A/N: I thank my reviewers *bows*...it's torturous that FF.net writers grow so dependent on how many and what kind of reviews they have to get them to write another chapter and for once, finish the story. I'm trying to break out of that habit and try to toss it away like an old shoe, but it's not that simple. Maybe that's why I'm writing in a serie a little less known, such as Noir, so I could unlearn. Still, I thank my reviewers for their insight and the assurance they give that there still are people reading my work. It makes the transition easier. ^^
So before I waste any more time by blathering incoherently, I move the spotlight to Mireille and Kirika. They are waiting. *bows*
Somnus
The place was spotless and except for the painting of two swords crossed on a black background that hung on the wall, the room was as white as the entire facility. There was a large desk at the center of the room, barely seen because of its blending with the walls of the same color.
Mireille sat on one of the two white chairs that finally comprised Schwarz's office, her bag on her lap. Kirika was on the opposite chair, as motionless and as silent as a statue, but Mireille could see the readiness of her hand for the gun on her hip.
"Mr Schwarz." Mireille arms were crossed stubbornly across her chest. "Do you honestly think you can make me believe that I'm not real? That I'm just some holographic...pattern of particles, is that what you're saying?"
"Please, Mademoiselle Bouquet, allow me to explain to you everything first. You...all three of us...in fact, everyone in this world as you know it, is a subconscious image in a virtual world called Dreamscape." Schwarz sat behind his desk, his fingers steepled. "We are not holograms...only non-humans are. We are customized identities in a network of human minds."
Mireille looked as if she did not even want to hear this, but the sight of the white, almost alien facility had given her a precaution to take as much information and process it as much as was possible. Something very strange was going to be revealed to the world and she wanted to be prepared, despite her strong assertion that anyone who thought they weren't real was a fruitcake.
"First you must understand, although not necessarily accept, the premise that we are currently in an artificial reality, similar in principle to the cybernetic world of the Internet. This reality we are in is called Dreamscape. This Dreamscape was created by humans in their reality called the Real-World," said Schwarz slowly. "Do you understand?"
"I'll try," said Mireille not willingly.
"You have heard of the saying that in truth, we have only lived half the number of years in our age because we've spent the other half sleeping?"
"Yes, although," Mireille couldn't help adding, "it sounded rather smart when I first heard it, but it eventually became rather corny."
"Well, some people in the Real-World thought it was still pretty smart even after a long time." Schwarz adjusted his glasses. "Progress in science was made and soon they developed the technology to make the other half of their lives count while they were sleeping. Are you familiar with chat rooms in the Internet?"
"In this day and age, who isn't?"
"What about RPGs, role-playing games, whatever the medium, be it pen-and-paper, through the Internet, or video games?"
"Yes, I've heard of them, although I don't play." Mireille sounded a little sarcastic. "I don't exactly have the time."
"Well, imagine this technology invented by the scientists of Real-World as sort of like an online chatroom-based RPG for the subconscious minds of the people of the Real-World." He stopped. "I hope you do have an idea of Freud's theory of the two parts of the mind..."
"The conscious and the subconscious, yes, I do."
"Yes, and that dreams occur in the subconscious part of our minds. Well, due to breakthroughs in neuroscience, the Real-World has developed technology to manipulate a person's subconsciousness when he or she is asleep so that the person can join in a 'virtual reality' life of sorts connected with other people, as I've said, like the Internet. It would be like living another life when one is asleep. This can be achieved by wearing the Dreamscape visor that plugs a person into the Real-World DreamHub located in Japan, allowing one's subconsciousness to network with millions of others also connected to the Hub to play in the virtual environment called Dreamscape, where one plays as his or her specially-customized identity in a game of life, very much like an RPG. We call this The Great Game. The people are all connected in the Real-World DreamHub headquarters, where the Great Game and every aspect of it can all be monitored and the game background and circumstances can be set up by Operators."
"Are you telling me that my life is just a game...a form of...of...entertainment?!" Perspiration beaded on her forehead; Mireille did not take her humanity being mocked too kindly. She unknowingly made a fist that only Kirika noticed. "And what are those Operators doing, playing God?"
"In a certain point of view, yes, if you want to put it that way. But that is only for the external factors, such as the weather of Dreamscape or circumstances that people sometimes term as 'coincidences.' The characters themselves of the Great Game however, such as the three of us, are directly controlled by the decisions of our Real-World players, the true flesh-and-blood us, in a matter of speaking. After all, they are the ones playing us in their subconsciousness, and the decisions we make that supposedly stem from our personalities and mentalities, are the ones they are making from their own personalities and mentalities. Therefore, we, the game avatars, are granted an autonomy, but this autonomy is bounded by the human parameters of our players."
Mireille was reeling. It was not probable, true, but it was possible, and scientifically speaking, it made sense. Then that would mean she isn't Mireille Bouquet...that Mireille Bouquet was someone else she did not know, and she was subject to the whims of that other? That she did not make her choices, but it had to agree with what that other would have chosen also?
"Of course, the Real-World players can only play this when they are asleep," Schwarz was saying, "so it would mean that while they are asleep, we are awake, and when they are awake, we are asleep in Dreamscape. But then, since Real-World people do not sleep exactly half of the day but only about a third of the day, averagely, this would conflict with the day-to-day life their characters are supposed to have. So this was remedied by inserting a few added memories in our, the game characters' that is, memory banks so it could seem that we have lived, or stayed awake to be more precise, two-thirds of a day when we were actually asleep during two-thirds of that day."
"Added memories?" Mireille's eyes widened and her voice jumped half an octave higher. "I have memories that didn't really happen? And what in the name of all that is sacred is a memory bank?"
"Whatever that transpired in Dreamscape are stored in memory banks in Dreamscape DreamHub, this facility where we currently are, that can be automatically accessed by the Real-Person players plugged into the Real-World DreamHub. You know of memory cards used for video game consoles? It operates in the same way. These memory banks are where we, the Dreamscape characters, base our personalities and mentalities from and furthermore, our decisions, from the past experiences of our game life we had that are currently stored in there. And yes, Operators of DreamHubs are given the liberty to feed you extra memories everyday so we could live and sleep in what seems to be an ordinary 'day.'"
"I can tell you that there's nothing ordinary about this, mon Dieu," snapped Mireille, her nerves shaken. Everything seemed to fit; she could find no loophole to disprove him. And who could say what was really being "fed" into her "brain" and what was not when memories and their sources had always been such a mystery?
"One thing, though," she said after a long pause. "You obviously know that I don't believe any of this. But that can't be, can it, when my own Real-World player, or whoever she is that's controlling my actions, knows that she's only playing a game? And if you say that my thoughts are the thoughts of my player, then am I not supposed to know myself that I'm only a game character?" She crossed her arms triumphantly.
But Schwarz only unsteepled his fingers and spread his hands over the table. "It's important to keep in mind that we are only in that player's Dream. And what happens to a dream when you wake up? You only remember the feeling and vague images that at most are fragmented. You rarely, if not at all, remember events in sequential order, even though they had been so real and vivid in the dream. In fact, you sometimes don't even know whether you had a dream or not in the first place and no one can say so either. And remember, everything that happens in Dreamscape are permanently stored only in the Dreamscape memory banks and not in the player's head. The life played in Dreamscape is severed from his or her Real-Life and there are no ties connecting the two. As I've said earlier, it's like living a completely separate life. That's why the death of a game character brings no effect to the body of the player. A 'death' could be the result of the player getting tired of the character, or a 'Game Over' because the players made a few wrong decisions, and many other possibilities."
Her knees felt a little weak. This was getting into a nightmare, if it was possible for a nightmare to occur in a dream. So much for humanity.
"However, the Real and Dreamscape lives of DreamHub Operators are a completely different matter," Schwarz continued in the same breath. "That is why I am here and I know that we are only dreams. Operators' conscious and subconscious lives are linked together for purposes of maintaining the system in case anything happens, so technically, our Real-World players are devoted to working in the DreamHub system when they are both awake and asleep. So what happens to my body in Dreamscape happens to the one in Real-World and vice-versa. It's a risk Operators have to take." He finished, looking at them expectantly. "Would you like me to prove it to you?"
"What?" asked Mireille dazedly, her head spinning. Maybe she had never met Kirika at all. Maybe it had been just a "feed"...
"Would you like me to prove that I know your 'life' inside out?," said Schwarz, interrupting her thought. "I'm an Operator, and we have monitored your Dreamscape life and can access your memory banks if we have to convince you. I've actually reviewed some of your more pertinent memory files before I sent you that email in case you didn't think this entire business was credible."
"You've...accessed my memories?!" The Corsican could barely control herself at this new information.
"Yes. Ask me anything, if you want to prove to yourself that what I have said is true. But remember, I can only know what happened physically then, and not your thoughts."
Mireille was burning with indignation. Forget about age or place-of-birth or other of those kinds of bio data. If this man wanted to pit her memories with her, she'll give him a fight for it.
"How did my parents die?" was the first question she challenged.
"They were assassinated by Yuumura-san here when she was only of a young and tender age, manipulated by Altena actually for Le Grand Retour, because your parents did not want you to become one of the Noir," answered Schwarz immediately.
Mireille looked at Kirika and the girl stared back. This unsettled Mireille greatly so she composed herself before launching another. "You know Chloe, I presume, Herr Schwarz?"
"Of course."
"As much as she called herself the True Noir, she once gave me a title herself. What was it?"
"'Soldat's child', which was a perpetual mystery to you at that time, I would believe. Caused quite a stir to the Operators who were monitoring you when they watched the game. Whoever was playing Chloe certainly had style."
Mireille could not bring herself to believe it. It made her life seem so trivial, like a soap opera that could be watched by many. She was about to ask him what was the lethal vow that she had given to Kirika when they first met, but when she looked at Schwarz, she seemed to see something in his eye that said he knew everything about her. Besides, she was not comfortable about breaching that question in front of Kirika. She shivered inwardly from anger. So this was reality.
"You are very convincing, Mr. Schwarz," she finally said, keeping her voice controlled.
"I appreciate that." He veered his view to Kirika. "Would you like to cross-examine me too, for fairness?"
"There is no need. I do believe you," said Kirika calmly.
"You do?!" Mireille's own abruptness startled herself.
"Mr. Schwarz," said Kirika, looking very serene, "based from what you said, that would mean we would have our Real-World counterparts, wouldn't we, who could be very different from us?"
"But of course. That is a large possibility. After all, the characters one could play in Dreamscape are customizable from the start."
"Would you be able to tell us what we really are in the Real-World?"
"You would naturally want to know that," said Mr. Schwarz, smiling, "and I came prepared. In reality, you are Kirika Yuumura, an ordinary teenager of fourteen in Japan attending second year junior high school in Tokyo. Your parents are located in America, working overseas, and money is sent to you by a monthly basis for you to support yourself. On the other hand, Mireille Bouquet is a twenty-year-old Corsican-born Parisian, working as an assistant bookstore keeper of Librarie LeBlanc. You live alone in your flat in Paris. Your mother, Odette Bouquet, lives in Corsica while your father died of cancer when you were young. You are affianced to Jacques d'Orleans."
"I am what?!" Mireille paled.
"And the most significant difference is that Kirika Yuumura and Mireille Bouquet have never met each other, at least not face to face. Only in Dreamscape, where they play you."
"We...are not Noir?" asked Kirika, her voice suddenly full of hope. Something in her tone made Mireille feel a little anxious.
"No, there is no such thing as Noir in the Real-World," said Schwarz matter-of-factly. "Not even the Soldat organization that you fear so much is real."
"Yokatta," breathed Kirika, a soft smile suddenly appearing on her face like sunshine. The epitome of quiet happiness, she turned to look at Mireille. "Did you hear that, Mireille? None of that had ever been real."
"I...I..." Mireille was struggling to control her emotions that were threatening to overwhelm her like waves crashing on the rocks of a beach. She could not understand why Kirika was so happy of the fact that all they had gone through was nothing more than a set up, something that was acted out for the sake of entertainment. Her fingernails dug into her palms. Didn't she feel insulted, wronged, defiled?
Did Kirika regret meeting her?
"It may not have been real," said Mireille hoarsely, furious at herself and Kirika, "but it felt real to me." She clutched the arms of her chair, head bowed.
There was an uneasy silence.
"Of course," said Schwarz worriedly, "you don't have to accept it if you don't want to, Mademoiselle..."
"You're right," Mireille lifted her hand, "I don't. But that doesn't matter. Besides, you called us for a business deal and we're going to keep it professional." A pause. "I'm sorry for my outburst; I was not ready."
"Mireille..."
"Thank you, I'm fine, Kirika," said Mireille curtly. "Mr. Schwarz, let's get this over with while we can. Who is your target?"
"A Mr. Steven Ramsey. He's an American millionaire." Schwarz adjusted his tie, looking concerned. "He used to be one of the stockholders of Dreamscape Role-playing, Inc. until he began to be a little more...aggressive of how the system should be run. Apparently, he said, the DreamHub should be used not only for subconscious control but should be tested for conscious control as well. A 'scientific advancement,' he said. Well, you could very well imagine how our Board of Directors reacted to that blasphemy, and Mr. Ramsey reacted to that by withdrawing his millions and selling off his Dreamscape shares. No big matter, of course, since there were a lot of other people interested in buying shares because of Dreamscape's success. A month later, we thought the issue had already simmered down. But then, during our checking rounds, we found that many spare pieces of delicate equipment that were most important to the Dreamscape subconscious network had noticeably disappeared. It wasn't the loss that bothered us but the point that we didn't know in whose hands they were in troubled us greatly. Eventually, after thorough investigation, we found the traitorous insider." Schwarz swore in a coloful string of German at the recollection. Mireille hardly batted an eye.
After calming himself, he continued, "He was one of our most trusted Operators and he sold us out to Ramsey. Yes, after some...persuasion, he admitted he was under Ramsey's employ and had smuggled the spare parts one by one during his breaks in exchange for a very substantial amount of money. The fool. He didn't know what Ramsey is really after, which had become so obvious to us by then. Apparently, Ramsey had not said very much to the insider, so after we got what we wanted, we eliminated him."
Schwarz took a deep breath. "We know we can't successfully press charges against Ramsey; he has a powerful circle of friends in many, many countries who would do anything for him for a bit of cash. And besides, if we could, what were we going to charge him with? Robbery? He could easily pay bail to get him out of something that slight. For potential mind control? What sort of charge would that be? We decided that a quiet and successful elimination would be the only way that would prevent him and his scientists from developing our technology into something monstrous. So we turn to you."
"Couldn't you find assassins in your own Real-World?" Mireille asked politely, trying to keep her voice from cracking.
"Mr. Ramsey is no sitting duck in the pond, Mademoiselle; he has his own spy network made up of ex-CIA's, the best security system the men from Silicon Valley had ever built, and the most ruthless jackals that had ever been whelped in the face of the planet as his friends," said Schwarz with venom. "Besides, we have to have someone who would guarantee us a high chance of success, because otherwise if we were found out, Ramsey would press a charge on Dreamscape so serious that we would go bankrupt in less than a day." Schwarz looked at them seriously. "You are the best we have of both worlds, and we have the technology of transferring both of you to the Real-World. And I promise you a bounty so huge for his head that you wouldn't even need to do a single killing as a living for the rest of your life."
"Why would that matter to us? We aren't even real, as I recall," Mireille pounced involuntarily.
"That is a very good point, Mademoiselle Bouquet, and I knew you would bring it up. How about this then?" Schwarz lowered his voice, as if he was about to divulge a great secret. "As I said earlier, we can transfer both of you with your Dreamscape memories and abilities to your Real-World bodies for as long as you need to do your job...that's otherwise prohibited and forbidden, but desperate situations call for desperate measures. And if you succeed, you can stay there for as long as you like. Even forever. How's that for a deal? To be real?"
Mireille felt sickened by the possible direct violation of her Real-World counterpart's human rights, and when she saw the interested sparkle in Kirika's eye, she felt even sicker.
She knew she had every right to refuse to such a blatant, underhanded deal, but there was a tiny part of her curious to see the Real-World, curious to see who she really was. The tiny part began to grow. Besides, they wouldn't necessarily have to accept Schwarz's rather generous offer on a sale for real life if they succeeded on the job. They would only be window-shopping. They would be 'just looking.' And besides, Kirika would never let her hear the end of this if she refused without even trying reality, a reality where they had not come from a bloody history of Noir.
After all, thought Mireille satisfactorily as she made up her mind, she wasn't really making the choice. If it was in the personality of her "player" to make such a choice if also faced with the same situation, then who was a game character to say no?
"We'll take the money and the Real-World proposal," said Mireille imperiously. "But it will be up to us in the end to see what we would accept."
"Done!" exclaimed Schwarz, throwing up his hands for joy. "That is a small price to pay for the favor you will be doing us!"
"It's not a favor; it's a business deal," answered Mireille coolly. "Nothing more."
"Of course, of course," agreed Schwarz, nodding vigorously. "You would like to get started now?"
"Let me have a word alone with my partner first to work out the details, Mr. Schwarz," Mireille replied, watching Kirika with one eye. "There is something we have to discuss."
"Ah, ja, bitte, bitte." Schwarz stood up, his head covering one of the hilts in the sword painting. "I will wait outside for you."
Mireille waited for the tall man to close the door then she pulled her hand out of her bag. Kirika relaxed her own trigger hand and placed it on her lap. They looked at each other in silence, their eyes goading the other to start.
Surprisingly, Kirika was the first to break it. "What is it you want to talk about, Mireille?"
Mireille hid nothing. "I'm not sure, but I know we have to talk about something before jumping into this business. This isn't a game."
"This reality where we are now is," said Kirika, her voice determined. "We aren't Noir."
"And I know you're terribly pleased about that and all..." began Mireille snappishly.
"What's wrong with that?" blurted out Kirika unexpectedly. Then she lowered her voice. "I'm just glad to know that I wasn't born to be a murderer. I'm glad to know that the real me is just an ordinary teenager with parents and a life."
Mireille was taken aback. She had never seen Kirika this assertive before, and for a moment, it frightened her. It seemed to her that Kirika, otherwise so cautious and thoughtful, was ready to throw their past, everything, into the wind and leap forward so blindly. The thought angered her and brought the blood to her face. It took her an effort to remain calm.
"Kirika," she said slowly, "don't get the idea that I'm barring you from leading a normal life. All I'm saying is that we musn't forget who we are and who we've become. The circumstances of our 'life' may be fabricated, but the feelings we've attached to them are real. You seem so...carefree about them." Flippant was the word she wanted to use, but she held it back.
Kirika knitted her eyebrows together. "Is...is that what's bothering you, Mireille? That you think I don't care about everything that happened between us?"
"Of course that's not what I think," said Mireille hastily, although it was exactly what she was thinking and it surprised her that Kirika could strike so quickly to the heart without even trying."Not in so many words anyway." It annoyed her. Mireille did not want to acknowledge what was annoying her, but it did. She gave her voice an icier tone to cover it up and said mechanically, "I just think we should be more careful, that's all. It's not good to give a client the upper hand or...or....he'll cheat us of our payment," she finished lamely.
A slight shadow dropped on Kirika's face. "Oh," she said oddly. "The money, of course. Sorry, I thought you were talking about something else." She gave a wan smile. "I understand."
Then Mireille realized what it was that was nagging her about this entire, messy business. In the real world, they did not know each other, were not friends the way they were now that they would take a bullet for each other in a silent, mutual understanding. She had worked too hard for this friendship only to lose it just because it wasn't real and she felt she had been cheated. But she did not want to bring it up. It was confusing and embarrassing they way it already was and was being acknowledged.
"I'm glad you understand," she finally answered a little haltingly. "We'd better go. Mr. Schwarz is waiting for us."
The silicon nodes attached numerously on her temples made her nervous despite of herself. Mireille opened and closed her hands restlessly. She did not even have to turn her head to know that Kirika was also lying down beside her on the reclined, leather chair similar to hers, calm, quiet, and so enviably at peace in spite of the wires spread over their body connecting to the stark, alien-like machines managed by poker-faced Operators at the control boards.
"Those nodes have been especially made for this mission so that your entire Dreamscape entities, your being, be transposed to your Real-World personas," Schwarz said, coming over across the laboratory floor and looking over their heads. "My Operators and I will be at the helm."
"What are those?" asked Mireille antsily, seeing the red, steel bands in his hands.
Schwarz lifted the semi-circle bands with each a red visor melded on half its surface area. "These are your Dreamscape headgears that will allow you to be plugged into the Hub and set your subconsciousness to the Real-World. May I?"
Mireille felt the cold steel being attached on her forehead perfectly, the translucent visor hueing her eyesight red. It made the experience even more surreal.
"Maybe we should review the first objective of the mission," said Schwarz, finishing with Kirika's visor. "Both of you will find yourself in your bedrooms with similar visors which you will take off as soon as you wake. Mademoiselle Bouquet will be located in Paris and Yuumura-san in Tokyo. Yuumura-san, since I believe that she would not have enough money to fly to Europe, will find me waiting just outside her house to take her with me to Switzerland, where Ramsey is reportedly staying. Mademoiselle Bouquet, I will contact you by cellphone for the arrangement of our rendezvous by Lake Lucerne in Switzerland, which I believe you will have no trouble in catching a bus en route to the place. I hope that is clear to all parties involved?"
"What about our guns?" Mireille asked, already feeling the adrenaline pumping in her veins.
"Since we certainly cannot transfer objects from this world to the other, I will give you your arms when we meet by the Lake. According to your specifications, Mademoiselle Bouquet will have a Walther P99 automatic, fully-loaded, with its respective extra cartridges. Yuumura-san will have Beretta M1934 automatic, fully-loaded also, with her extra magazines of firepower as well." Schwarz furrowed a brow. "Are you sure you do not want a newer, more efficient sidearm, Yuumura-san, such as a good Walther or a Glock?"
"I like the feel of the Beretta," was Kirika's laconic reply.
"Then of course, the Beretta it will be," said Schwarz, although he still sounded a little puzzled. He shrugged and continued, "I cannot stress enough that you are now in your Real bodies; if you should encounter anything that will lead to your untimely death, it will truly be the end of your existences. We cannot pull you out of it." He signaled his Operators something, saying to the assassins, "And now both of you will be induced to a sleep so we can finally start the process of the trasnfer. Please count to ten and we will begin."
By the time Mireille reached ten, her eyelids felt heavy and she had just stifled a yawn. Her sight became hazy as one would see car headlights through an eyeful of tears as the visor began to glow and hum.
"I'll see you two on the flip side," was the last thing she heard from Schwarz as she drifted pleasantly to the dark.
somnus, end