Chapter 22: Lingering traces
09:34 AM (Japan Time), Sunday July the 2nd…
"… Why did we come here again? Are you going to let that lingering ghost haunt you again?"
"No. I've come to settle the score with it."
Nelaus was walking down a corridor cut into the ice and illuminated by fluorescent lights.
He was wearing a pale gray bodysuit with several round spots placed around it combined with black gloves and boots.
He also wore a brown leather pilot's helmet with black shades which he'd currently lifted.
Isaac was projecting with the holographic display and looked concerned while Nelaus displayed determination.
"Really?" Isaac gasped.
"Yeah. This time around it's for good." Nelaus was determined.
He crossed through two thick steel lock gates which were opened and stepped into a new room.
This new room was an armored cubical chamber somewhere: this chamber had few objects on it but there was one which stood out.
And that "one" was a tall cylinder with two cone-shaped ends set in the exact middle of it: the main body was over two meters tall and the ends were about 50cm tall each.
Two LCD monitors had been set a few centimeters away from the SW and SE corners and were linked to the main cylinder by wires on the ground.
The left monitor displayed life-signs graphs like heartbeat, blood flow and EEG activity: it was dead.
The second monitor looked like it'd been destroyed from the inside and didn't work either.
A path had been painted using purple pain from the doors to the front of the cylinder where some small metallic steps allowed one to climb up to the height of the cylinder's main body.
Some waist-high handrails had been deployed along the length of the path.
Two pairs of switched off fluorescent tubes were set in the ceiling so Nelaus was using the PET's flashlight to illuminate.
The insides of the capsule had a lot of white plastic wires which formed out of a cylindrical column and which were hanging loose: they had small dome-shaped membranes at their ends.
Two opened purple wrist restrains were visible too.
A curved rail was drawn above and below the north face and it could be seen that the north-facing edges of the curved armored body had two retracted curved glass walls painted black.
Other stuff included a detached oxygen mask hanging from it and some metallic restrains for the arms and legs plus the torso.
"… Listen me well, you ghost of the past! I've come to settle the score for good today! I was always a normal human: I just was exposed to radiation during a mission for Anaya…" Nelaus began.
He lifted his right arm and pointed his index finger at the capsule as if accusing it of having done something.
"… There was no other way around but to place me in cold sleep and undergo the necessary genetic modifications to heal me! I spent five years sleeping here. It was like an extremely long nap: I went to sleep with eleven years and I woke up with sixteen. I can't complain: it could've been way longer. This is how I settle it with you: so be gone already! Go, pick a ticket!" Nelaus continued while increasing his voice's volume.
He dropped the arm down and then inhaled breath to exhale it out at a slow rate; he seemed to shake a lot of tension off him and continued to stare at the capsule: he then headed towards the opening he'd come from at a firm pace.
"Good job, Nelaus! You've settled it perfectly."
"Thank you. Let's go home. Now Twilight can't haunt me with that damned thing anymore." Nelaus sighed in relief.
"O. K., Admiral." Isaac joked.
Nelaus walked across the corridor and reached an elevating platform: it climbed up a shaft and ended in a corridor heading towards the west: Nelaus walked across it and stepped into a second platform: this one ended up inside of a hanger built in the surface.
"Surface."
The hanger only had a metallic grid set in a 45º angle and facing forward thus a jet plane painted in camouflage colors: it even had missiles and machineguns on it: the hanger's doors were locked.
"By the way… What happened to the four "Dimensional Converters" which were here to protect the plane from the temperatures and humidity? They weren't last time around, either." Nelaus frowned.
"Vadous picked them up one year ago when he was trying to find out about who we were back when we worked for "Deadly Pandora"..."
"Oh. True, true. Anyway… This is the last time I'll come here: I've destroyed that lingering ghost of the past. Maybe I'll ask of Mr. Vadous to come wreck this place, too! Farewell, Gondwana!"
He headed over to the plane and used two steel rung ladders to climb into the cockpit, which had automatically opened: Nelaus jumped inside and it locked again: he then aimed the PET at the control panel.
"Plug In! Isaac, Transmission!"
Isaac entered the system while Nelaus pressed some switches: the plane's engines began to whistle and several indicators lighted up; Isaac displayed using a projector built atop the control console.
"All check-outs are green." He reported.
"Good. Let's set course to Densan City Airfield."
"Hmmm?" Isaac suddenly looked behind him.
"What's wrong?" Nelaus asked as he pressed some more switches.
"… Computer! Is there any executable program over 500 MB in size apart from me in the system?" Isaac asked.
"Roger. One such program has been located trying to access the root directory: it lacks permission so entry has been denied."
"No way…" Nelaus groaned.
"Felicia~!" Isaac growled.
"… Uh… Hullo…" Felicia timidly replied.
"You sneaked aboard! And we warned you the other day during Nelaus' party to stop stalking us! Are you itching to get arrested or WHAT?"
"W-well…! N-no, not really but… I wanted to know how it felt like to ride in this plane… Since it looked so cool, and all…"
"How much did you hear? Answer us! This plane is property of the Net Police and we're Net Saviors so we're legally authorized to question you because you're a civilian who illegally accessed a Net Police system!"
"Y-yeah! W-well… While I couldn't move from the plane, I did use its connection to the PET to listen in, and…"
"Sheesh! We're gonna have a serious talk with you and Tamashita – san. Do we stalk you or what? Did we try to invade your privacy? Did we try to secretly find out something about you? Did we accuse you of going out with another man?" Nelaus growled.
"Get into my PET and I'll lock it: I don't feel like taking off while you're messing around with the root directory." Isaac hissed.
"Y-yeah! S-sorry!"
She transferred into Isaac's PET and he quickly activated its firewall; he brought up the command line screen and inputted the following command.
"Block the MAC address 1B:21:C4:F9 from ever accessing this system!"
"And now let's get home."
Nelaus began to pull the control handle towards him and the jet's engines' whistle increased: the doors of the hanger opened to reveal a take-off runway: the skies were clear and there was not a single cloud in sight.
"Take-off in 5… 4… 3… 2… 1… Take-off!"
The jet shot forward across the runway and Nelaus began to pull the handle downwards to lift the "nose" of the jet to be followed by the rest of the body: he was soon climbing at a mad speed and the panorama expanded to reveal the outpost complex: most of the buildings were still intact but showed obvious signs of abandonment: the plane soon stabilized and Nelaus reduced the speed.
"Okay. We got into the flight path: there's nothing flying around in a 3 kilometer radius from here: no planes come so far."
"Good. You better get ready, miss, because we're going to be serious when questioning you. And we want honest answers else our relationship will crumble." Isaac warned her.
"Really… Why do you have to take after Sakurai?" Nelaus sighed.
"Yeah. Answer us."
"Well… We thought it was cool how she found out about Hikari – san being a Net Savior by following him that day Darkloid Flash Man began to cause a ruckus, so…" Felicia trailed off.
"Something tells me that your Operator also wanted to make sure we weren't double-crossing her. Am I right?"
"W-well, yeah… Guess this is also a sequel of that charlatan…" She gulped and avoided eye contact-
"Sheesh. Damn you, Gate, and your antiques. I now prefer battling Darth Bapgei to having to deal with psychological warfare." Nelaus cursed.
"I get that feeling too!" Isaac growled.
"I hope you didn't try to spy on our private time, either." Nelaus was icy by now.
"N-no! We'd never do that!" She insisted.
"Whatever. We'll know the rest when we get home." Isaac fumed.
"Sorry…" She muttered.
"It doesn't matter how much you apologize now 'cause nothing will change: gotcha?"
"R-roger… I understand…"
"And don't try to force your way out because you can't."
"N-no… Not like I intended to… Sorry…"
"And all my files are password-locked so don't try to snoop there either or I'll get really annoyed, miss! Girls! Why do you need to follow clichés or fantasies? Why let them dictate your life?" Nelaus fumed.
"T-that's… Huh… Well… Because… It looks thrilling?"
"Sheesh. Life isn't about being thrilling. It's not like I wanted to get into so many messes myself, either!" Nelaus grumbled.
"Same. It's not like we had a choice!" Isaac added.
Felicia remained quiet so both guys fumed; Nelaus checked the radar and map and then looked out towards the SW to see a huge volcanic island which was uninhabited.
"The Deadly Pandora base, huh. Hard to believe it's been over a year since then already…" He muttered.
"Yeah. But it's not like we have any special longing for that place. While it was a learning center, we "graduated" and moved on." Isaac shrugged.
"Hmpf. Exactly. I was fed up with Mike's stupid show, anyway."
"Anyone would be. He was but quoting that Vincent idiot to begin with."
"Huff! Enough. Put on some relaxing music so I can vent off!"
10:14 AM (Japan Time)…
"… How is it, Papa?"
"Saito's hypothesis was right: there's a small segment of mixed Bug Style and Bestialize Factor data which has been able to sneak into his personality file as well as some segments of the electronic brain… It most likely disabled smelling and hearing but was unable to mess with the CNS implants thanks to their high security… The whole mass amounts to a 5% of his personality file data and lodged as an additional directory. Guess Twilight's been busy."
Yuuichirou was typing into the Navi analysis machine on the Science Labs the screen of which displayed Rock Man's Navi frame; his real-world body was lying on a nearby futon; Netto was standing right behind his father's right shoulder.
"I see… And they built up over these two years since Omega's Anti-Bug Style Program didn't recognize that data as pure Bug Style per se so it couldn't delete it." Netto guessed.
"Sorry. We didn't do a deep enough scan other times." Blood Shadow apologized with a sigh.
"Huff. We didn't think of it…" Sigma apologized.
"It's not you guys' fault: I should've thought of that, too. Anyway… This can be easily fixed as we speak: I've already quarantined over 70% of it so once all data is quarantined, it can be destroyed. I'll recheck his sub-systems since we don't want that of four years ago repeating."
"Yeah. Better to prevent than to heal…" Netto muttered.
"By the way… Is it me or was Annihilator Man a bit sloppy when trying to face off Commander Omega…? Like he wasn't being totally serious…"
"He didn't drink his Wales Tea!" Sigma laughed.
"Maybe he just wanted combat data, then…"
"I hope it's not a repeat of the FOD and their weapons!"
13:48 PM (Japan Time)…
"… Japan. Get ready to land."
Nelaus' plane approached an airfield and touched down on the runway: he reversed the engines and deployed a parachute to help the plane slow down: he then kept the lowest possible speed as it taxied towards a hanger building: the plane entered and stepped into a round platform which turned it around 180º to get it ready for the next sortie.
"Home, sweet home…" Nelaus muttered.
He began to switch off everything before unlocking the cockpit and climbing out of it: he closed it again and then headed towards an adjacent restroom: there was a sports bag over there.
"Isaac. Keep Felicia under check and tell her to contact Tamashita – san. Wait outside." Nelaus instructed.
"Roger. Leave it up to me!"
He left the PET in a stool while he entered the restroom and locked the door from the inside: Isaac glared at Felicia and she gulped.
"Use the Wi-Fi and get into your PET… And tell her to wait outside for Nelaus to come out." He grumbled.
Felicia quickly ran outside while Isaac fumed: Nelaus immediately came out while having put his trench coat over the bodysuit along with his hat: he'd stored the helmet in the bag, too.
"Let's go."
He picked his PET and interacted with an alarm control panel: it turned on and began to beep as Nelaus quickly opened the side door and came out to then lock it down: he immediately faced Tamashita, who was standing there and looked nervous.
"Let's go to my home. I'll treat you to tea. And we need to talk seriously."
She silently gulped as sweat dropped down her face; Nelaus ignored it and began to walk away with her following him…
14:09 PM (Japan Time)…
"… Here we are. Please wait there and I'll bring the tea. And please don't try to steal anything "special"..."
"Y-yeah… I wouldn't do that, anyway…"
Nelaus headed into his house's kitchen and opened a cupboard to take out two tea cups and a teapot: he boiled some water and then added the instant tea into it.
He served it on the cups before placing everything on a plastic white platter along with some peanuts: he brought it to the living room and set it on the table.
"Here you have."
He handed Tamashita her cup while he picked his as he sat down in sofa in front of her.
"So?" Nelaus began.
"I'm sorry, really sorry…! I didn't want to hurt you, really, but…"
"How much did you hear, miss?" Isaac questioned.
"Well… The whole monologue… That about of "always being a normal human" and the 5 years thing and so on…" She muttered.
"I knew it." Isaac fumed.
"… So? What do you think now?" Nelaus icily asked.
"Eh… That… That that man's… That Navi's talk… Was true." Tamashita slowly muttered.
"So. You see me as a freak. As someone who doesn't deserve to exist because they weren't born naturally." His eyes turned cold.
"N-no! Of course not! I didn't expect that to be true! I just wanted to know where did you go with that plane… Because… Well…"
"You thought I was having an affair, huh? Hmpf. Worthless."
Tamashita gulped and didn't reply because Nelaus had point; he simply grabbed his teacup and sipped some tea.
"Some things are better off not known. It's called "Need Not To Know" in national security terminology. Also. Ms. Manabe figured out that you once snuck into the Net Police HQ and heard a meeting from the adjacent restrooms… She wasn't amused." Nelaus warned.
"Yikes!"
"Obviously enough. I'm sure someone would've found it odd that you came to "report a hacking" but no such report was filed. The corridors have security cameras, y'know?" Felicia rolled her eyes.
"So? What it'll be? Do you fear me? Do you hate me?"
"O-of course not… R-rather… I… feel so stupid… Once again… I hurt you by trying to poke my nose… I ruined your good mood from the birthday party, even… And I must've come off as a compulsive liar, too…"
"Correct. Maybe you're the one deceiving me and hanging out with another man to begin with? If you like to lie so often. It's not like I meant to lie to others, but society isn't ready to accept someone like me. It was necessary." Nelaus warned.
Tamashita nervously looked around as if she didn't know what to reply; Nelaus calmly kept on sipping some more tea so she gulped and began to sip her teacup too; the Navis remained silent while tension built up.
"Now. Let's get down to business. You want to know so much, I'll tell you. On the condition that you don't tell anyone else, of course. And that you stop stalking us. Because one day I'll really have to complain to your aunt and parents." Nelaus leant forward.
Tamashita nervously nodded in understanding so Nelaus sighed and returned to his initial pose.
"Gate's talk was true: I am a genetically engineered human. An articial human. Created to be an agent of evil. I was even branded as a "demon" by my "creators"…"
"So it was true… But then… You hadn't had a "life" before waking up on that Antarctica refuge…?"
"No. My body "lived" per se during five years but my consciousness was non-existent. I was fed information through a chip implant into my brain to help me understand the world by the time I was to wake up. Isaac did have consciousness and was in charge of monitoring me, yet… He was only awake once per trimester to check on me: he was only awake for about twenty days in that whole five year period."
"Two days before he woke up I was contacted with emergency orders: the rendezvous location had been changed and I was given the new coordinates. I then woke up again two days later to begin my new "life": I was to check on Nelaus' awakening and guide him towards the rendezvous point. That day marked his "birthday" per se and he was "born" with the body and mind of a 16 year old person."
"So that's why you were "settling the score"… Because you didn't want someone to use that to haunt you…?" Felicia timidly asked.
"Yeah. That's right. Last time I went the place gave me the creeps and I felt a breakdown, even. Fear at being rejected. Fear at being alone. Even though I'd managed to build "bonds" with others…"
"We met up with our "makers" in that island, the Deadly Pandora base… Once there, I met my "senpai"… Twilight. The man you've probably heard me mention often. He was also like me. An artificial human. But his ambition was so great, he became an evil genius."
"Twilight… That blonde guy who was there on that day when the DNN studious were taken over last year, yes…? And who's supposed to be in unknown whereabouts…"
"Yeah. He still keeps appearing around me or poking at me over my "betrayal"…"
"What led you to, hum, "betray" them?"
"Very easy. I was being made a fool of. Even though they granted me high intelligence, they treated me as a dumb guy who didn't catch up."
"Why was that?" Felicia frowned.
"They wanted to hide their true nature… Their crimes… They wanted to play victim… And use that to lure me into their net of crime and eventually become trapped within it…" Nelaus sighed.
"By all the…!"
"The one who started all of this was a woman named Anaya Maria. Ahe was the "Ice Queen" of the whole Japan underground: her filthy money amassed through sinister deals, speculation and bank robbery ruled over all those places and controlled them. She called her controlled underworld "Secret Empire"…"
"I'd heard rumors about it… But assumed it to be an urban legend…"
"Well, it wasn't. Nowadays it's crumbling apart. But the most sinister part is that she was a cruel human. And to fulfill her cruelty, she'd kidnap men and women in their teens to torture them…"
"What!" Both girls gasped.
"She also had her own secret place on that yacht which was a living Naraku: even though an insider helped the police bring her down and free the victims, some of them ended up in an almost vegetative state… They'd lost whole years of their lives and would most likely unable to reinsert themselves into society… It's been hard to try to keep them controlled and avoid them from trying to suicide out of a profound depression."
"Goodness…!"
"In total… Her direct victims, the ones rescued from the yacht, clock at around 80 teens of different ages and both sexes but always in the 10~16 age range… It's impossible to calculate the indirect victims because all those places end up making deals and interchanging victims. It's a sick business which must be taken down." Isaac added.
"Sorry if I scared you, but… It's reality. We can't pretend it isn't there. That's why I took the freedom of requesting for a small Net Police escort in case someone tried to harm you to get to me."
"I'd noticed… And I'm thankful of it…"
"The whole point is: don't let lust, envy, greed or power-hunger take a hold of you: that woman started as a normal person and look where she ended in barely five years." Isaac warned.
"Reality… It's cruel, but… It's reality." Felicia muttered.
"I'll bring some more tea." Nelaus offered.
He headed out of the living room while Tamashita and Felicia looked like they were reeling at the tale.
Nelaus served some more tea and Tamashita drank it up to gain some color back to her.
"Please be realistic. This is something which used to hurt me, but… Now I've settled it with my ghost of the past. From now on… I'm just a normal person. Did Felicia tell you about my monologue?"
"Yeah… And I agree with it: you're a normal person. You just happened to fall under the hands of that Demon and she wanted to shape you into a ruthless person although she didn't get to." Tamashita nodded in agreement and looked serious.
"Thank you… You saw how many people support me back when the birthday party: I don't want to lose them." Nelaus reminded her.
"Nobody wants to lose those who support them…" Isaac sighed.
"Y-yeah… That's true…" Tamashita muttered.
"… We forced you two to talk… We're to blame. We really are."
"So please let's pretend nothing happened and keep as we were."
"Deal?" Isaac suggested.
"Deal." Both replied.
They all inhaled and exhaled to shake off their gloomy mood and slowly managed to smile; Tamashita suddenly blew a teasing kiss at Nelaus, who turned red while the Navis either giggled or chuckled…
15:20 PM (Melbourne Time)…
"… Huff. I don't feel like going downstairs to get to listen to Master's pointless jokes again."
"Then let's go to the disco, Bapgei."
"Huff. Cloud Man. Discos only open at the evening and it ain't 4 PM yet in case ya didn't know that."
"I'm a genius!"
"Guess that."
"Wanna listen to the Club Which Delivers Headaches?"
"… It's a pun, Cloud Man! You mean club as in the Trumps' club, the blunt thing…"
"Correct! 100 points for Bepgei!"
"Huff. Why can't you leave me alone?"
"Guess I'm like Ratatosk: always popping out when ya feel annoyed."
"Huff. Don't mix in ToS: KoR next."
Philip had been lying face-up on his bed and looked bored or fed up when Cloud Man's hologram began to hover at his left but he barely bothered to glance there while he'd placed both hands behind his head to look at the ceiling.
"OH YEAH! LET ZA BAPGEI HIT ZA NELAUS!"
"Huff. Go tell Darth Krayt how to rule over his subordinates."
"Delighted. With shock therapy…!"
Philip finally sighed in relief and picked up a comic book from close by.
"Let's read MGS2."
He began to read and seemed to get interested as he progressed: he got hooked and began to hum the "Encounter" theme next.
"Tun-tun-tun-tun… "Where were at?" … "You were busy talking your way into the nut house. You don't have to. I'll bring you there myself."… Good mottoes, really… You'd really say that after you saw that behavior!"
"… Flipping Opening Closing Ending Dividing Death!"
"Master… He's gotten into some weird mood today. He should go throw fireworks on the 4th. Even though we don't have that party here…"
"… Landing Crashing Dying Planning Plane!"
"What in the… Are ya sure ya don't need some psycho-analysis, Master?"
"Mortadelo & Filemón Bring Catastrophe Along! But the CIA guys also got a stroke of luck with trying to catching Trap Steel! "Well. Yeah. We know the fellow. A sneaky customer, a genius at escaping… He always jumped out the window at the last second! Like when we tried to catch him there, on Massachusetts… When we were about to catch him in Wisconsin… And last time around… He also escaped by inches!" … "He jumped out the window again?" … "Yeah. But he forgot we were in Chicago… In a 47th floor residence… That's some luck!" …"
"Jeez. So you mean to say he forgot he was in a 47th floor and fell to his ultimately demise." Philip muttered with some annoyance.
"… "Well… We'll give you a plane 'cause we're colleagues! OK! Smith, bring the DC-8 keys for the buddies!" … "The DC-8? But it's already on the scrap…!" …"Shut it up! Give the DC-8 to the gentlemen and no problem!"…"
"And they gave them a small two-seater open-cockpit helix-propelled thing which barely held together and then broke down…"
"Well. If you want impossible adventures, M&F's the choice for ya guys and gals… Bugs Bunny wants YOU for the Looney Tunes show!"
"What a stupidity. I hope he gets serious again soon or else… Huff. I can't bear with so much stupidity and randomness 'round me!"
Looking forward to clashing again, Nelaus! My improved arts will make you sweat a lot! And I wanna try those mistresses' arts, too!