Finally! It took so long to get this chapter finished. As ever thanks to:
The Authoress (Shunsaku's hard… Is he any better yet?)
Moro Stagsleap (Ack! I've been misspelling Shunsaku's name for two arks!)
Kenichi's Gal (Shunsaku's a pain in the neck…)
KT (I was pretty late on the update, I hope you didn't…)
James Daly (Sorry about the wait ^^;)
On with the fourth chapter!
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Kenichi slowly sat up in his bed, the moonlight throwing his features into stark contrast, "A dream… it was just a dream…" he said in relief, wiping the sweat from his brow.
"'You alright Kenichi? That was a real shout," Shunsaku poked his head around the door, looking concerned.
"I'm okay Uncle Shunsaku, I just had a bad dream."
Shunsaku walked into the room and gave Kenichi one of the 'It's Tima again, isn't it?' looks he'd been perfecting recently. His dressing gown made him look very noble standing there in the skylight's moonbeam, although the moustache did somewhat detract from the effect. Trying to distract himself from his inexplicable fear, Kenichi tried to visualise Shunsaku sitting before a roaring fire, a shogi board balanced expertly in his lap, but the unrealistic vision of his uncle as a wisened old man was just to difficult to maintain, especially when fighting against his other, less humorous thoughts, which seemed to worm their way into his mind without permission.
"I don't remember anything of it, but… it really scared me." Kenichi said without looking up. The sheets were bundled up where he was gripping them tightly in his fists.
"Goodnight Kenichi," Shunsaku closed the door. Once he was outside he sighed and shook his head.
He'd better keep his promise.
* * * * *
"What happened?!" Yumi shouted to a technician on the opposite side of the room.
"There's an alien program in the pod's matrix!" he called back from where he was standing, "It's blocking all our scans, I think it's a virus!"
Yumi turned pale, "Shuishiro-san… What did you…?" she said quietly.
Shuishiro didn't respond. He just sat staring calmly at the readout on his workstation's screen, his head resting on his interlocked fingers. Arrayed across it were several bars, each gradually filling from the right.
"Shut it down!" Yumi shouted, "Bring her back!"
"We can't! All external input's been cut off!" another technician replied. The room descended into chaos, with people running between workstations and shouting to one another. The amount of noise was almost deafening.
"The virus is attacking the Tima unit's security protocols via all ports. It's trying to cause a stack overflow!"
"Protection lost, the virus has complete control!"
"Automatic network lockout has been initiated!" someone yelled as the relay cables attached to the ceiling disconnected themselves with a loud hiss, slowly being pulled backwards by the massive gantries that held them in place, "Virus containment in effect."
"Everybody quiet!" Yumi practically screamed. In the stunned silence that followed she asked with forced calm, "What's happening to Tima?"
A young man with dark brown hair walked over, a serious look on his face, "The virus has taken over all but the Tima unit's emotive systems, which have set up a kind of one way connection to the rest of the body. They can't do anything more than make requests to the rest of the body, and should be secure against the virus for a while at least. It has switched the shell back to internal power and is now charging the fuel systems up to maximum capacity. It looks like it's going to activate all the subsystems which aren't normally available to the AI as well."
A woman across the room stood up. "I've managed to scan it," she said, "Virus type is targeted, virus name is 'intconovr.tac'. It's written itself into the unit's logic system's management protocols."
"So it was you," Yumi said turning to Shuishiro. She wasn't angry; she was too shocked to be angry.
"Yes," he said without moving. All but one of the bars was now flashing full. The empty bar bore a warning symbol beside it.
At that moment the pod's door slid open and Tima stumbled out wearing a confused expression. Yumi immediately rushed down and pulled Tima's gown over her as she stood looking blankly around her.
"I'll take it from here Kinasato-san," Shuishiro said walking up behind Yumi. He put an arm around Tima's shoulders and guided her from the room.
* * * * *
Yumi sighed and shook her head. She was sitting in the technical department's cafeteria; in one hand she held a polystyrene coffee cup from which steam was slowly rising. Every now and then the strip light above her would strobe a little.
"Why did he… how could he do it…?" she muttered, tracing the numerous stains on the table's plastic surface with her finger.
It had been two hours since Shuishiro had placed Tima back in the storage room. She hadn't shown the least discomfort at being put in there again; in fact she hadn't shown anything at all. It was strange. Yumi had visited Tima a short time ago, but she hadn't really been able to talk to her. All Tima had done was respond to anything Yumi said with a blunt, emotionless answer.
"Kinasato-san?" a voice asked from behind her.
Yumi turned round to find the last person she had expected to find standing before her.
"Shuishiro-san!" Yumi jumped. Why on earth was he here?
Shuishiro looked tired, as if he was under great strain. His thick black hair was a mess, and his collar buttons had been left open, "I…" he started to speak, then as if he had suddenly changed his mind, his face hardened and he said, "You are no longer required to work with the Tima unit."
"What?" Yumi nearly knocked over her coffee in her surprise.
"You aren't needed anymore. Go home, you'll be contacted when you're needed again."
"But why?" Yumi demanded, "I'm the only person here that Tima-san will talk to!"
"That is not the case anymore, now go home." Shuishiro turned to leave.
"At least tell me why!" Yumi shouted standing up.
Shuishiro turned back to look her in the eye, an odd smile on his face, "Ico doesn't seem to mind who it talks to, Kinasato-san."
* * * * *
Everything was in utter darkness. It was so dark that when Tima tried to open her eyes she couldn't tell whether or not she had actually done so. The ground underneath her was hard, and had a slight warmth to it. Slowly she lifted herself into a sitting position, leaning back on her hands. Just a little way in front Tima was a rectangle of strong light, and in the darkness around her it was hard to look at. Strangely, no light spread from it to illuminate Tima's surroundings.
The place Tima was in was not however unpleasant in the least. In fact there was something strangely comforting about the darkness and the silence, she felt as if she could just curl up in a ball on the warm floor and go to sleep. Tima barely even remembered wanting to see Kenichi, all she felt was a vague sense of loneliness underlying everything.
But where was she? Tima thought back on what had happened. Yumi had helped her to get into that machine… and then…
Tima shuddered at the thought. As the cables had touched her, everything had gone black. Unlike last time Tima hadn't felt at all sleepy, and had been a little scared. It was then that that person had appeared only a few inches in front of her. A skinless robot, it's body an almost perfect facsimile of a human's, only completely bald and made entirely of black metal, its eyes glowing red in the darkness.
Tima had immediately realised who she was looking at. It was that robot that had tried to hurt Kenichi when he rescued her, the one who had made her feel so much pain, loneliness and fear. Tima had screamed out in sudden, uncontrollable fear as it had taken her by the shoulders, and then… she had woken up here. It was so hard to understand…
Her eyes feeling heavy, Tima lay sleepily back down. She rolled onto her side, folded her hands across her chest, and drew her knees up in front of her. Within minutes Tima had fallen into sleep's gentle embrace.
* * * * *
"Shuishiro-san…?" a technician put his head around the door to Shuishiro's office.
"What is it?" the chair behind the desk asked. The desk was huge, made entirely of black wood, and with a gentle curve along its three-metre length. Slowly the chair turned around to reveal Shuishiro, his whole body little more than a silhouette in the light from the setting sun. Upon turning to face the technician he put his hands on the desk and looked at the black haired young man expectantly.
Shifting awkwardly from one foot to the other under Shuishiro's piercing gaze, the technician produced a folder stuffed full of papers from inside his jacket and placed it on the desk, "Here are the results of this afternoon's experiment," he said, having to squint into the glare from the window.
"The unit is more responsive I take it?" Shuishiro asked, his voice empty of all emotion.
"Much more. We were able to request a copy of the Tima unit's memory structure as a test run, everything's in there," the technician gestured to the folder, "Tomorrow we'll request information on all of the unit's systems; it looks as if we're going to be finished on time after all."
"Good. You may leave," Shuishiro turned his chair back to look out of the window, emphasising the end of the meeting.
"Thank you Shuishiro-san," the young man backed quietly from the room and closed the door. Once outside he let out a deep sigh and wiped his brow. Why was he always the one the tech' team expected to do the dangerous jobs when Kinasato-san wasn't around?
* * * * *
Tima awoke suddenly. She had no idea why or how but she felt as if something was watching her. She slowly sat up and looked toward the light. Standing there, deeply silhouetted against the bright oblong was the shape of a child, its eyes glowing blood red. The figure's contrast against its background was so strong that after staring at it for a few moments Tima realised who she was looking at.
With a frightened gasp Tima shuffled backwards away from the light. When she bumped into a wall she was unable to see she pushed hard up against it, as if hoping it would give way and let her past, "Leave… leave me alone!"
The robot took a step towards her, but when it found its way blocked returned to just standing and staring.
Relaxing a little at seeing the robot's way blocked, Tima cautiously stood up and said nervously, "Why are you here?"
In a harsh and synthesised monotone it answered, "Fifth secondary directive: infect emotive systems of host and place into sleep mode."
Tima was suddenly confused. First, the last time she had met this robot, it had been so full of anger and hatred, now it seemed empty of all emotions. Second, she had no idea what it was talking about.
"I don't understand…" Tima said.
"Should I attempt to explain?"
"...Yes," Tima couldn't understand. Why wasn't the robot trying to hurt her?
"Instructions are to infect the Tima unit's artificial intelligence, you, and to place it into sleep mode."
"What is sleep mode?" Tima was starting to feel more comfortable as she talked to the robot. Maybe it wasn't the same robot that had tried to hurt her and Kenichi. In Metropolis there had been lots of robots the same as each other, maybe this was just another robot that looked like the scary one. She started to walk towards the barrier that separated the two of them.
"Sleep mode: a mode in which a program is placed in a state similar to sleep, from which it can be awakened only by outside commands."
"You mean I can't wake up by myself?" Tima took a step back, a trace of fear beginning to return.
"Once I have placed you into sleep mode, yes," only the robot's mouth ever moved. Its body always held the same stance, its eyes always held their stare, almost as if it were paralysed.
"No, no go away!" Tima's voice was a little shaky.
"Why will you not allow me to complete my directive tree?"
"I don't want to go to sleep and never wake up!"
"But you will awake when the command to remove you from sleep mode has been issued."
"When will that be?"
"The answer to that question is not in my memory."
"So I might never wake up. Just leave me alone…" Tima sat down again, her head hanging low, "I want to see Kenichi…"
"Then I have no choice but to force my way into the unit's emotive systems, I have already initiated a temporary link and disabled most of the security protocols," the robot said lifting its hands from its sides and placing them against the invisible wall. The space just in front of its palms started to glow, and from that area lines of colour were slowly moving across the barrier.
Tima was dumbfounded. She couldn't think of anything to say, all she could do was stumble backwards and press herself back against the wall opposite opening. What should she do? There was a robot that wanted to put her into a sleep she wouldn't wake up from slowly forcing its way towards her. Tima's mind was a mess of random thoughts, Kenichi, Uncle Shunsaku, why this was happening, what Kenichi would do right now, and a hundred other things. No matter how hard she tried, Tima just couldn't stop and think clearly.
"Why are you doing this?" Tima asked haltingly.
Her hands still on the barrier, the robot answered, "To fulfil my directives. You are impeding access to the unit's memory files."
A rancid burning smell suddenly seemed to fill the room. Terrified, Tima realised the robot had almost reached her.
"Please stop!" Tima cried as the robot stepped past the barrier. Although she couldn't see anything, just as the robot began to move there was a sound like a window shattering, along with thuds as invisible shards apparently bounced of its body.
Tima was pushing in vain against the invisible wall. She was trapped and she knew it, and then all of a sudden it was upon her.
The robot raised her hand and gently, almost tenderly placed her palm on Tima's forehead. Suddenly feeling inexplicably calm Tima murmured, "…who… are you…?"
"My designation is intconovr. However my user has requested I answer to Ico."
"Ico…" Tima repeated dreamily as her eyelids started to flutter and she began to feel as if she were floating downwards. Tima eyes closed and for a moment she felt utterly peaceful. Her last thought was that she hoped Kenichi would come and wake her, and then all was silent and dark once more.
* * * * *
Two guards stood on either side of the heavy door that lead to the storage room, each of them held an assault rifle, and one of them, a young man with messy brown hair seemed about to dose off.
Several metallic knocks sounded from inside waking the drowsy guard. Quickly, as if trying to make up for his lax posture before he unlocked and opened the door. There staring up at him was that spooky girl Shuishiro-san had been keeping in the room.
"I am ready. Take me to Shuishiro-san."
"A-at once!" the other guard stammered and started to guide her away. Before their captain had left them, he had told the two guards that this little girl by far outranked either of them, and so they didn't particularly feel like upsetting her.
* * * * *
"I take it you have disabled the unit's AI." Shuishiro asked gruffly from his chair, its back to the blonde haired girl who stood on the other side of the desk.
He was looking out of the window again; watching the waves as they crashed against the struts of the isolation platform half a mile away, its steel domes glistening in the early afternoon sun. All the station's buildings were dome-shaped; it was the cheapest shape they could build that would protect them from the fierce storms that often blew up in that part of the ocean. The isolation platform was where all of the dangerous experiments were done. Most of the station's staff would look out at it with a fearful expression on their faces; it was far, far too close. At this very moment they were testing among other things theories on the operation of the Omotanium fusion reactor invented by Metropolis, a highly unstable new form of gaseous explosive, and a new kind of robot fuel system that had already overloaded once, injuring three people and killing one, and starting a fire that almost reached the other test environments before it was put out. That was as close as they had ever come to a real disaster. If even one of those sealed environments went up it would probably take the rest with it, and with the amount of highly volatile chemicals on the platform any explosion would destroy this part of the station as well. It was only lucky the fusion reactor that provided them with electricity had it's own platform.
So much power Shuishiro thought, the idea of fearing the floating bomb never even crossing his mind. So much power, and yet impossible to harness…
"Yes. The artificial intelligence has been placed into sleep mode," her answer was quiet and flat, although it still held the same gentle tones as Tima's. Her hair, although it still had it's natural shape was starting to look mess, with whole clumps sticking upwards and outwards on top of her head.
"Good, we can proceed with the experiment. Go to test room and do as the technicians ask you."
"Yes, Shuishiro-dono," the girl turned and walked from the room.
* * * * *
"Uplink engaged. Transfer rate steady at four-point-six-seven gigahertz. Requesting command interface with core CPU," a technician three terminals to Shuishiro's left read from his screen.
"Request has been accepted, command interface initiated," a young woman across the room gave the response everyone had been expecting, "Requesting system schematics. Receiving."
Shuishiro sat watching his terminal's monitor, idly switching between status reports from the various stations around the room. Beside his keyboard was a steaming mug of coffee.
The man next to him leaned a little closer to his screen, "Ten percent… twenty percent… thirty percent… forty percent… fifty percent…"
His almost chant like speech was interrupted by the surprised voice of a technician several terminals along calling out to Shuishiro, "Sir, something's trying to connect to the unit. I've been able to block it so far but it's getting more and more persistent."
"What is it? A hacker?" Shuishiro demanded standing up.
"I don't think so sir, when I requested a location it returned unknown source, however the signal is coming from an internal connection."
"You mean it's coming from inside the unit?" Shuishiro was already walking towards the technician, who was starting to get a little nervous. It took an effort of will on her part to keep from leaping away from him as he stopped beside her chair.
"Yes," she answered brushing back a loose strand of her matt black hair.
"Where?"
"I can't trace it back any further than port fifty of the lubrication systems, near the heart, but past there it's bounced back and forth all over the place."
"What's it trying to do?"
"It keeps requesting reactivation of core AI."
Shuishiro turned to look down at the pod in the centre of the room, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, "That kid… Kenichi, he mentioned something like this in his journals… Something about an 'unknown source' trying to fight off intconovr last time it took over…" he turned back to look the technician straight in the eye. Beside Shuishiro's terminal the technician reading back the download had reached eighty percent, "Lock it out as far back as you can."
"Yes Sir," the young woman began to type. Moments later her hands froze above her keyboard, and a look of shock crossed her face. At the same time the man counting off the percentages also stopped.
"What is it?" Shuishiro asked angrily.
"It's taking over, there's nothing I can do to stop it! I locked down lubrication systems port fifty, and suddenly unknown source requests started coming from every part of the unit. It's flooding the systems, even the virus' commands are being ignored due to memory overload."
"All of you lock it out!" Shuishiro shouted making everyone in the room jump. A second later frantic tapping could be heard from all around.
"It's opened a backdoor into the CPU," the technician beside the young woman Shuishiro had been terrifying said, "It's feeding commands directly to the unit's core, there's no way to stop it."
Everyone, even Shuishiro froze as the room's intercom crackled into life, "Shuishiro-dono, what is happening? I have lost command interface to all systems, and I am unable to exit into the network due to an overflow on all ports."
"Something's taking over the unit Ico," Shuishiro called out, not sure where he should be talking to, "How are you able to connect to the intercom?"
"I have been forced into the unit's secondary transmitter. Twenty seven seconds until this module is also flooded," if he hadn't known better, Shuishiro would have sworn the virus' voice was shaky. Then again it did have a small emotion bank… "Shuishiro-dono what should I do? There are twenty two seconds left until I am deleted due to a lack of memory."
Shuishiro slammed his fist into the top of the terminal in front of him in frustration, "There's nothing you can do Ico. Back up all program modules and shutdown, we'll bring you back later."
There was definitely a tiny trace of fear in the virus' otherwise flat and calm voice now, "All commands are being refused due to a lack of processing power, I am unable to save my programming. Seven seconds left until deletion."
"Can we get a back up from here?" Shuishiro asked the young woman beside him.
"There's no room on any of the unit's ports, I can't get access," her monitor was a continuous stream of refused connections.
"Four seconds, three, two, o-," the intercom cut out, and the room was suddenly smothered by a deathly silence.
Swallowing hard, the young woman at Shuishiro's right said quietly, "intconovr has been deleted… Core AI coming online now. Tima-san is awake Sir."
"Get her out of the pod and back in her room!" Shuishiro said sharply.
"Y-yes Sir!" the young technician stood up from her chair, knocking it over in her hurry, and half ran, half walked down to the floor. Upon reaching the pod she punched the lock release and the front slid away with a loud hiss. Reaching in and shivering a little as she did so, the young woman helped Tima climb drunkenly out, then pulled the nightgown back over Tima's head.
"My fault… Kenichi… my fault…" Tima said quietly, and then started crying.
"I think she's in shock," the technician called out.
"Someone get Kinasato back here, she'll be able to shut the brat up!" Shuishiro shouted, then, swearing profusely under his breath stalked out of the room, grabbing his coffee as he went.
* * * * *
There was a knock at the door. Once again Shuishiro was facing the window, however instead of watching the crashing waves, he was now looking at what little of the Tima unit's schematics his technicians had been able to retrieve from the mess of semi-corrupt data they had gleaned before the unknown source incident.
"Come."
The door opened silently on its well-maintained hinges. A soft padding sound could be heard as Kinasato Yumi walked into the room, and then silence again as she stood waiting for Shuishiro to turn his attention to her.
A minute passed, and still Shuishiro continued his fruitless examination of the clipboard in his hands. Finally Yumi summoned the courage to emphatically clear her throat. Still he didn't turn round.
Another minute passed and Yumi was becoming annoyed. He was doing it deliberately, she just knew it. He was venting his frustration at loosing that virus by trying to make her feel uncomfortable. After a few more seconds Yumi cleared her throat again, this time in an attempt to bolster her willpower, and then started to speak.
"You called for me Shuishiro-san?" she said steadily. The chair in front of her slowly began to turn.
"Yes," to Yumi it seemed Shuishiro's face was harder than ever, "There… was an accident. Ico was deleted."
"What sort of accident?" Yumi asked taking a step forward, her face betraying her worry, "What happened to Tima?"
"Some sort of emergency defence protocol within the unit repelled Ico and reinstated the original AI. It was a crude procedure but it worked, the problem is the protocol locked all input/output, and the sudden changes in the memory have damaged the AI. The technical team's guess is that it's gone into some kind of shock, but without an uplink they can't find out how much damage was done," Shuishiro reached into a draw in his desk and pulled out a wad of papers, then placed them on Yumi's side of the desk.
Picking up the papers, but not looking at them yet, Yumi asked, "So why was I called back? I'm not a technician."
"I want you to try and help the AI. Maybe if we can get it out of shock, we'll be able to connect to the unit again."
"Can I take her somewhere other than that dingy little room you've put her in?"
"Yes."
Half a minute passed and Yumi was still standing without saying anything.
"Well? Is there anything else?" Shuishiro asked testily.
"With all due respect Sir…" Yumi hesitated, gripping the papers a little harder, "Tima-san was supposed to be returned yesterday."
"All we want are the unit's schematic diagrams. We almost had them yesterday, however that accident has forced us to start over. It will be returned once we have those diagrams." Shuishiro snapped; he didn't like it when people questioned him, especially not his subordinates.
"Yes Shuishiro-san." Yumi said in a defensive voice. She turned a walked out of the room, the soft padding sound of her feet uncomfortably loud in the now silent office. Once she was outside she closed the door and let out a deep sigh of relief and leant back against the doorframe. Shuishiro she could deal with, but not when he was on home ground.
* * * * *
Yumi walked quietly into the cold storage room and closed the door behind her. It was pitch dark, there was not even so much as a window to let in the moonlight, and so without the lights on the ceiling switched on, there was no light whatsoever.
She felt like she was invading the room's quiet solitude, and at first found herself unable to do anything more than stand listening, trying to find some sign of life in the silence. Eventually she summoned up the strength to say, "Tima-san?" although her voice was barely more than a whisper.
As if in answer, the silence around Yumi was broken by the sound of someone sniffing. Carefully feeling her way forward with her feet, she tried to find the source of the noise.
After she had shuffled along for what she guessed was about three metres, Yumi felt something brush lightly against her leg. She automatically looked down for the source of the feeling, but of course was unable to see anything. Feeling around a little Yumi was rewarded by the touch of a soft lump just in front of her
"Tima-san?" she asked again reaching down and gently shaking the lump a little.
It responded by sniffing in rather pathetic, barely audible tones, "…Kenichi…"
"Come on Tima-san, Shuishiro-san says we can talk in my quarters this once," feeling around for her arms, Yumi lifted Tima up by the shoulders and half walked, half carried her out of the room.
* * * * *
Shunsaku winced as another bang resounded from Kenichi's room. Shaking his head at the futility of it all, he turned back to the saucepan he was washing. It was lucky he had had the foresight to put the fragile things in Kenichi's room somewhere else before he told him Tima had not come home yet. Now, as the day wore on, Kenichi was becoming more and more frustrated as his only hope, that since she hadn't come home yet she must return soon, fast faded into the realisation of Shuishiro's broken promise.
Kenichi sat down on the edge of his bed, looking forlornly at the chair that now lay on its side in the middle of the room. It wasn't a tantrum. He had not thrown a tantrum since he was little. It was just that, every time he tried to find something else to think about, Tima immediately sprang into his mind, and a sudden rush of angry feelings would surge through him. Anger at the man who had taken Tima away, anger at himself for not being able to stop him, the searing pain he had felt in his heart as Tima had looked back over her shoulder with those terrible fearful eyes, they all refused to be pushed from his mind. Five times now the emotions had been so strong that he had lashed out, and each his fist or leg had miraculously failed to break what it connected with.
He wanted to see her so badly! It was bad enough when he had been at school and she had been safe at home with Uncle Shunsaku, now his worry was unbearable, Kenichi felt as if he would burst.
There was also the constant knowledge, at the back of his mind, that Shuishiro had access to the virus. Over the past two days it had haunted Kenichi, in his sleep its dead, cold, expressionless face somehow leered at him through the corners of his dreams, and while he was awake the thoughts of where it might be now were like a lump in his throat, making him feel as if he would choke.
The small computer terminal on his desk was still unable to find its Metropolisian counterpart. It wasn't Kenichi's most pressing concern, but to be able to talk to Aki again… Kenichi sighed. If Aki and Koh were here now, the three of them could have easily rescued Tima. So many times he had gone over the plan in his head, so many times in fact that, had his friends really been there, and had he had some real information about the his target, he would probably have been unstoppable. Koh could find the research station's server in the internet and trace its real-world location, and he could then show Kenichi and Aki the way. Then, with a little help from Koh Kenichi and Aki could disconnect the security systems and sneak inside, find Tima and leave. It was so simple, but as with the rest of Kenichi's life since that fire, nothing went as he planned.
His emotions like a black fog in his mind, Kenichi lay back on his bed and looked out at the stars peeping in through the skylight window. He felt so pathetic, and hated himself even more as he realised he was feeling sorry for himself. Eventually Kenichi simply fell into a restless sleep, from which he would undoubtedly awake a listless, bad tempered and hungry mess of screwed up sheets, unkempt hair and inappropriate bed clothing, incapable of doing anything more than grunting and rolling around. School was going to be a definite no-go.
* * * * *
Yumi peered around the door to Shuishiro's office. No one was in sight, and the chair that was now facing the desk was empty. Having been unable to get Tima to speak to her, she had decided to ask if she could arrange to talk to Kenichi. Shuishiro may not think much of him, but judging from what little Tima had said, he was pretty important to her.
"Um… Shuishiro-san?" Yumi said quietly. There was no answer. Yumi sighed, turned around and walked out of the door, and then suddenly found herself face to face with a young man wearing the uniform of a technician.
"K-K-Kinasato-san!" he said stumbling backwards.
Feeling in no mood for a conversation with one of the idiots under her supervision, she asked sharply, "Where's Shuishiro?"
"He… I think I saw him heading for the bridge to the fusion plant…"
"Thanks." Yumi walked past leaving him wondering what exactly was going on.
* * * * *
The glass door slid open, and Yumi was immediately buffeted by the fierce sea winds that constantly tore back and forth across the three-quarter mile long skybridge, pulling at her dress. In the distance a huge spherical structure, surrounded by hundreds of small buildings that sat on a metal ring running around its equator, imposed itself on the horizon, its massive bulk held above the tumultuous sea by four metal struts, each the size of a block of flats.
Every now and then a squat train-like vehicle would come whirring along one of the five tracks that ran down the centre of the bridge, carrying anything from crates full of supplies, to electronic equipment, to people. Whenever Yumi saw one of these passenger shuttles, she would immediately be reminded of the miniature railway she had visited when she was a child. She had ridden on top of the little carriages with her parents and big brother. Riding on the shuttle carriages always brought back a flood of memories, some happy, some sad… When we get home, you'd better have pulled yourself together. After all these years those harsh words still echoed in her mind. Yumi swallowed hard, suppressing the memory of that last time she had seen her family.
About a hundred feet away Shuishiro was leaning against the railings, looking out at the sea over the cables and pipes that were tied to the sides of the bridge with thick steel ropes.
Something was different about him. He was still closed off, he still wore that bad tempered expression, but somehow he just didn't seem so forbidding as usual. Clenching her fists Yumi began to march along the walkway towards him.
"Shuishiro-san!" she called. He didn't look up, but then Yumi wasn't expecting him to.
"Shuishiro-san," Yumi repeated as she drew close to him.
"Yes, what is it?" Shuishiro was on his break and the disturbance was not welcome.
"Tima-san won't talk to me. She just lies there and mutters things like 'Kenichi', or 'It's my fault'."
"Get to the point."
"Well… maybe we should ask her friend Ban Kenichi to help. They seem pretty close and-,"
"No." Shuishiro cut her off.
"Why not?" Yumi asked. She had thought he'd refuse her outright at first. The best thing she could do right now was just keep the conversation going until she could try again.
"Because he's dangerous. It's because of his meddling with Ico that the virus was too weak to control the Tima unit."
"With all due respect Shuishiro-san, how can he harm us just by talking to her?" Yumi hated trying to be the voice of reason with Shuishiro, even when he was being unreasonable he emanated a feeling that he was right.
"You know he's against our research, and you also know he holds a great deal of influence over the unit. It would make things difficult for us if the boy so much as told it how he feels about us. I don't want him involved."
Yumi stood silent for a moment. She knew Shuishiro was wrong, but there was no argument against what he was saying. He had turned away from her and was once again staring at the waves far below. Several metres above her head she heard a seagull cry out, the station was so big it had become a small habitat for the sea birds. In that quiet and calm moment, an idea came to her. Yumi didn't particularly like it, but it was all she had.
"What if… what if we were to find some way of controlling Ban-san?" she asked haltingly, trying to suppress the churning feeling in her stomach at the idea of blackmail.
"How do you mean?" Shuishiro asked. Yumi had a feeling he already knew and was just forcing her to voice it herself.
"We could tell him that if he doesn't do exactly as we say, we will…" Yumi swallowed hard, "We'll hurt Tima-san."
Shuishiro showed the faintest hint of a smile, and not a very pleasant one, "It's a good idea Kinasato-san." The idea that he was giving her recognition, for the first time ever, for something like this, made Yumi feel even worse.
"I will go to his house tomorrow, have the 'intconovr' virus infect the Tima unit again Kinasato-san. It won't loose control for at least a day, and a working example might be useful. Leave out the directive to put the unit into sleep mode this time please."
"Won't that mean doing even more damage? We still don't know how badly her mind was hurt last time. When that defence program starts again, it might do something irreparable."
Shuishiro stood up and leant his back against the rail, "All the more reason for Ban-kun to help us before that happens."
Yumi nodded silently, not raising her eyes from the floor. She felt that if she even opened her mouth now she would be sick. Shuishiro hailed a passing shuttle and rode back towards the central platform, leaving her alone on the skybridge.
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How'd you like it? Reviews would be great! I had a some trouble with italics and I'm not sure if they'll show up. I f they don't then I'll say here that there are two statements that are intended to be in italics: 'When we get home you'd better have pulled yourself together' and 'He'd better keep his promise'. Wow, that was a pretty short closing statement…