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Chapter 5: History Lessons
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After nearly an hour of driving, Butch pulled their jeep up to Scilab.

While Scilab had undoubtedly been well maintained in the past, years of neglect had taken its toll. Weeds were everywhere, windows were cracked, and paint was chipped.

After gaining entry, the trio found dusty floors, rusted lab equipment, and other scenes of woe and neglect. A powerful, muster odor permeated the air, making all of them gag.

Eventually, they made it to what looked like an archive room. Surprisingly, the server was still running, filling the room with a menacing hum.

''But how can they still be running with no one maintaining them?'' Karla wondered aloud as Terry began searching for a plug in port. ''Scilab must have a very powerful generator.'' her navi answered.

''Ah ha! There's a port here!'' Terry suddenly exclaimed. He whipped out his PET.

''Plug in, Dash.exe, Transmission!''

Karla and Butch took out their PETs as well.

''Plug in, Tyria.exe!''

''Plug in, Crushman.exe!''

''TRANSMISSION!''

Dash was quickly joined by the female navi and the hulking one.

Spots of the net's floor were fuzzy, indicating a dire need for matinence, and here and there were gaps in the floor. If a navi fell into one such abyss, he or she would be instantly deleted.

Near the navis were several cascades of data, flowing as they had been for decades, undisturbed. Dash walked over to one of them and thrust his arm under it.

''Okay, I'm going to put in a search for Saito.'' he said.

After a while, some of the data swirled up around his arm, then it vanished. Dash closed his eyes as he sifted through all the data he had just absorbed, then he frowned.

''What's wrong, that file does mention Saito, doesn't it?'' his operator asked.

''It... does. But only once, at the end.''

''Well, what does it say?'' Terry demanded.

'' I... think I'd better tell you what the whole thing says, it would be easier to understand.''

''In 20XX there was an international police force called the Net Saviors. The three most celebrated were Netto Hikari, Enzan Ijiun, and Laika, a soldier from Sharo. Their navis were Rockman.exe, Blues.exe, and Searchman.exe, respectively.

Netto was the son of Yuuichiro Hikari, a well known scientist, who was in turn the son of Tadashi Hikari, one of the scientists who created our current network.

Netto, Rockman, and his friends helped defend the net against the criminal groups WWW, Gospel, and Nebula, and later against the extraterrestrials Duo and Slur.

After the Duo incident, Yuuichiro and his wife, Haruka, were killed in a subway accident, leaving Netto an orphan. A few months later, Laika was killed in an F-16 training accident. The landing gear malfunctioned, and the jet belly flopped and burst into flames.

A few years later, the virus outbreak, which we now call the Outbreak, began. It wasn't very severe in its early stages, so it wasn't paid much mind back then.

It then says that Enzan succeeded his father as the head of the company IPC.inc, the file doesn't mention him again...

Afterwards, the Outbreak reached unprecedented size, this was when people started to panic.

Years later, it says that Netto married his long time friend Meiru Sakura, but not all that long later he and Rockman vanished during a particularly violent stage of the Outbreak. The widowed Meiru gave birth to Saito Hikari several months after that... What the...''

''What happened?'' Terry asked.

''The rest of the data is corrupted, I can't read it!''

''Dammit! Isn't there anything else?''

''Only this message: Akihara 009, 18, 15, 3, 11. Then it says, 'This is a code Hikari left behind.'' - Meijin Eguchi.''

'' But if Saito was born in 20XX, then he should be in his eighties or something!'' Crushman exclaimed.

'' Yeah, I noticed that when I saw his photo.'' Terry said. '' The date was 20XX, now it's 21XX.''

''What about that message at the end? Does anyone know anything about it?'' Butch asked.

''I don't know who Meijin Eguchi is, or was, but Akihara was a residential district of Densan.'' Tyria answered.

''I'll send a copy of the file to your PETs.'' Dash promised.

'' Oh well. We learned who Saito's parents were, but not much else of use. I bet the secret to his youth was in the corrupted section.'' Terry grumbled. '' Plug out.'' he ordered, but nothing happened.

In the net, a 20ft Dreamvirus materialized in front of the navis.

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