A .Hack fanfiction by Renfro Calhoun
Disclaimer: Project .Hack and attached characters/concepts are property of Bandai and Cyber Connect. They are used without permission, but with the utmost respect.
Notes: Happens after the end of Quarantine. (Thoughts,) [text], {email domains}. It has occurred to me that this fanfic has become a Livejournal of sorts for me, seeing as I don't have one of my own. I blame a lack of ambition. Also Communism.
In other news, I'm sure many of you, like me, are back to school – be it high school, or (in the words of MacHall) society's four-year state-subsidized adult kindergarden. Take heart in knowing that there's a fair-to-middling chance that a great deal of others, myself included, have classes that suck as much as yours. Don't let that stop you from complaining, though, that's the only thing that's gonna keep you sane. Take it from me :)
This chapter brought to you in part by: Thornley – Come Again
Chapter 14 – As the Day Rolls ByHands folded behind his head, Hiroshi reclined in his desk chair, stretching his feet out beneath the desk. Eyes closed, his face serene, he allowed himself to reflect, though he didn't have much choice in the matter.
(Another mail... Ryoko... Dean... and Morganna again. So much going on. I don't know what to think now.)
Not for lack of trying, but the boy knew he still didn't have enough information about what was really going on. One of his confidants an imposter, and real-life versions of him appearing in 'The World'; an old enemy resurfacing and a new one hot in pursuit; a fragmented email with a name he found familiar. He didn't know which question to ask first.
(If what Ryoko said was true... then Dean might be just a program in the game. But who would put something like that there? And how, and why? Can we believe what it's been telling us?)
That last question led to a darker one. (What if this is all some kind of... I don't know, some big trick or something, trying to get us focused on... they're after Morganna, so they have us concentrate on Dean, and what happened to him? But she's gone now. It doesn't make any sense! Unless Dean was getting close to something and they decided to...)
The speculation grew too complicated, breaking his trance; he shook his head gingerly, swirling his thoughts like a snow globe. As if by fate, more pleasant ones drifted first to the forefront of his mind.
(So, Ryoko didn't really think of me that way.) He snorted, more than a little amused. (She's stronger than I thought... it took a lot of courage to make amends for something like that. I know I sure wasn't looking forward to talking about it.)
A smile crossed Hiroshi's lips. Not unlike BlackRose, Terajima's motif of choice – pure, white, angelic – was quite fitting; he was convinced the girl had not a malicious bone in her body, even if her behavior wasn't always what he would consider wise.
(It's a good thing we ran into each other,) he said inaudibly. Valiantly, he tried to steer his thoughts to more serious matters. (What she said fits what Lios told me about Dean.)
This topic fell away in a hurry, replaced by the far more interesting half of their conversation.
Her confession had caught him off guard, while simultaneously relieving him of a huge burden. Though the physical danger was no longer present online, he believed quite fervently that the emotions – what he felt, and what he thought others felt – were quite real, and that, too, posed its own sort of danger. The thought of some obscure love triangle was not one he enjoyed.
He blinked, his thoughts stopping cold. There was that word again. The one BlackRose had used, supposedly as a joke. The one that caused him to stop and think, as if that were somehow the key to suddenly understanding how he felt, whether he cared for BlackRose in a sense beyond a close friend and trusted ally. He had used the same word to describe his fondness for games and breakfast cereal; did such a word truly capture how he felt?
The chair creaked a little as he picked his feet off the floor, flopping them up on an empty portion of desk. It wasn't the first time he'd pondered this subject, and he was sure it wouldn't be the last; briefly he envisioned a tiny cartoon version of his character running in circles, fast and long enough to wear a rut into the ground.
She two years his senior, he still the shy boy he had always been; a part of him wondered whether he would ever have been able to approach BlackRose – her player – as only himself, not some digital hero with a rare item that held the key to her brother's salvation, but just Hiroshi.
This he knew for sure; he wanted to meet the real her, more than anything he could remember wanting. For a moment, only for a moment, he allowed himself to ponder a more romantic course of action – a thought that instantly caused the boy to blush and change the subject, albeit with a small grin on his face.
From the corner of the desk, he heard a faint chime, the familiar announcement of new mail.
[From: BlackRose {theworld}To: Kite {theworld}
Subj: Change in plans
Heya. I know you might not get this 'cause of that bug on your computer, but I thought it was worth a try, and you probably figured it out anyway. I just found out they're doing maintenance tonight, so I'm going to turn in early. I'll see you tomorrow!
-BR :-)]
Hiroshi blinked incredulously. (Maintenance? I didn't hear anything about this.) His hands worked even faster than his mind, sending a response in under a minute.
[From: Kite {theworld}
To: BlackRose {theworld}
Subj: Maintenance?
This is the first I've heard of it. Did they just announce it?]
He fired off the mail with a hasty click of the mouse; another minute passed, and a white box of text appeared on screen, the hallmark of the desktop's built-in instant messenger service.
[BlackRose: Hey there! Wasn't sure if you were online or not. The message went up on the boards an hour ago. It wasn't really specific, system administration just said they needed to shut down all servers for maintenance.]
Hiroshi arched his brow, intrigued. [Kite: That's odd. I met with Lios tonight, and he didn't say anything about needing to shut down the game.]
[Really? Hmm... I don't know what to make of this either, but it could have something to do with what's been going on.]
He felt tempted to brief her on what Ryoko had told him, but stopped himself; in part fearing that his messenger had been bugged as well, but more because he had yet to see the log Ryoko mentioned. [So much for our plans tonight, huh?]
The boy watched as black text appeared on the outline of the IM box, indicating that BlackRose was typing. [We had plans? I thought we were just going to hit random fields again.]
[And that doesn't count as plans?] he shot back, chuckling offline. To clarify his tone, he threw in a grinning emote.
[Hmph. A true gentleman would have made arrangements beforehand!]
[Is that a hint?] he asked, masking levity with another smiley face.
There was a long pause, a relative silence before his eyes. He saw that she was typing again, but no message appeared; ten seconds turned to thirty, and then to a full minute. The second minute rolled by just as discretely, and he wondered to himself whether one of them was lagging.
Finally, words appeared below his in the chat box – more accurately, one word. [Maybe.]
Hiro wasn't quick to respond. (Maybe? Why did she take so long to say that?) In his mind's eye, he saw her – a vague, undefined 'her' – typing in a much more lengthy sentence, and hitting the backspace key over and over, obviously unsatisfied with the words her hands kept choosing.
Unbeknownst to him, a flush of warmth crept up the sides of his face. [Then maybe I have an idea after all,] he typed, a half-truth at best that nonetheless got him to start pondering ideas.
[Oh?]
[Yep. You're not busy tomorrow, are you?]
He saw her response coming a mile away. [Not at all. What do you have in mind?]
Hiroshi smirked as he answered her. [Heh heh... you'll find out.] (And probably right after I do.)
[I'd better :-)]
Before he could further reassure her, she 'spoke' again. [Anyway, I think I'll log off for the night. What time do you want to meet tomorrow?]
[How does 2 in the afternoon sound?] Arbitrarily, he added, [I'll be on Delta server.]
[Got it. It's a date, then. See ya there!]
[BlackRose has logged off - 22:47 on 2/7/11]
Something inside of him got a lot lighter at the word 'date'.The shoes played their melody against the concrete, clopping quietly amidst his surroundings, the neighborhood locked in his memory down to the last square of sidewalk. His hands filled the pockets of a dark red windbreaker, which contrasted with the blue of his jeans and the black of his t-shirt.
He felt the wind playing with a stray clump of his hair, and didn't bother to brush it down, his focus instead on the path in front of him, his attention in another place entirely – for once, a place not at all serious, at least not anymore. School, life, the world, his friends, movies... his mind jumped from topic to topic in classic 'Six Degrees' fashion, the weakest of connections leading him from one subject to the next, the sign of a mind trying hard not to think of anything in particular.
The mind he had to put aside when he became Kite; not always, but often enough.
Before too long he found himself at the Kugara residence, which stood out amidst the other houses, even though it looked just like them. He strode up the driveway and to the front door, his hand seeking out the doorbell almost of its own volition.
The door creaked open, revealing Yasuhiko, with more color and life to his face than in recent memory; seeing Hiroshi, he smiled and waved his friend in. "Hey, Hiro! C'mon in!"
"Hey, Yasu," he said as he stepped into the house. He bent down and pulled off his shoes. "You're looking a lot better."
"A few hot meals will do that to you," the taller youth replied.
Hiroshi followed Yasuhiko as he headed towards the stairs. "So what was it you wanted to see me about?" he asked.
"I got a mail from Balmung," said Yasu as he set foot on the first step. "He said he had to get something to you offline, a log about a meeting he had."
"Right, he met Dean in the game."
His friend threw an odd look at him over his shoulder. "You know about it?"
Hiroshi nodded. "Mm-hmm. Ryoko told me about it last night, but she didn't give me the details."
Two steps later, the boys ascended to the second floor. "I see... yeah, it looks like that guy Dean told Balmung and the others that someone else was controlling Stolls, and they found out he's some kind of program."
"I've been thinking about that," said Hiro. "It just doesn't make any sense though, who would put something like that in the game, and for what?"
Yasu waved dismissively as he rounded the corner, through the doorway to his bedroom. "No idea, although for all I know it could be like that one kid who got trapped in the game... Tsukasa, that was his name."
Hiroshi took a seat on the bed as Yasuhiko claimed the desk chair. Near the pillows, he noticed a small pile of paper, the printed letters looking quite a bit like a chat log. "That's it?"
"Yeah," he gestured to the paper, "go ahead and check it out."
The younger boy picked up the pages and started reading; with the important points spoiled already, he was less than surprised, but the context of the conversation left him obviously unsettled. (So he keeps changing characters... maybe there's a pattern to this? Did someone set it up that way intentionally?) The presence of Helba threw in a whole new layer of confusion, her words revealing and maddeningly cryptic at once. (What does she have to do with this?)
"There was also this, which I just got today." The chair squeaked faintly as Yasuhiko spun towards his monitor. Hiro heard keys clacking and the mouse click once, and then nothing over the humming of the computer fan.
Reading the last line on the paper, Hiroshi looked up and set the log aside. "What is it?"
"A mail from Balmung, I just got it today, just an hour before you arrived." He tapped a finger to the screen. "Have a look."
[From: Balmung {theworld}
To: Orca {theworld}
Subj: Mail from Lios
Something else you should pass on to Kite; I got a mail from Lios last night, that he, in turn, received from that character I told you about – Dean. He has some limited capacity to send mail, and this one was sent to system administration not long after we spoke with him. Lios said he was with Kite when he received it, and they passed it on to me. I have most of it cleared up, and I couldn't think of much else that fits, but there's a part in the middle I'm not sure about.
Message begins:
Fwd: I'm not crazy
Lios, I don't know what you've heard, but she's wrong. I can prove it! I'm me, I have to be. Max knows. Contact Max. MKerrek {undernet/asaraeast}. "Open your -ask, Ta--n." = password. No one left I can count on. They're all co-pro--sed. He will know. He will know. He will know.
Message ends.
The domain names appear to be for Asara Corporation, so my guess is he wants us to get ahold of someone there, someone named Max – a quick Googling identified him as a business agent for the company, Max Kerrek. I'm not sure what that password actually is, though if he wants us to email this 'Max' then I think that needs to be the subject.
- Balmung]
"Max, at Asara..." Yasuhiko thought aloud. "Does this have anything to do with that big conference going on?"
["Open your -ask, Ta--n."] "T, a... n... is that... could that be 'Tamon'? TamonAdillo?"
Yasu looked up at Hiro. "What's TamonAdillo?"
(That's it... that has to be it. Max, of course!) "Back when you were in a coma, when I first met Dean... he was working with this guy, Max, from Asara Corporation. Max's character name was TamonAdillo."
"So he knows this guy... where does that leave us?"
"Well, we have to get to him somehow," said Hiroshi. "Balmung was probably right about that password, that's probably how we tell him it's us. Or, uh... well, something like that. The point is, we need to tell him that."
Yasu idly scraped his teeth together, sliding his jaw left and right as he read the text again. "That name sounds familiar... what could that -ask word be? Task? Mask?"
"Bask, cask... what else fits there?"
"That's all I can think of."
The boys stopped their vocal ponderings, silently trying letters and numbers into that empty slot. A minute, but tangible sense of discouragement began to arise, bringing with it frustration at being stymied by a single letter of a foreign alphabet.
Out of nowhere, Yasuhiko asked, "His character name... how do you spell that?"
"Tamon? Uh... T-a-m-o-n-a-d-i-l-l-o."
"TamonAdillo." Murmuring to himself, Yasu grabbed a pencil and a post-it note, writing the letters out on its yellow surface. "...l-l-o... I'm telling you, I feel like I should know what this is."
Hiroshi's brown eyes watched the tip of the pencil, hearing it scuff and scratch as it was dragged against the note, the only noise aside from the computer fan and their own breathing.
"Bask... cask... TamonAd... wait, cask." Yasuhiko gasped, sitting upright. "Cask."
Staring oddly at his friend, Hiroshi asked, "What is it?"
He spun in his chair, looking up at Hiro. "Amontillado."
Hiro drew his head back sharply. "Amonti... wh-what?"
"It's an anagram for a story," Yasuhiko explained. "The Cask of Amontillado, by Edgar Allen Poe. He changed the letters around for his character name."
"Are you sure?"
"I'm positive. We covered it in class, remember? Look, the letters even match up." Yasu hastily wrote 'Amontillado' on the note between the two names, pointing to the letters they shared. "See?"
The light dawned on Hiroshi, and quickly. "You're right... that means the word is 'cask.' Let's email him, we have to let him know who we are. Maybe he can help us find Dean!"
From: Orca {theworld}
To: MKerrek {undernet/asaraeast}
Subj: Open your cask, Tamon
It's me, Kite. Dean has been kidnapped, and someone else is controlling his character in 'The World' to spy on me and my friends. We think they're looking for Morganna, but I don't really know what they're after, or who 'they' even are.
Please help.
- Hiroshi
- End of Chapter 14