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Chapter 4: The New Viruses
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At this time of night, most sensible people in Tokyo were asleep. However, many were still awake, enjoying the nightlife, scandalous as it could be. However, there was at least one sensible person still awake, and her work was most legit.
Kassandra Alva was at her desk, in her office, which was located in Technology Tower, the HQ of T-Corp. The tower, at seventeen hundred feet, was, fittingly, the tallest building in the government sector.
Currently, Kassandra was studying complex graphs and charts on her laptop. She had green eyes, and brown hair that was currently tied up in a ponytail. Her tunic was completely black, with a small, silver T sown into the collar.
Bzzt
'' Yes, what is it?'' she asked, continuing to study the charts.
A voice came from her desk's built in intercom. '' Yamoto Taisa is here to see you.''
'' Let him in.'' Kassandra said, closing the lid of the laptop.
The office door opened and a uniformed, 50 year old man entered. He snapped a salute. '' Good evening, Ma'am.'' Kassandra, being Amerropian, did not like to be called sama.
She decided not to remind him that it was past midnight, partially to speed this meeting along, partially to avoid embarrassing him, as being told off by someone a little less than half your age would probably do.
'' I have the report you requested ma'am.'' Yamoto continued, walking over to the desk and handing her a bulging file folder.
'' This is about those virus attacks that have been reported at various outposts throughout the country, correct?''
'' Hai. There have been new strains of viri during these attacks. Canoguards block attacks, Fishy leave flames in their wake, and Flashlites...'' Yamoto began.
'' Alright, I see.'' Kassandra cut him off. '' The important thing to do is to isolate this problem before it spreads to other countries... The source must be located, as evolved viruses don't simply pop out of the ground...''
'' What are your orders ma'am?'' Yamoto asked. '' We at Intel will do all that we can to get to the bottom of this.''
'' You will do nothing.'' Kassandra ordered, putting an edge to her voice for effect. '' My brother has already left to investigate this, and we will do nothing until we receive any sort of information from him.'' It was safe to tell him this, as Yamoto, as head of Intelligence, was already in the know.
'' If that is what you wish ma'am...'' Yamoto said, a little disappointment to his voice. '' I will dismiss myself now.'' He turned and left, taking care to close the door as he did so.
When he was gone, Kassandra sighed, undid her hair, and began running her fingers through it. As the co-head of T-Corp, along with her brother, she was the most powerful woman on the planet, but there was a large amount of work to go along with that title, and since her brother had left, the workload had only increased.
'' Are you alright Kassy?''
She placed her PET on the desk and thumbed the navi symbol, activating the touch screen, which displayed her navi. '' I'm just tired Lunare, that's all.''
'' It is after 2am Kassy. You need to get some sleep, work can wait until the morning.'' Lunare advised.
'' I suppose so. I'll look at that report a bit before bed though.'' Kassandra said, yawning.
She didn't see many people on the way back to her room, only the odd night guard, each of whom were very keen to bow, or salute, or something, most likely trying to curry favor, as she had many suitors, and what a bunch of idiots they all were!
When she reached the privacy of her room, she opened the folder and found several photographs of some of the evolved viri, along with a large volume of reports. The first photograph was of a Canoguard, except that it was blue instead of green, and it was shielding itself with the metal cannon that was normally retracted.
The next showed a teal Handy. These guys apparently dropped decoy bombs that exploded if they were hit with an attack.
A third was of a blue Beetank. According to hastily scribbled notes, there bombs stunned navis as well as damaging them.
Kassandra put the file away. It was late, very late, and she needed sleep. She would view the report in its entirety in the morning, but now, the pillow called.
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Arman's lab was even creepier at night. The viruses in the portraits seemed to glare at any passerby, and unseen machinery and apparati made strange noises in the dark.
Hideki snuck down the darkened corridor. Arman had already gone to bed, giving him a few hours to explore the place. So far, it wasn't very big, and nothing really seemed out of place.
Well, that was a lie. The whole place was weird. What was a laboratory doing in the middle of nowhere? And who exactly was this Arman-hakase?
Hideki ran into a metal door. A low humming could be heard coming from the other end. Fortunately, the door had no lock, so a simple nudge opened it.
The room beyond was fairly large and circular. In the middle was a large, dome shaped device. It was the source of the menacing hum. Thick cables ran from it to servers on one side of the wall. There was a maintenance panel on one side, but it would probably have been unwise to mess with it.
On the wall opposite the servers was a staircase, curved to fit the shape of the wall, and it had no handrails. At the top, about eight feet about the floor was an ajar door. Curious, Hideki climbed up it, and saw that there was a small office behind that door.
On the desk inside was a bunch of yellowing, dog eared papers. Hideki started to read one of them. Several words leapt out at him: ' Experiment', ' Venom', and ' Transformation.' Most of it had been blacked out by a marker, so he could only read a very small amount, but whatever Arman was doing, it couldn't be good.
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We learn who Lunare's operator is, Arman gets more sinister, and yeah…
The 'evolved' viruses are merely the v2 versions from the games, complete with any additional abilities that they gain.
