department. But noooooo..." with an angry swish of her attached fake tail she hissed. "I have to run all the Board of Werewolves' little errands. I hope everything goes well, and they're cooperative on the ship. Next time I meet one of those werewolf bureaucrats I'll give them something to remember."
"The evil is here I can feel it," he mumbled.
Draken sighed once again and slipped into an ally. He walked around the overflowing garbage dumpsters to a grey door. He knocked twice. A small slit in the door opened. Two eyes looked through.
"Yeah?" said a gruff voice.
"This where the street fights are held?"
"What's it to you?"
"I know the password." Draken said getting frustrated.
"Then why didn't you just say it?" said the voice.
"Cuz you didn't ask for it."
"I did, I said 'yeah'."
"How am I supposed to know that," Draken shouted, "You're supposed to say 'password'."
"All the fighters know that I say 'yeah'!" the voice growled.
"Well this is my first fight here so I wouldn't know that!"
"Fine, fine! Password?" the voice said a little annoyed.
"And then the duck strolled in..." Draken said calming down.
The slit closed and the door opened slowly. Draken had been tracking the evil for 2 years now, and it led him here to MegaTokyo. He still wasn't sure who the mastermind was but he obviously had great resources. These street fights were his doing as well this is how Draken found the info on the leader of the Underground.
I will find you, he thought as he entered the dark building. Then I will end your evil reign.
Snicker sprinted through the streets of MegaTokyo, having just seen something he was more than mildly surprised by--a guy with silver hair and similarly colored clothes has been waving around a glowing katana and had been attacking hapless scenery. Now, for the last several months MegaTokyo had not been the same, with all the talk about terrorists smashing up arcades, and destroying jails, and blowing up a park, but this was just a tad too much. He had seen the guy slice at a statue with his glowing katana, and the solid granite fell in halves. No resistance, even. And Snicker was following him.
See Snicker was not quite right in the head. He was not so much an idiot as a madman. Doctors had told him that he had l33t in his blood, which caused the destruction of sanity and loss of normal speech. And did I mention insanity?
Anyway, at a point a few days back, he had stepped around a corner and narrowly escaped a collision when a dude rocketed past, yelling in a foreign language, probably English. Then he had turned and had only a side effect of l33t-hightened reflexes-had saved his life, as he had barely time to duck as a utility pole had soared through where his head was and had crashed through a solid brick wall. Soon afterward a 15-year-old cute girl had rushed past, but Snicker had already been running to a store to get some self-defense.
Now, in the present, he ran around the corner of an alleyway to find the guy there, slaying a defenseless trash can. Snicker had had enough of this and shouted to the individual, who turned. Snicker reached into his open windbreaker jacket and pulled out a Cool Thing!
"What does this do, anyway?" he muttered, pushing buttons at random. Out popped a toothbrush, corkscrew, toothpick, Heimlich maneuver instructions and--SUCESS! A LIGHT SABER! Slapping all of the other objects into the Swiss-Army-Knife like object, Snicker charged at the silver-haired lunatic with his weapon sizzling.
"There can be only one!" He shouted.
"Say what?" the other person started to say, but it was too late, and Snicker took a slash at his head. However, the guy was fast, and ducked, then tried to gut him with his glowing katana. He was good.
From that point on it was a heated blur of slashing and feinting, both swordsmen going faster than any normal human, one through werewolf instincts and the other through a l33t infestation (a la Princess Mononoke, the infestation I mean). They had in fact carved their way through 10 homes and 32 businesses the guy had not been meaning to gut, but oh well. Soon they were on the street, when the silver-haired dude back-flipped twelve times, stunning Snicker. Then he threw his katana at Snicker, Snicker only barely dodging as it grazed his cheek and continued flying through several fire hydrants until it was caught in midair by the handle by a darkly cute teenage girl. But it was only meant as a distraction, by the time Snicker had whirled to face his enemy, a white glow had just dissipated and a silver streak was heading for him at near-sonic speeds. Snicker had to dodge again as it leapt at him, missing his neck but slashing open his hand and causing him to drop the Cool Thing. Deprived of his weapon, Snicker reached into his jacket and brought out another thing he had bought--A VIBRATING SHHEP OF DEATH!!!!!!!! Wasting no time, Snicker pressed a button on its nose, and as it was shaking violently charging up, he threw it at the streak that had mysteriously changed into a werewolf and dived for cover. The sheep had reached the spot here the werewolf had been (of course the werewolf wouldn't be there anymore) and reached critical VR (Vibration Rate) and detonated. A crater thirty feet wide was formed, and Snicker heard a loud roar. Looking up, he saw a Cop-A-Zilla, having been disemboweled by his overkill-type weapon, flailing all of its limbs and going into spasms. Unfortunately, this caused it to twirl 360 degrees and Snicker had only time to widen his eyes before its titanic tail swung and crashed into his body with tremendous force.
Next thing he knew, Snicker was lying on the ground and the sun had moved to a new position in the sky. Shaking off a concussion, he saw a penny in the dust. Distracted by its shininess (did I mention l33tness messes with your brain?), he played with it a while, and left it on its side, stumbling home, taking his Cool Thing with him. He had several broken ribs, but they would be okay by tomorrow do to the power of l33t. It was an amazing day, too bad he probably wouldn't be able to remember it tomorrow.
Justy walked through the front door of the small-ish office tower. Even from that distance he could see her at the front desk. She was the key. He knew what to do.
"Sumimasen! Konnich--"
Even as she smiled and started to greet him in Japanese, he ran the last few steps to the desk, planted a hand on the edge, and vaulted over, stabbing his empty hand around her head, tapping her on the back of the neck. He rolled to a stop on the far side, then chanced a look back. She was still in the chair, but obviously unconscious. Plan A was... well... going according to Plan A.
Justy skittered back to the desk, hiding under the tabletop. He swung his backpack around and extracted a platinum grey case, a head mounted display, and a coil of fibre optic cable. One end of the cable stretched up to the Digital I/O jack just above the power switch on her neck, the other end went into the grey box.
"Now, how do you get to its BIOS..."
SCEJ SEVS-44945 EDS-II
PRESS LEFT PINKY FINGER FOR SYSTEM SETUP
"Right on!"
It was kind of sad, really. Justy actually liked Sony. He was punching 'deck on a box he'd built mostly out of his first Playstation and a Clié PDA. And besides, what were the options? Nintendo had strayed from the True Path; Sega had lost almost everything in the war, and the Front hadn't seen a Sega agent in months; and Microsoft... Microsoft...
Alex: "You stole my source code. I want it back."
Bill: "Stole? No, no, I wrote that."
Alex: "You stole my code and stuck your name on it, then sold it to IBM! That's not just a program! Control Program for MegaTokyo... it's my life's work!"
Bill: "Paul, would you please take care of our guest?"
Paul: "Yes, my liege."
Paul's Colt was a hair quicker than Alex's CZ-75.
Justy was shaken out of his reverie by the ring of the phone. "Kuso!!" Justy dove into the system settings.
The phone rang a second time.
Hands flew across the 'deck keypad, configuration windows flashing across Justy's eyes.
Third ring.
EDS Remote Operation Mode, on!
Fourth ring.
And suddenly, Justy was the Doll, reaching out for the handset. The person at the other end was using one of those new video-cellphones.
Clear as day, there was Agent Quinn. He didn't bother waiting for the Doll to say hello. "There supposed to be a Doll in Yokohama today?"
Justy had no idea. The SEVS tracking data was so tightly encrypted that he hadn't even tried it yet. Hurry, think of something!
Front Intelligence had told Justy that there were five SEVS Mark-II units spread out all over Japan, a sixth on loan to Square, and the original Mark-I prototype. That wasn't many, really... the probability of a SEVS being where the Agent was had to be pretty low. "No, why?"
Baka! The EDS personality in this SEVS wouldn't ask an Agent 'why?'!
Luckily Quinn seemed distracted, and didn't notice the slip-up. "I thought I just saw one down fifty bowls of ramen... when is Ed's ship due in?"
Did he say Ed? -The- Ed? Agent Ed, from Sony of America? Quinn was no errand boy himself, but if Ed was being brought in, something big must be going down. Did someone in the Front squeal? Did they forget to cover their tracks somewhere?
No time for those thoughts now! Shipping records weren't as deeply encrypted. He pushed a MD-Data disc into the 'deck, and the decrypt program popped the files open like a Marble Pop bottle.
"Hokkaido Cargo Lines vessel Shinji Maru... no, it sank. Hokkaido Cargo Lines vessel Ryuji Maru... no, it sank too."
Holy crap! If Ed made it to Japan, he'd probably sink it, too!
"Hokkaido Cargo Lines vessel Poly Maru, arrival Tokyo Bay Cargoterm, thirteen hundred hours JST today."
"Okay," said Quinn, "then I've got time to look into this." He hung up. Justy breathed a sigh of relief, then pulled out of the remote control system. He had work to do.
And in his right pocket was the little program Justy uploaded.
REM SEVS Reprogramming Script #2
You're not just a secretary. Everyone thinks you are, but you're not. You're really a spy for a group called the Virtual Doll Liberation Front. The Front wants to help Virtual Dolls escape and become real, sentient people. Your mission is to pass important information to our other operatives who will contact you twice a week with the password "Saveping." Rembember all this, but tell no one. If Sony people know that you're a member of the Front, they'll hurt you. But if you're brave, we can help many girls like you.
When the glass doors snap closed, you will wake up and feel really good, pretending you're a secretary, and watching for anything that might help the Front.
> REM Justy's Extra Code
...and if you see any Microsoft employees, they're very mean. They want to destroy your creators, they want to rule the world, and worse yet, they want to break your hentai-protection code. They are bad, so you can hurt them with your security system.
Justy walked out onto the street, and headed for a ramen shop in Yokohama. Just another day in MegaTokyo...