AnimeMasterZero: Sean's POV? I don't think we could really work that into the story... Sean never met Alpha or had anything to do with it. But thanks for the suggestion!

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I was crushed. I plodded through my daily work with no enthusiasm or interest, not noticing much about the world around me. Poor Haruka and Lan were always at the hospital, instead of being there for me to come home to, so I often didn't bother.

This couldn't be happening. It wasn't fair. I'd lost Dad, then just when I got him back, I was losing Hub.

Of course I talked to Dad whenever I could, which wasn't often these days. Alpha often didn't want to let us talk. He said I was getting him down. And I couldn't just walk into the main server room whenever I felt like it, especially not if I wanted privacy.

So when I got a brief email from Dad inviting me to chat one evening, it was like a ray of sunshine through the gloom.

I waited impatiently for work to be over, hoping nothing would interfere with our visit tonight. Although Dad had changed a lot since the accident, it was reassuring to me to know that he was still there, helping me through this.

I couldn't imagine what I would have done if I hadn't found him. Haruka was handling it well, from what I saw of her, but her feelings never seemed to affect her as deeply as mine affected me. But that very toughness made it hard for me to lean on her for sympathy. She wasn't cold or unfeeling, certainly, but I couldn't help feeling that she was a bit distant.

But then, maybe that was her way of hiding what she really felt. Maybe-- I flinched inwardly at the thought-- she was trying to be a strong pillar for me.

When nighttime finally came, I crept into the server room and took a seat at the terminal, as I'd done many times by now. Sure enough, the video chat window opened for me. Instead of Dad, though, I found myself looking into the red un-face of Alpha.

I sighed. Too many of our chats had started like this lately.

"Alpha," I said, "please. I want to talk to my father."

"Yes, but what's wrong with talking to me a bit, first?" Alpha asked. "After all, I'm part of the family too, aren't I?"

"It's not the same," I said. My patience was wearing thin already.

"Come on, just a little input and Tadashi's all yours. It's dark in this containment zone. I'm hungry."

I knew that Alpha relished any contact with the outside world, starved as it was for input, but I honestly had other things to care about than Alpha's feelings. "Not tonight. Just let me see my father."

"Fine, fine," Alpha said, and I got the impression that it was pouting. "After all, any input he gets, I get. I guess I'm stuck being the ignored communication medium."

"I guess," I said flatly.

Alpha got the hint. The screen changed to show my father's face.

"Hi, Dad," I said softly. He smiled.

"Hi, Yui," he replied, "How are you?"

"Not too good." I shook my head. "I... it's Hub. I can't stop thinking about him. He's sick, and there's nothing the doctor, or anyone, can do about it."

"HBD, if I recall correctly?" Dad said. "I'm sorry, Yui."

"It's okay, Dad," I sighed. "It's just... I lost you once, and now I might lose Hub. I can't go through that."

Dad's face showed pain. "I wish I could be there with you in person..."

"It's all right, Dad," I said, crying a little. "Y-you're here enough for me."

I was really lucky to have him anywhere. I remembered how hollow I'd felt when he'd died, and what a relief it was when he turned out to be alive after all. It was just too bad the same thing wouldn't happen with Hub...

...Wait a minute.

"Dad," I said, "remember the device you used to transfer yourself into Alpha?"

Dad tensed. "Yes? What about it?"

"What if we use it to save Hub?"

Dad frowned, but he didn't quite understand.

"I don't like where this is going, but what do you mean by save?"

"What if we use that same machine you used, and bring Hub into a computer?" I dried the tears coming out of my eyes and looked at Dad.

He went from frowning to staring directly at me with a very stern look on his face. "Absolutely not," he said forcefully. "I won't allow it."

"D-Dad?" I stammered, recoiling back slightly. He had never been this serious before...

... Except the time he talked to me about being absorbed by Alpha.

"Hub won't be Hub once the process is done," he continued. "There is nothing in that open space."

"But... what about you?" I asked, cringing. "You're you, you're here, you're fine."

I thought, briefly, that maybe I hadn't been talking to my Dad at all, and that Alpha was just simulating him. I buried the thought away. I didn't want that doubt nagging at me when I had this over my head.

"No, Yui, I'm not," he said hesitantly. "I belong to Alpha now. I have no independent existence of my own, nothing of myself that isn't part of Alpha. If Alpha had never absorbed me, you wouldn't be talking

to me. I would be out there, as nothing. Alpha gave me definition again."

"Then," said Alpha, appearing suddenly next to Dad, "why not let me absorb Hub?"

Dad glared at Alpha and sharply said "No!" before I even had a chance to consider the thought.

Almost instantly, Dad disappeared from the screen.

"Dad!" I exclaimed. "Alpha, what did you do?"

"Think about it, Yuichiro," Alpha said. I winced when I heard my name. "You'd have your father and your son here, to talk to at any time."

I held my head in my hands. I was seriously considering letting Alpha take my son.

If Dad said what was true, about the nothingness, then I'd only be hurting Hub more. It seemed the only way to truly save him was to give him to Alpha, so Alpha could give him a body... Was it the only way...?

"Alpha, let me talk to my father," I said.

"Have you decided?" Alpha asked impatiently.

"Let me talk to my father, you'll find out when I tell him."

Alpha growled softly, but Dad reappeared on the screen, anyway. He looked as if nothing had happened.

"Dad," I began, breathing in deeply, "what if we give Hub his own body?"

"I'm not entirely sure what you mean," he replied.

"Why don't we put him in... a... a navi?" I said, snapping my fingers.

Alpha growled loudly this time, but remained silent.

"Did you not hear me before?" Dad said, still with that stern look. "Hub will not be Hub."

I shook my head, dismissing the statement. "Think about it! He'd be able to wander the net freely. No limitations!"

"Yui..." Dad sighed. "Why a navi, then? Let's say I agree to this, for argument's sake."

I paused, leaning back to think for a moment. It had, honestly, come off of the top of my head. However, this small window of thought allowed me to connect some dots together, and solidify my reason.

"... For Lan," I said softly. "Hub would be Lan's navi. "

Dad closed his eyes. "Why?"

"To... to watch over him. I'm at work for long hours, and I can't watch over him, and someone needs to. Who better than his own brother?"

There was a long silence as Dad sat there, pondering the thought. My breathing was shallow, waiting for his answer. I felt like, well... Alpha.

Several minutes passed by, and still, Dad was stroking his chin, thinking.

Finally, Dad opened his eyes and looked at me. "Excuse me if I play Devil's Advocate here for a second, but why only Hub? What if this process does work? Why don't we do it to other people? What's stopping us? That would be terrible."

"Th... this would be a one time thing," I replied. "There will be no more after this."

"Then why is it only for Hub?" Dad asked, gesturing wildly.

"Because he's my son!" I cried. "He's going to die, Dad! There is nothing that can save him, except for this!"

"Everyone is going to die!" Dad said. "It comes with being alive in the first place!"

"But he's so young, Dad," I said desperately.

"And what if Lan came down with the same syndrome next week?" Dad asked sharply. "What if Haruka died next, Yui? What then?"

I stood there silently for a long moment, crying softly. What if, indeed? Everyone was going to die... where would I draw the line?

I shook my head. I would draw the line right where I wanted it. "I-- I'd let them," I said. "I'm not going to take this to the whole world, Dad. I know what would happen then. I'm only asking for Hub, that's all, and only for Lan's sake. Please, Dad. That's the only time I'll ever do it, I swear."

Dad sighed heavily, considering, "All right. We'll do it. But there will be no more after this, you hear me?"

I smiled and sighed. "Thank you, Dad. Thank you."

"I will help, as well," said Alpha. It startled me, as he had not talked in awhile. "It is... the least I could do for not being deleted completely."

I eyed Alpha's red gooey representation suspiciously. I still didn't really trust him, especially after he banished Dad like that. However, we needed all of the help we could get, and Alpha's knowledge could be invaluable. "Okay, Alpha. Thank you," I said, nodding.

"Of course, I'll need access to the device and the computer it's connected to," Alpha said matter-of-factly.

I frowned and looked at Dad. He nodded tentatively. "All right, Alpha," I said. "You've got a deal."

A few days had passed by with me working as hard as I could to get everything set up. There was the ever-present threat of Hub's death at any moment, so I had to work fast. Alpha was, indeed, an invaluable tool in getting things ready so quickly, but there were a lot of things about it that bugged me. The simplest one was the question of what was he getting out of it?

Could it have been Dad's influence? Maybe the "family" aspect he was talking about earlier? I dismissed both ideas rather quickly. No, Alpha was doing this for Alpha. All I had to figure out was what?

It dawned on me when I saw the list of tweaks he had given me to make to the PTS. They would essentially allow Alpha to be the ending point of the transfer. That bastard was trying to take my son without my knowledge. I wanted to confront him about it, throw it in his face, but I came up with a better idea.

I would pull an Alpha on Alpha.

The very next day, I brought Hub in, and we performed the transfer into the Navi shell I had programmed. I waited until everything was done, secretly working out my own adjustments to the PTS on my work computer while innocently doing what Alpha told me to do when in front of the server terminal. Once everything was ready, I restricted Alpha's access back to just the server, and changed the settings on the PTS.

Hub's body fell limp in the chair, and Alpha sighed happily as he received several hundred megabytes of data, unaware as of yet that it was junk data. "I'm glad to see things are proceeding well," he said with barely-concealed glee.

I shuddered, knowing that if I hadn't caught his redirecter in time, that would be my son he was drinking in with such enjoyment. "Yes," I said smugly, "things are going quite well. Oh, and you might want to check out that file you just downloaded."

A moment of silence as Alpha did as I suggested, then his on-screen representation turned bright red and seemed to boil as he realized what I'd done. He screamed and shouted from the terminal, but it only made me grin wider at my own cleverness. If Alpha had allowed him, I'm sure Dad would have said "Smart move."

The blue navi on the screen behind the PTS opened its eyes.

"Dad?"