Creation
By, half-a-recess
Disclaimer: Yeah, yeah I regret to announce that I do not own these characters (except for my Trill—I owns her and will attack anyone who steals her with an Ice Bear—grrrr…) Sigh… Such is life…
Umm… yeah, so feel free to hit me over the head, throw fruit, sic wild orangutans on me, etc. Like I said before, though, I apologize in advance for not updating as often as I should. Oh, and over the holidays I will hopefully be able to work some more on The Day's End. Maybe it'd help if I wrote it out by hand first… Ah, well, enjoy!
h-a-r wand: (vibrates whilst dispersing yellow silly string)
h-a-r: whimper
h-a-r wand: Hee-hee! .
Ooooooooh! Special thanksez so far:
Well for this story, Marshmellow Dragon thank you for helping me! Thanks also to anyone who reads my stories and also thank you to all the other writers out there who let me enjoy my free time reading and writing fanfiction! Special thanksez will also appear on The Day's End as soon as I get that on the computer and posted. If you don't want your name on the specail thanksez feel free to email me and let me know!
Chapter 3
The Undernet
Cyber Universe
May 10, 2018
1:03 P.M.
The boy in red wiped sweat from his brow as he jogged silently beside his comrades across the desert sand of what the Grand Council dubbed the "Outer Network" more commonly known as the "Undernet". It was four months after his accidental creation and the formation of the new world on the other side of the desert. After two months of preparation and training the team of fifty navis was ready to make the journey across the Undernet and into the vacant city. Finally the group came to a stop near a large pile of boulders.
"Hey, Red," the boy felt someone nudge him and turned to see Trill point in the direction in front of them to the East. "There it is. You can see it now, right there."
"How long d'you think it'll take?" Red asked as he sat down in the shade of one of the rocks.
"If Arrow doesn't stop us again, maybe an hour. It's strange; he's moving us at a faster pace than normal."
"He's anxious," came the voice of another navi. He was tall, wore a simple grey suit and plain helmet and had a long spear strapped to his back. "We haven't had any trouble so far, but the closer we get to the East City, the stranger the viruses will be to us, and our training doesn't include those viruses meaning we might have to learn some new things on the go."
"That's true, I guess," Trill said thoughtfully, "but wasn't this group specially chosen for this situation? Surely all of us can manage handling this. It's not like there are any navis in the city anyways…"
"Then why is it a threat?" Red wondered, mostly to himself.
"That's why," came an austere voice that made the three turn in alarm. Arrow took no notice of their being startled and simply nodded in the direction of the city on the horizon as gasps came from the group of navis.
The narrow line of grey and blue was widening and spreading as more buildings were suddenly erected out of thin air. The ground began to quake. Red lost his balance falling and receiving a mouthful of dirt and sand, and he quickly put his hands over his head as someone else tripped over him and fell as well. I gotta remember to get them to make me a helmet… he mentally groaned as the shaking came to a stop.
As everyone slowly peeked out from behind boulders, there came one collective gasp from the fifty Abyssian soldiers. Red, curious of what was going on, lifted his head only to find his nose pressed up against the cold metal of a sky-scraper. His eyes widened in shock as he hastily stood and took a few steps backward. It was only then that he realized the strange blue panels that he was standing on.
"W-what is it?" someone asked through the murmurs.
"It just grew!"
"It's so big!"
"What made it do that?"
"What should we do?"
And then everything broke into a chaos as everyone began confused questions on this strange incident. It all came down to one thing. There was something that they couldn't see and it was creating these cities. Could it see them? Was it evil? On and on the questions went with people pushing and shoving to try and get off the blue ground.
"Red! Red!" he heard his name called by Trill. "Red, where are you? For the love of God answer me, dammit!"
"I'm over here!" he called as loud as he could over the ruckus.
"Where, I don't see you!" she called back, fainter this time. She was moving away. He couldn't get separated from her! Arrow had told them to stick with their partner no matter what. Arrow was going to kill him… again…
"Trill! I'm over here, come back!" he shouted, but she was already out of earshot even as he struggled against the push and shove trying to find her in the panic. He let out a yelp of pain as something rammed into the back of his knee, and then someone let out a scream and everyone started running and swinging weapons everywhere.
"What are they?!" someone exclaimed.
"Viruses, and lots of them!" someone else said.
Viruses… This was definitely not good. No one new what kind they were, and Red couldn't find his partner for the umpteenth time since he entered the service. Red shook his head and focused on remembering his training. He could not fall into a panic; it was a trap that would lead to a navi's downfall. He must find some sort of cover. He stood up again and slashed his sword as the same dog-shaped virus came charging for his knees again. Surprisingly, the virus went down with one sweep.
"The viruses here are weak," he told himself in an attempt to remain calm in the absence of his partner. "But that doesn't make them any less dangerous; they make up for it in numbers, so I need shelter from both them and everyone else," he muttered, noting how everyone's wild blows and shots could hit anyone at any time. Red looked at the doors to a building. It would be terrible work getting there, but he would be safe once he was inside. Taking a deep breath, he plunged into the crowd and ran making slashing motions with his sword and clumsily dodging his battling comrades. A pang of guilt went through him every time he accidentally nipped someone with his blade, though it couldn't be helped in the chaos, he remembered, as he caught a stray buster shot or two in the side.
Panting, he pushed open he doors to the building and ran inside as they slammed shut behind him. At first everything was dark, but then the entire room became illuminated in blinding white light. Red brought a hand up to his eyes as they adjusted to the lighting and let out a gasp, momentarily forgetting the battle just outside.
---
ISRDC
Akihara, Japan
May 10, 2018
1:03 P.M.
Dr. Hikari happily clicked buttons on the main keyboard controlling the Net City as it was now referred to. Now that tests had been run for the public and more people were finding out about Net City Dr. Hikari was getting permission to expand it and send information to other SciLab locations so that one Net City could be made into millions, all connected and interactive. After five minutes of typing commands and connecting the program to the government issued layout of surrounding cities, the program began to run on its own making the cities come to life.
After the program had run its course Dr. Hikari was about to leave to get lunch in the cafeteria when he noticed a strange reading on the screen. His brow furrowed as he realized that they were program viruses. They had strange run-ins with viruses to which the program seemed to have given shape supposedly so that they could be distinguished from each other to people running it, not a function Dr. Hikari had given it, but still a handy one. Luckily, the old doctor had planned for these massive virus attacks on the systems until the labs could think up a more efficient way to get rid of them. The system worked by putting up fire-walls around all of the buildings in Net City so that any program except for viruses could get inside. However, this did not get rid of the viruses and left them to prowl around the virtual streets waiting for the chance that someone would hack into a system allowing them the opportunity to flood into the buildings. His eyes shifted to the SciLabs network where there was a blinking dot indicating there was data in the system. Curious of what it could be, he clicked on the spot and gasped, staring wide-eyed at the screen.
---
Cyber Universe
Red backed up, truly afraid of what he was seeing. Was this the being that made all of these great cities?
"W-who are you?" Red asked, mentally cursing himself for his shaking voice.
"You can see me?" the old man asked, looking even more shocked than he had been before.
"What do you want with us?" Red asked, sounding as bold as he could manage in the situation while trying the doors behind his back, which, as he expected were locked as soon as he had entered.
"What do you mean by 'us'? There are more like you?" the old man asked, now appearing curious and excited with a hint of worry tugging at his voice.
"We saw your city and we came," Red continued. Through his fear he hadn't remembered the danger of giving this information. Besides, this man, though strange and powerful, did not seem to want to hurt them in the first place. In fact, the man seemed to be completely unaware that there were other people living in this universe. "We traveled across the great desert—the Undernet. We mean no harm. We just—"
"What is that glowing spot in your side?" the man asked curiously.
Red looked down, noticing for the first time the wound that had been inflicted by the buster shots he had received. "I got hit by someone's buster shot," he replied, noticing the unreadable expression crossing the man's face. "Er, you know, from a buster?" he tried. Noting his lack of success he carefully summoned both his buster and his sword, making the man jump and look warily towards the weapons. "I use them to kill viruses."
Red must have spoken the magic words because the man smiled slightly and then asked, "You say you kill viruses?"
"Yes," Red answered, shifting uncomfortably.
"So you killed some of the viruses outside?" the man asked, getting more excited by the second.
"Well, yeah," Red said. "But I had to run in here for cover because there were so many. I don't think they can get in."
"And you're sure there are more of you?" the old man asked.
"Um, yeah, last time I checked, but they may have baled considering how overrun this place is with viruses," Red said, receiving a confused look. "Well, the viruses here are strange and all, so I don't know what Arrow's orders will be." Red stopped attempting to open the door, accepting the fact that he was stuck and had just gotten himself into a bunch of trouble with what might possibly be aliens.
"Are you a virus?" the man asked.
Red felt shocked and offended. "No, nor will I be associated with one. And you still haven't answered my question! I asked who you are, old man. Now I've been answering all of your questions, so you answer mine! Who are you and what do you want?"
The old man looked down sheepishly and said, "I'm Dr. Hikari and I didn't mean to offend you. You see, I created this project called Net City. I never dreamed that you—whatever you are—were here."
"Yeah, well, I want to go home now, so if you could direct me out of here that would be great," Red said, folding his arms.
"Oh, yes of course," Dr. Hikari replied kindly. "If you will just walk up those stairs in the corner I will tell you what to do next."
Red obliged, running there with what Dr. Hikari must have perceived as incredible speed. As soon as Red stepped onto the landing, though, a glass tube slid over him, encasing him so that he could not escape. Red's heart raced as he realized he had been tricked, and try as he might, he could not break the glass.
"I'm sorry," Dr. Hikari said sadly, "but I cannot let you leave quite yet until I know a little more. You don't need to worry, though. We won't hurt you."
After the panel displaying Dr. Hikari disappeared, Red continued to shake as he let himself slide down the glass into a sitting position. Now he was truly at Dr. Hikari's mercy, and not just Dr. Hikari's if there were more of them, which presumably there were. Red may have been pretty naive when he was in a panic, but he was no idiot. He knew that if there were more, they may not all be as merciful as this "Dr. Hikari".
---
Cyber Universe
The Streets of Net City
3:25 P.M.
The army of Abyssian soldiers, panting and exhausted, slumped down on the ground in the thin shadows that the buildings provided looking rumpled and shaky. Though all of them found that they would like nothing more than to abandon the city with its strange blue floors and cold metal buildings and plentiful hoards of enemies and doubt, Arrow had not yet given any order to leave, but rather stood in the shadows of an alleyway contemplating what to do next. Even though his mind was elsewhere he still took notice of the small blue female navi that made her way towards him… without her partner. Arrow gritted his teeth feeling the day grow ever hotter knowing that Trill did not bring good news. I'm gonna kill that kid if he doesn't kill himself first.
Trill stopped a few feet from Arrow and saluted without saying anything.
"Again, Trill?" Arrow asked, cocking a hidden eyebrow.
"Well, yeah, kinda," she said, turning suddenly informal and friendly as she rubbed the back of her head.
"Shouldn't you be looking, then?" he questioned. "Not that I'm going to fry your tail, but there may be higher authorities that will."
"Tch, yeah, if she can remember who I am," Trill said, folding her arms. "Yeah, so how is Gale, by the way? I haven't seen her in months, and I haven't heard from her in even longer. Sometimes I wonder if I should drop in to see if she's still living." She laughed bitterly at the last part.
"Worse than before," Arrow said shortly. "If you want see for yourself, just drop by. She probably won't remember who she does and doesn't want to see anymore as it is. Besides, you're changing the subject. Go look for the kid. All the chaos is over now; it should be easy."
"That's what I've come to tell you about," Trill said, standing up straighter. "I have looked. The place is deserted. I haven't even found so much as a shoe. My guess is he took cover somewhere and got knocked out—again—or fell asleep afterwards—again—or something dumb like that. He really does seem hopeless sometimes. Why are you bothering?"
"I think I know, but I don't think I can tell you," Arrow replied looking past Trill who turned out of curiosity.
Several navis were making their way towards Arrow muttering and with unhappy looks on their faces. The ring-leader of the group stepped forward and spoke.
"Since you're not making any decisions any time soon, we decided that we're going to try to at least do something useful and find the source of this," he said in a just-try-to-tell-me-otherwise kind of tone.
"I wouldn't, if I were you," Arrow said in a bored tone, leaning on the wall next to him for emphasis (probably just to make them mad, Trill smirked).
"Oh? And why not," the navi said angrily. "It's not like we're doing anything else useful around here. All we're doing is sitting around and waiting for this place to set more viruses on us. We're not gonna sit around and wait to fight again and again just because you say so, so give us a good reason to stay or we're leaving."
"Well, there is none," Arrow said with a sigh. "Or at least, there isn't a proven, solid-ground explanation, unless of course you listen to my word alone, which might not be the best thing sometimes because everyone is wrong occasionally. But if you were, to take my word this time, I would say quite confidently that I am right and that in this instance you had best take it, and it is this: I believe that the being that is watching us can actually see us if he really wants to, but at the moment is unaware of our being here at all. Therefore, it is only logical that we stay put and do only good in destroying the viruses so that we do not appear to be a threat if we are discovered, and in staying put we may be overlooked altogether. I actually hope for the latter and would rather you stay, but if you truly wish to leave, then I will not make any attempt whatsoever to stop you."
"Well, let's assume this, oh great fortune-teller," the navi said sarcastically. "Let's assume that whatever's out there already knows that we're here, has seen us as a threat, and did send those viruses after us. That's the advice I'm taking. Maybe you should listen to it."
With that, the group of about fifteen or twenty set off with purpose toward what they must have determined the center of the city.
"You're just letting them go and ruin it all?" Trill asked, knowing there was more behind the situation.
"Bait," Arrow said firmly as he pushed himself off of the wall. He walked out calmly into the remaining navis who were all chattering, unconcerned. "We're heading to the farthest western edge of the city," he addressed them all, and then sprinted off, knowing they would follow. Soon enough he heard some frustrated groans and then the sounds of forty or so feet sprinting in his wake. The kid'll be okay for now. I'm sure that now we'll find him very soon.
---
Net City/ ISRDC
Red brought a shaky hand to his eyes as he was so rudely plunged from pitch darkness into light for the first time in two hours. Hearing whispering all around him, he begged his eyes to adjust faster in order to feel slightly safer. The minute he lowered his hand, he wished he had remained blinded. They were everywhere surrounding him. He hadn't known when he stepped into the building that he was being watched by so many of these armorless navis. All he could find to do was gape at so vast an army surrounding Dr. Hikari.
"See how lifelike he is?" someone from the crowd asked, astonished.
"Hush, everyone, so that I can speak," Dr. Hikari said, quieting the crowd immediately. "I'm old, you know."
"Oh, never," someone laughed.
"Only a little over the hill that's all," someone else interjected to laughs and statements in agreement.
"Er, a little over the hill?" Red questioned, mostly to himself, not realizing he was talking into silence as the group had quieted down. As soon as he recognized the questionable looks he was receiving, he covered his mouth feeling his face turn a shade of red that would put his armor to shame.
"Ah, at least there is someone that is truly honest with me," Dr. Hikari chuckled, smiling kindly at the navi. "Perhaps it is because you are not so disappointed about my retirement as they are." He gestured to a man standing next to him who had slightly messy brown hair and glasses. "This is my son, Thomas. All of this will be his when I leave."
"All of this is… yours?" Red asked his heart racing at his sudden realization. All of a sudden he dropped to one knee and bowed his head low saying the only words that came to mind in his embarrassment at his foolishness. "Forgive me. I did not know that I had been given the honor of conversing with the king of this land."
"King…?" Dr. Hikari looked confused before he and the rest of the people broke into uproarious laughter. After a while, things had died down and everyone remembered the poor navi who continued kneeling with his eyes tight shut at his embarrassment. "Ha ha, stand up my boy; I am no king!"
Red obeyed and was glad to feel a little bit of the heat in his cheeks disappearing, though he did notice all of the people scribbling on clip-boards. He was a bit shocked when he saw Dr. Hikari and his son walking towards him.
"I am no threat," Red said awkwardly when they stopped their advance. "You could let me out of this case, you know."
"Oh, no, it is not that simple," Dr. Hikari said shaking his head. "You see, you are no more tangible in this world than a hologram. We may see and speak to each other, but neither of us are tangible to one another. However, that does not make us any less the same."
He rested his hand on the outside of the glass and locked eyes with Red. Red hesitantly brought his own hand up slowly until his fingertips lightly brushed the smooth sides, but let the hand drop almost taking a step back.
"Ah, I understand," Dr. Hikari said, still smiling kindly.
"You're the reason," Red said quietly.
"Hm? What other trouble have I caused?" Dr. Hikari asked with concern.
"If we are no more than holograms in each other's worlds and you don't really know how to interact with ours nor we yours, then there is really no harm in getting a few things clear on both sides of our situation so that we may understand one anther better, right?" Red asked half-heartedly. He knew perfectly well that they would not be willing to let him go until they got the information that they wanted, but Red needed information, too. Since he was fighting this battle on their ground, he would have to make them feel the need to give him the information he wanted before expiring his leverage. "So why don't you start?"
"Why us?" Dr. Hikari asked, cocking an eyebrow.
"You're a smart man, Dr. Hikari," Red said, keeping eye-contact so as not to be distracted with the scribbling of pens on clipboards. "I think you know perfectly well that I'm not talking until I have some answers."
"Ah, true enough," the old man nodded. "Well, er… I don't believe I caught your name, though."
"Red," the navi said shortly, silently urging the man to continue.
"Thank you," Dr. Hikari said rubbing the back of his head before continuing. "Well, Red, as I have already told you, what you have been exploring in your world is a project that I call Net City. Essentially it is a proportionate—well, according to you, life-size—replica of the real world, or the world that has always been real to us—the human world. I built this city to be directly connected to our own using an international system that was already connected—the internet. It is a large network of databases, information, games and more that connects everything in the world together."
"Kind of like one of those big webs that I got stuck in one time that a gigantic Spinnora 3 made," Red replied thoughtfully receiving some more questionable looks. "Er, well a virus that kind of looks like a spider."
"Wait, if you live in there," inquired Thomas thoughtfully, "do you have the same animal life and such?"
"Well, we have two different things from what I know," Red said. "There are animals and viruses. The animals can be tamed for the most part, but the viruses are rabid and will attack anything, mostly working to destroy everything, but Arrow hinted once that some viruses can actually be tamed or trained and I have been told that some of them are even good, so I'm guessing it all depends about what kind of situation you're talking about."
"Hold on, you're guessing?" Dr. Hikari asked suddenly.
"Well, um to tell you the truth," Red confessed looking down at his feet in embarrassment, "I'm probably not just the best person to ask. I mean I haven't really been here that long…"
"How old are you exactly?" Dr. Hikari cut him off.
"Well, I'm about four months old now so I don't exactly know all of the—"
"Amazing!" someone exclaimed. "Incredible how he has so much knowledge and has aged to about seventeen years old in just four months! Dr. Hikari, sir, do you think that they have a very short growth span—"
"What's the matter?" asked Red who was confused about the mumblings of excitement he had just caused. If anything he had expected more tones of disappointment than happiness.
"Calm down everyone so we can understand a little bit," the old doctor said over the commotion. "Exactly how are you 'created' as you say?"
"Oh, well of the many things I have had to learn, I found out that baby navis can be born from a male and a female navi, or in other cases navis can be created from raw data kind of like in my case," Red said. He would have gone on about how the raw data he was formed from resulted from the creation of the Undernet and how somehow he was programmed with certain basic knowledge as well as uncommon knowledge, namely his fighting skills. True, he had to go through training, but combat somehow felt familiar to him, like all he was doing was refreshing his memory by attending the training sessions. But there was no need to tell these humans anything that they didn't need to know, only enough to make them happy and have a need for him. Somehow he got a strong feeling that he knew exactly what this particular culture did to things different from themselves that weren't of any use anymore.
"We only have the first way of doing things," Dr. Hikari smiled. "In fact my son and his wife, Haruka, are expecting twins very soon." At that he motioned to a plain, but beautiful woman whose belly was swollen with the tiding of children and who was standing next to Thomas.
"Giten lithlína," Red bowed, smiling at her. At some questioning looks and a giggle from Haruka he continued. "In the ancient language it means, almost literally, Giten's blessings."
"'Giten?'" Dr. Hikari asked.
"Oh, yes! Surely you know about Giten," Red assured them. "He created the earth and rules over the afterlife with all of the honorable souls of the dead who are able to enter eternal peace. There is some controversy, but I've come so close to deletion so many times that I have no choice but to believe that he watches over me."
At this everyone began laughing all over again and for the second time that day Red felt his cheeks begin to turn a bright red color. The last time this many people laughed at him had been when he asked where babies come from, which he admitted was much more awkward and embarrassing than the mocking of his blind faith.
And so the interviews went as the day marched on with humans and navi exchanged information. Although things remained calm and in good humor in scilabs, a group of fifteen navis whispered somewhere in the depths of Net City dangerous deals.
---
End Chapter
Author's notes: SORRY!!! Tell me your thoughts; anything and everything under the sun. Gripe at me, throw dangerous and endangered species of large jellyfish and squid if you so wish. But please… review. I don't even care anymore if it's flames. Christmas makes me happy. Questions, comments, concerns. (suggestions? I'm ALWAYS open to them)