The people in the crowd began talking amongst themselves, coming up with conclusions as to what had just happened. Lan felt his face drain of color. Dex was staring, his jaw hanging open. GutsMan blinked stupidly, wondering what he might have done wrong. MegaMan slowly pushed himself up onto his hands and knees. His thought process was spinning. What happened..? He got to his feet carefully, and was jacked out not even a second later. Lan clutched the PET protectively in his hands, visably worried. "MegaMan, are you okay?"
MegaMan smiled consolately. "I'm fine now. I'm sorry about the netbattle. Do you want me to log back in and try again?"
"No!" Lan cried. "It's okay! It's not your fault. I'm not going to make you fight anymore until dad gets home and takes a look at you..."
The navi felt unable to object. That was probably the best idea. He didn't want Lan to worry too much in the meantime, though. He assumed this was just something to do with Lan's computer still. It was probably nothing at all. Maybe Lan could plug the mouse into his computer again and use that to navigate for tonight. He didn't want to risk jacking back into that computer again until there were optimal amounts of free space on the hard drive. He gave Lan a slow nod as a reply.
Confused, Lan pocketed what remained of the battle chips in his hand and looked over to Dex. "Dex, I'd better get home. I can't make MegaMan fight like this."
"I understand, Lan," Dex said with an unusual amount of sympathy. "We'll try again some other time, pal."
"Thanks." Lan gave a vague smile, and still clutching his PET in both hands, headed out the door. The crowd actually cleared to let him go through. The whispering hadn't died down at all, either. He tried to ignore it, and hoped some sort of bad rumour wouldn't come of all this. He headed home quietly, wondering what to think. What if MegaMan had a virus? What if his dad didn't know how to fix it yet? "D'you... y'know... feel weird?" Lan asked somewhat awkwardly. It was an awkwardness he rarely experienced while talking to his navi.
"I feel fine now," MegaMan said, trying to make the words sound as honest as they felt. "It was just sort of sudden. It stopped as quickly as it started."
"What stopped?"
MegaMan tried to choose his words carefully. Lan was human, so internal feelings probably weren't quite the same. "Well... it was kind of like everything inside me sort of froze up for a second. It caused a malfunction in my running processes, so I collapsed." He paused. "I'm sorry for making you worry."
"Don't apologise!" Lan offered quickly. "I've done worse to you before." He bit his lip. "I- I'm sorry." He had something of a grim feeling welling up inside him. A grim and fearful feeling that whatever was wrong was very wrong. He held the PET slightly closer to him as he walked. What morbid fear.
Lan got home in a much quieter fashion than usual. He didn't slam the door, and he didn't call out his arrival. His mother was in the kitchen, however, so she was well aware when he entered. She appeared surprised to see him. "Lan! It's only twenty after three! Weren't you going to go play with your friend Dex?"
"I... had to come home," Lan replied somewhat sullenly. "Is dad going to be home tommorrow?"
"Yes, I think so."
"Can I stay home?"
Mrs. Hikari turned in surprise, closing the cookbook she had been flipping through. Lan didn't sound like he was trying to avoid school, like he sometimes did when there were tests to be done. She walked over to her little boy and cupped his face in her hands. "Are you alright, sweetheart? Are you not feeling well?"
"MegaMan glitched up today, and I think maybe it's a virus. I want dad to check it out for me."
His mother gently took the PET from his hands, studying MegaMan's face curiously. Nothing was visably wrong with him, but his green eyes were a reflection of Lan's: concerned. She smiled at him, and then at Lan. "Don't get so worried, boys," she said to them. "Your father will be home soon, and I'm sure he can fix whatever's wrong." She put the PET back into Lan's hand and stroked back his hair. "So just turn off the PET for now and relax, okay?"
"Okay." Lan looked at MegaMan. "Is that alright with you? Ready to turn in?"
"Sure. See you tommorrow, Lan."
Lan put MegaMan into sleep mode and turned off the mini terminal. His mother was right. He had to try to calm down. His father would be home tommorrow, and then the problem would hopefully come to light. He went to his bedroom and set the PET down in its charger on his desk, and booted up the PC. For a second, he sat oblivious as to how he was supposed to access anything without his navi. How were you supposed to navigate anything without it? Realising that his father still had computer mice for events such as this one, he made his way over to his parents' room to look for one in the closet. He found one. "Weird," he remarked, looking at it. He returned to his room and plugged it into the PC. With his right hand, he made the little arrow squiggle all over the screen while he got used to it. Where were..?
His desktop didn't have any icons or shortcuts on it, since navis ordinarily just brought up the programs for you. He right-clicked the screen, and re-enabled the menu. That was better. After half a minute of poking through files, he found his Spiderman comics. Ah, the spidey goodness! All 117 issues of it so far.
He read for awhile, trying to get his mind off of MegaMan. Would his father really be home tommorrow? It had been awhile. It felt like he hadn't seen him in months. He was seldom home. Work kept him away so much. It was cool that he was the head scientist and all, but it would be nice to see him a little more often... At least his mother was pretty much just a housewife. She didn't want to leave Lan all by himself, and so she didn't. Pushing those thoughts out of his mind, he opened up the next image file and resumed reading. It was a good thing MegaMan had left him something to do. Comics were a good time-consumer, especially if you had digitally aquired 117 issues all in one go.
Lan read for a good while. He decided that he was very much like Spiderman, in the way that he and Spidey were both cool heroes who no one knew the true identity of. No one knew Peter Parker was Spiderman, and no one knew Lan Hikari was a netsaver. Well, maybe Famous and Chief Kiefer and his dad and Chaud and-- oh screw it.
It was a good thought, anyway. He read his comics avidly until his mother called him for dinner. For some reason, his thoughts just weren't focusing. Was not having MegaMan around really such a hinderance to him? He plunked himself down at the kitchen table, and picked up his fork.
"Are you still fretting about MegaMan?" his mother queried. "Everything will be alright."
"It's not just that," Lan grumbled. "I have to go to school tomorrow, and MegaMan glitched up at the net arcade..."
"So? What does it matter that it happened at the net arcade..?"
"Mom!" Lan cried, flustered. "There was a ton of people there! Everyone at school is going to know that I'm not using my netnavi, and there are gonna be rumors that all kinds of stuff happened to him!"
"Calm down," Mrs. Hikari soothed. "Your father will be home by the time you get home from school, and when you bring your PET with you to school the next day, everyone will know everything must be alright."
"I guess..."
"Cheer up, dear. Besides, I'll pack you something nice for lunch tommorrow, alright? It'll help you feel better. So finish up your dinner!" She smiled.
"Okay." Lan picked up his knife and cut off a piece of his salmon, sticking it into his mouth. Lemon herb... Hmm, apparently she was cooking his father's favorite foods again already.
His mind wandered the whole time, which was really sort of a rare thing for him. His mind hardly ever did anything whatsoever. Oh well. After finishing off his dinner (and actually eating his vegetables), he wandered back into his room and flopped down in front of the computer. Ah, comics. How fair thou art..! He grinned and resumed reading. And he read. And he read. And he read. Issue thirty-two dragged on into issue seventy-six. Seventy-six dragged into eighty-something. Before he knew it, he was hardly even awake, and somehow, the words were still processing into his brain. Occasionally, he'd notice something in the storyline which enabled him to realise he was actually sort of just reading without thinking. When did Mary Jane find out Peter's secret, anyway? Maybe it was time for sleep. Lan heaved himself out of his computer chair and pulled off his bandana without untying it. What time was it? He gave a moment's glance toward his darkened PET screen. No sense in looking there for the answer.
"Mom?" he asked very loudly. "What time is it?"
"Seven forty five," she answered loudly from probably the livingroom. Bah. He couldn't sleep yet. A shower would make a good time filler..! Or he could phone somebody. Yes, that was a good idea. He would talk to one of his friends. But whom?
Maylu, he decided, and made his way into the kitchen.
He knew his friends' numbers by heart. It didn't take long for Maylu's mother to answer. Her warm smiling face blinked onto the screen. "Oh! Hello, Lan. I suppose you're calling for Maylu. Hold on a second."
"Heh, thanks."
"Maylu!" she called. The red haired girl appeared in the doorway behind her. "It's Lan."
"Oh!" She rushed past her mother, over to the screen, and her mother wandered off to another part of the house. "Lan! Are you alright?" Maylu asked, her voice edged in concern, as though it had been he who had collapsed and not MegaMan. Man, Dex was such a blabbermouth...
"Yeah, I'm fine," Lan responded. "Say, did you--"
"What happened to MegaMan? Dex said you left pretty quick!"
He fought to keep from frowning at her. "I... yeah, I did. He's okay." He paused. "Anyway, I--"
"He's not hurt, is he?"
Lan sighed. "No. I don't think so. He says he feels okay. Can we stop talking about it?"
"Oh... Yeah. I'm sorry." She smiled a little. "And hey! You aren't wearing your bandana!"
The boy ran a hand back through his hair. That's right... He had taken it off. "I took it off a sec ago. So, as I was going to say, did you upgrade Roll today, other than at school?"
"Nope. Why?"
"I dunno. Higsby told me he could get some good program upgrades for defense and accuracy and stuff. I thought you were thinking about upping Roll's speed."
"Mhmm. I don't have any money for it right now, though." Maylu tilted her head thoughtfully. "I know you said you didn't want to talk about it, but when Dex told me about MegaMan, he sounded kinda down on himself, like it was his fault or something."
Lan smiled a little. "Heh, Dex... The big wuss. He knows GutsMan didn't even touch MegaMan. It's not his fault."
"So what did you do with him?"
"MegaMan? Oh... I just put him into sleep mode. My dad will be home tommorrow, so he can take a look."
"If you want, you can tell your dad that if he wants to reach you at school, he can call you on my PET. That way, you can be sure to know what's going on right away."
"Hey! Good idea. Thanks, Maylu." He rolled his shoulders, thinking distractedly of how to carry on the conversation. "So, wanna play soccer in the park on the weekend? I'm gonna ask Yai and Dex to come, too."
"Sure! Hold on, though..." She looked over her shoulder at the digital clock on the wall. "Roll," she said to her PET, which was somewhere off screen, "is the clock right? It looks kind of off."
"No. It's ten minutes ahead, Maylu," came Roll's voice in reply.
"Okay." She turned back to face the screen. "Sorry, Lan. I gotta go help my mom with a couple of things. Take care, okay?"
"I will. You, too. See you, Maylu."
"Bye, Lan!"
And the screen blinked out. Over at Maylu's house, having overheard the conversation between Maylu and Dex earlier, Roll was now slightly concerned. It had only been hours ago that she and her navi friends had lightly discussed the possibility of another navi virus going around. Was that why MegaMan was quiet? Had he been unwell? Were the net-ops even aware of the rumors of that virus? Surely Lan had realised that MegaMan's glitch was caused by something. Glitches like that were very very infrquent, and MegaMan was programmed by Dr. Hikari himself. ...Oh dear.
Lan slept soundly until his mother came into the room to get him up for school. She was just as persistant as MegaMan, and since she wasn't a computer program, she could employ tactics such as prodding at him and trying to gently shake him awake. Eventually, she won the tiresome battle of getting her son up for school. He retrieved himself some breakfast, which consisted of a yogurt tube from the fridge, managed to get the wheels onto his sneakers, and scooted out the door just in time to make it to school. Well, five minutes late, but that was about standard for him.
He decided that today would be a good day for trying to sleep in class, which led Ms. Mari into several frustrated mini rants about how it was important to get enough sleep and pay attention in class. But he did have enough sleep! School was just too ideal for sleeping through, in his opinion. Unfortunately, Yai sat in the desk diagonally across from him in the next row, Maylu was in front of her, and Dex was in the desk in the front row, closest to the door. So Yai was the closest, and she wasn't even close enough to talk to without getting caught. Darn.
During recess, Lan remained in class with his three friends. They were free to talk now. Out of the corner of his eye, he frequently noticed people watching him. News spread quickly, apparently, and as he'd suspected, everyone knew and noticed his lack of PET. In a quiet moment, he managed to catch afew quiet words being exchanged.
"And I heard MegaMan froze up and not even Dr. Hikari could fix 'im, so he had to get deleted!"
His father wasn't even in DenTech. How could he have failed to save MegaMan if he wasn't here? Stupid rumors.
"No! I heard GutsMan beat him up really bad in that netbattle."
GutsMan couldn't beat Glide in a netbattle, and Glide wasn't made for battling. There was no way Dex could beat Lan at anything, much less a netbattle. He was strong, but too slow and clumsy. He would have to ignore the stupid but discouraging rumors until his dad gave him some sort of heads-up.
It took awhile, though. Recess dragged back into class time. Fortunately, Ms. Mari decided today would be a good day for art, and so they got to draw. That was fun. Lan and his trio of friends pushed some desks together so they could chat and doodle at the same time, which worked out. Yai's picture came out the best. She drew something of a generic sunset beyond a mountainous landscape, but it looked very pretty, and she even colored it with some expensive pencils her father had bought for her that she had conveniently happened to bring to school with her that day. Apparently in something of a docile mood, Ms. Mari let her class draw until lunch time under the condition that the 'noise level stayed to a minium'.
Lunch was one of the best times of the day. You could go outside and play with your friends, and also, there was food. True to her word, Lan's mother had made him a really good sub-style sandwich and filled it with all kinds of things he liked. Mmmm. He was having such an enjoyable day that he actually almost forgot entirely about MegaMan or his father phoning, until he actually did. Twenty-five minutes into lunch, Maylu's PET let out a distinctive ring. The girl pulled her pink PET to eye level. The image of Dr. Hikari blinked on screen. "Hello, Maylu. Lan told me I'd be able to reach him via you. May I speak to him, please?"
"Oh! Of course!" Maylu smiled, handing her PET off to Lan. "Roll," she said quickly as he took it, "transfer over to Yai's PET with Glide so that Lan can talk to his dad in private."
"Sure thing," Roll said, complying.
Lan smiled grimly at his friends and rose from his seat to find a quieter corner of the lunchroom. Hopefully he wouldn't look all too conspicuous. "Dad..?"
Dr. Hikari nodded from on the small screen. Behind him, Lan recognised his own kitchen instead of the white walls of a laboratory. Indeed his father was home. "How are you, son?"
"Uh... good. Glad you're home." He managed a smile.
Yuuichiro chuckled softly. "You look pretty grim, Lan. I hope you haven't been like this all day."
"Nope. I was fine 'til now," he said a little too honestly. No point in lying to his own dad. "So how is he..?"
"Well," Dr. Hikari replied, losing eye contact as he reached off screen. "See for yourself." He held up Lan's blue terminal. MegaMan smiled a little and waved, looking exactly the same as the last time Lan had seen him the night before. Fine.
"But didn't mom tell you what happened?" Lan asked, baffled. "Was there anything wrong at all?"
"Actually, yes," the scientist responded. "Fortunately, it was easy to get rid of. You see Lan, MegaMan contracted some sort of a navi hacking bug. It's not noticable, and there are no program glitches usually until the navigator program itself shuts down. It's not a fatal bug, but it's an interferance, and is usually aimed at company navis because the downtime causes problems for the system, especially in security. Anyhow, the bug goes after the running processes in a navi program and stops them. Stopping minor processes isn't much of a problem, but there are vital processes that the navi needs in order to run properly. The bug worked on the small ones at first, but then went after one of MegaMan's vital processes."
"So is that why he glitched?"
"Yes. One of the processes was frozen, and even if it was for a hundreth of a second, it was enough to stop MegaMan.EXE from running properly, and so he glitched and fell, but it wasn't enough to shut him down."
"But... where did the bug come from?"
"That's what's got me wondering." Dr. Hikari frowned thoughtfully. "Things like that are usually like sub-viruses. A big virus attacks a program, and sometimes sends off little things like that. I don't know where you might have picked it up."
"My natsaver missions have been kinda funny recently," he admitted. "But... I don't think we've come across anything that looked suspicious."
"Excuse me," came MegaMan's voice from offscreen, "but Lan, maybe your computer dealt a card or two in this."
"Your computer?" Dr. Hikari queried Lan.
Lan felt his face get warm. That's right... He had an awful lot on his hard drive right now. Maybe he'd accidentally had MegaMan download something buggy? Or maybe his computer was so crammed that the firewall was malfunctioning. "Err... Right... See, dad, the other day I downloaded a bunch of stuff, so now my computer's kinda lagging." He quickly went on to prevent his father from mentioning how he had cautioned not to do that. "I'm almost done with the stuff, though, and I'll delete it right away."
The brown haired man sighed and pushed up his glasses. "I was also going to point out that you forgot to run that bug check like I asked. I'm not sure what gave MegaMan the bug in the first place, but the navi bug check on your computer probably would have caught it if you'd done it right after your netsaver missions like I told you to."
"I know," Lan said sheepishly. "I got sidetracked. I gotta go, though. I'll see you after school! Bye dad! Bye MegaMan!"
"Bye!" the other two said nearly simultaneously. And the little image blinked out.
Lan trekked back over to the lunch table where his friends were eyeing him worriedly. He handed Maylu her pink PET. "Thanks, Maylu."
"That's all you can say?" Yai chirped impatiently. "We'd like some sort of a 411 too, you know. We didn't all just hear your conversation."
"Yeah, Lan!" Dex agreed. "Spill! What's up?"
"Is everything okay?" Maylu asked. "You talked for longer than I'd thought you would."
"Sorry," he said, sitting down next to her and across from Yai and Dex. "Dad says he's okay. It was sort of a bug, but it's gone now."
Yai looked unimpressed. "All this fuss over a little thing like that? You probably could have fixed that yourself!"
"Hey! It's not like I knew! It looked more serious than that!"
"It's okay, you guys," Maylu said calmly. "It was just a mistake. Lan's right. It did seem worse than that."
"Maylu," Roll said, pulling the girl's attention to her PET screen.
"What is it, Roll?"
"Glide, GutsMan, Mega and I were actually talking about something the other day that you guys don't seem to have heard about," Roll said, somewhat fretfully. "There's appararently some sort of navi virus going around, but so far, it's only been striking big important navis. You know... ones who manage security in important buildings, or guard invaluable data."
Lan leaned over so he could see the screen, too. "What else have you guys heard?"
Glide appeared on Maylu's screen as well. "I'm afraid there hasn't been much word on it other than that," he said apologetically. "They're trying to keep the trouble quiet so that it won't cause any sort of fuss. The navis on the net recently have been discussing it a little here and there, however, trying to speculate who's navi would be the next target."
"Virus..." Lan repeated quietly. "My dad said something about that bug looking like some sort of subvirus. Do you think...?"
Glide frowned a little. "I'm not sure how likely it would be that a navi we know could have contracted that virus. You'd probably pick up a subvirus off of a navi that was in close proximity, or in relation to yours somehow, such as allied on a job, and that thought doesn't seem applicable here, for some reason."
"Yeah," his pink clad friend replied. "Lan, it would have to come from someone, and obviously none of us have it. Who else could it be? And why would the subvirus target MegaMan?"
Because I'm a netsaver, Lan thought in reply.
Lan burst through the front door in his usual manner. "I'm hoooooome!" he called loudly enough to have announced his presence even to the furniture downstairs. His father looked over his shoulder from his place on the couch with his newspaper and coffee. It was good to see him there, looking as though he'd never left to begin with.
"Hello, Lan. Your mother just left afew minutes ago to do some shopping." He picked up the PET off the coffee table next to his mug and tossed it lightly in one hand. "I suppose you're sounding chipper again now that you know everything's back in order."
"Haha, wouldn't doubt it," MegaMan replied. "That's Lan for you."
"MegaMan!" Lan cried with an oddly unprecented amount of joy. He flung his backback onto the nearest chair before dashing over to his father and giving him a big hug as he carefully tugged the terminal from his hand. "It's good to see you, dad..!"
"Good to see you too."
The brown-haired boy smiled at the familiar green eyes watching him patiently on screen. "And it's good that nothing's seriously wrong with you."
"It's good to know there's nothing wrong with me," MegaMan added with a small chuckle. "It just leaves us to wonder where I got it from."
"--Which reminds me," Lan added quickly. "I heard something at school today. You guys never told us about that virus!"
MegaMan blinked stupidly, which was quite the rarity for him. "Only the navis knew about it? If I'd know that, I'd probably have said something. Even still, I didn't get much of a chance. I heard about it at school the day I glitched. I mean, after school, we went straight to the net arcade..."
"That's right..."
"What's going on?" Dr. Hikari asked. "You heard about something, Lan?"
"The navis knew about this navi virus that's been striking down all the big important internet hot-shots!" Lan explained.
"Oh that." His father took a sip from his green mug of coffee. "I heard about that, yes. I've been working on a disinfectant as of late. We were supposed to keep hush-hush about that, though. The lab's worried that people would start panicking, thinking that World Three is making a comeback or something. Besides, it's only taking down important ones right now. Civilians with no tie-ins to the government or any big buisnesses have nothing to worry about."
"Then why isn't Yai's dad's company getting messed up?"
"He hired scientists to deal with it as soon as he found out. With his money, their system has the best protection money can buy... And even some that money can't." He smiled a little.
"Do you think it's possible that what I had was the subvirus version of that big virus that's been going around?" MegaMan ventured.
"I thought that originally, but then I didn't see any logic behind it. I mean, who do we know, even vaguely, that managed to get that virus? I haven't heard anything. We don't have any tie-ins to an infected navi as far as I know."
MegaMan paused. "Wait... When was the last time we heard from Chaud?"
Lan stopped to think back. "Uhmm... a day ago or something? I dunno."
"Yeah. Didn't Famous tell him that at the last meeting that he was supposed to keep you up to date and vice versa? Firstly, we didn't tell him about that un-named guy we encountered, and secondly, Chaud is really diligent. Isn't it strange that he didn't call you after that last netsaver mission that he took instead of you?"
"Maybe nothing happened."
"Doesn't matter!" his navi insisted. "Chaud would tell you that. He doesn't like keeping in touch with us, but if it has to be done, he does it. And we haven't heard a thing."
"But I wasn't using my PET. Maybe he called while you were asleep?"
"I'd know about that. The bottom line is, it's weird that Chaud didn't contact us since we last saw him."
"That's strange," Dr. Hikari observed. "The best way to find out would be to ask. Give him a call, Lan."
"Aww, but I don't like Chaud," the boy complained. "He acts like he's so much better than me!"
"He doesn't," MegaMan said. He smiled playfully. "I think you're just jealous."
"Of Chaud? No way! Why would I wanna be a stuck-up techno whiz like him?"
"He gets better grades than you do," suggested the blue navi teasingly.
"Well who cares? He can have his... prodigy..ness.. all to himself! I don't care!"
"'Prodiginess' is not a word, Lan."
"D'you think I care?"
Dr. Hikari laughed a little. "Boys, boys-- cool it. Lan, it's alright. You're just calling to see if there's any interferance. You won't have to talk long if the call goes through, anyway."
"Fine," Lan grumbled. "Call Chaud, MegaMan."
"Sure." He brought up a darkened new call window on the screen. Brrrrring. Brrrrring. Brrrrring. Brrrring.
Brrring.
Brrring.
Brrring.
Chaud didn't pick up. MegaMan tilted his head. "That's funny. He always has ProtoMan with him..." He closed the call window. "I think it's about time we got suspicous."
"I think so, too," Dr. Hikari decided. "Perhaps you can go and investigate a little."
The office was quiet and tidy. A neat stack of fresh paper sat at the corner of Chaud's otherwise clear desk as the prodigous boy sat in his large chair, drumming his pen on the desk top. He had finished his work for the day, and at the moment, he could think of nothing to occupy his mind with but thought. Running a hand back through his black and white hair, he sighed and reclined slightly in his chair. Without the drum of his pen against the desk, there was virtually no sound in the office aside from the faint hum of the heater. He exhaled audibly.
The door creaked very faintly, and Chaud perked up slightly. Lan poked his head into the doorway. Chaud sighed very lightly sunk back in his chair again, but Lan didn't seem to notice.
"What is it?" Chaud asked, point-blank.
Lan shifted his weight uncomfortably and walked fully into the room, stopping in front of the large desk. "I, uhm..."
"Stop looking so staunch," MegaMan whispered.
"Quiet, you!" Lan hissed before shooting his full attention back to Chaud. The boy blinked silently at him. "Uh, yeah, anyway..." He cleared his throat slightly. "How'd your net saver mission go?"
"We obtained no information pertaining to the darkloids or what their motive is."
Lan leaned rather obnoxiously onto Chaud's desk with his hand. Chaud only eyed him quietly, making no remark. "I was wondering if you heard about that navi virus."
"I have." Chaud pushed his chair back from the desk and stood up, walking to the wall of window behind him and turning his back to Lan. "I take it you felt a little of the aftermath."
Lan lost his balance and crashed onto the carpet unintentionally before ungracefully regaining his standing position by pulling himself up on the desk. He pretended it hadn't happened. Chaud, of course, didn't say anything anyway. "Aftermath?" he queried.
Chaud sighed very lightly, as though in vague impatience. "I'm sure you were informed that this navi virus sends out subviruses, targeting navis in relation to the infected one. MegaMan recieved a bug, didn't he?" It almost sounded more like a statement than a question.
"Yeah," Lan answered. "So, ProtoMan got..?"
"Deleted? No." Chaud turned around fully so that he was facing Lan again. "But he is infected and out of commission until further notice. If you got a 'email' from me a day or so ago, that was the virus sending out the first part of the subvirus, which grows on its own."
"And the unknown caller?" MegaMan added.
"Also the virus," the boy replied. "That was the signal to install the bug into the navigator system."
"I guess that explains pretty much everything," MegaMan decided. "But what do we do about it? Lan and I can't handle everything by ourselves, but we'll try."
"Hey! We can, too!"
"Lan, be honest," MegaMan told him firmly. "There'll probably be more netsaver missions to come, and we can't do all of them. Sometimes there might be two that need to be handled in different places at the same time."
Chaud gave a light nod. "Mm. You'd best be going. I have things to do. Contect Chief Keifer if you have any doubts." He gave an expressionless look towards the PET in Lan's hand. "...Either of you."
Author's Note: Again, thanks a ton to the people who read this, and thanks to those of you who have reviewed. I appreciate it very, very much. Thanks for reading this! Part Four is next. :shot for being obvious: