When I first got the idea for the main bit of this story, I immediately asked myself, "How would that work even?" So I thought up this chapter. I've had it pretty much entirely written out in my head for three years, but never… you know, actually wrote it down. Hopefully this does a halfway decent job of rectifying that.

Oh, and… have any of you been wondering why I don't have Link PETs (the ones that do holograms) or more importantly, Trill? There's a very simple reason… It's just… I started writing this before any of those things existed. Haha, isn't that sad?

Trill in particular would've been nice to include here and there… but I've decided to keep this story as it started out, so you can kinda sorta assume that it takes place in a universe where Stream and Beast never happened.

Lastly, I don't know the Japanese name for the normal type green-and-yellow Navis, so I'll be using their Battle Chip Challenge name: NormNav1.

As you all full well know, Capcom owns all this stuff.

Also, a big thank you to everyone who reads this! This story is a daily battle of "this is cute!" versus "this is stupid I'm quitting!". You have no idea how much every click helps. =)

After the pop song, George picked out a tango. Despite the fact that they were both caught up in the silly moment, Rockman had really surprised Roll by grabbing the rose out of its vase, putting it in his mouth, and offering her his hand with a rather over-the-top dashing smile (complete with eyebrow wiggle). She accepted and the two of them stomped around the parameter of the room three times, switching directions every now and then with an elaborate twirl.

At the end of the song, Roll threw herself back, splaying her arms in a deep dip. Rockman wasn't expecting it, and in his scramble to hold onto her he bit the rose stem in half. She had then tried to catch the falling rose, which caused them to unbalance and crash to the floor. Rockman's face landed right in her chest, and (even though she wasn't human and didn't care about those kinds of things… too much) he turned the darkest shade of red she'd ever seen him go. Flustered, trying to get back up, and trying to spit rose stem out of his mouth, Rockman lost control of his bubble and was forced to log-out. This of course left Roll to figure out how to correctly log-out by herself, but with Netto's guidance it hadn't been too hard.

Netto was happy; not only had they gotten some good data, but he had also won twenty zenny for betting Rockman would loose control of his bubble first. He and Meiru had then gone down to the cafeteria for lunch, while Roll and Rockman retreated to her PET for a quick pick-me-up. Despite his assertion that he had done this a thousand times before and was perfectly fine, Roll refused to let Rockman leave her PET until she forced some of her reserves upon him.

Roll swung her feet and breathed a sigh of relief. Dimensional Bubbles were fun, but they certainly took a lot of effort to use. Really, she was content to sit here just like this, side-by-side on a high ledge overlooking SciLab's main server.

"Aah look! There he is!"

"Who?" Roll asked, scanning the crowd below.

"The purple striped Mr. Prog I told you about!"

"Purple? Where?"

Rockman grabbed her around the shoulder and pulled her close so their helmets were touching. He pointed, trying to make sure they were both looking at the same spot. Sure enough, a little green Mr. Prog with vivid purple stripes was floating aimlessly around.

"Huh," Roll mused. "Who painted him that shade of purple?"

Rockman leaned back. "He says he did it himself!"

"You asked him?" she said, raising an eyebrow. She also noted, with some amusement, that Rockman had let his hand drop a bit but was still loosely holding onto her.

"Well yeah. I thought he might not work here; it seemed kind of strange when he just appeared one day. So I found out where he…"

Healing him had made him much more animated. As Roll watched him talk, she couldn't help but smile.

Yes, just like this… that's all I want.

"Trinity! Get out here now. We don't have tim— oh. Hello, Hikari Jr."

At the word "Junior", Roll wondered where the elder Hikari-hakase was; knowing him, he was probably holed up in his office two floors down, doing something of grave importance. She made a mental note to suggest visiting him later.

"Hi," Netto greeted. "Did we come at a bad time…?"

The scientist turned from his computer to give his guests a proper greeting. He was a middle-aged man (probably only a few years younger than the elder Hikari-hakase) with neatly combed faded blonde hair and shocking blue eyes.

Netto began the introductions. "Meiru, this is Newell-hakase. Newell-hakase, this is my wife!"

He looked like he was from Ameroupe and had the right accent for it; his origins were as good as confirmed when he shook Meiru's hand instead of bowing. "Hello Mrs. Hikari! I'm very happy to be meeting you at last."

"Aah," Meiru breathed, "Netto hasn't said anything bad, has he?"

"Quite the contrarty!" he smiled.

Meiru failed to hide her blush with a giggle. Roll could see why she was flustered; Newell-hakase was very handsome. He had a definitive 5 o'clock shadow, but at the same time had wrinkles around his eyes that suggested many years of smiles and laughter.

"So what's up with Nana?" Netto asked.

"The usual. She's freaking out about goodness-knows-what, and we're expecting a surro—" he cut off awkwardly, but only missed a single beat before continuing with, "—one of our test subjects to arrive any minute. I'd ask Nanette to give you guys the tour but…" He gestured at his computer blankly.

Netto pulled the PET off his hip. "Hey Rockman," he said, "can you plug in to the computer and look for that pink Navi you met earlier? Her name's Nana. She gets… a little strange at times."

"Not strange!" huffed a voice from the computer. "Tripolar, but not strange."

"Tripolar?" Netto laughed. "That's a new one, Nana. I like it!"

Rockman made a motion for Roll to follow him, and so the two of them transferred wirelessly into Newell's server.

Except for the fact that the floor and walls were themed green, this server was practically a mirror of Newell-hakase's lab. The walls had rows of "computers" spaced evenly apart; between two of these, Nanette stood, shaking a fist. "There's a distinct distinction between the two, Hikari. Don't go naming what you haven't experienced!"

When they'd first met this morning, Roll had thought Nanette's appearance was more unusual than her behavior. She looked like a NormNav2 (because of her pink and fuchsia coloring and the non-humanoid face), but was a bit shorter and heavier than normal for that type, almost like an old-fashioned Security model. Watching Nanette shake her fist at Netto, she was starting to change her mind. "Erm, hello?"

Nanette jumped almost a foot in the air when she noticed Roll and Rockman. She crouched back down into her hiding spot and peeped, "I-I-I'm so… t-that was rude..."

Roll, never one to beat around the bush, strode boldly towards Nanette. "Hello! Please don't be frightened. I'm Roll-chan, it's nice to meet you!"

"R-ro-roll…chan…"

"Mmhm!" she smiled happily. "Are you alright? Why are you hiding here?"

"O-oh. It's just… my… Abel said he'd fix it. I can't… not without it…"

"Without what?" Rockman asked kindly, stepping up beside Roll.

"M-muh… my… he said… mmh."

Roll shared a worried glance with Rockman. "It's alright, take your time. Are you looking for somet—" she stopped mid-sentence, finally realizing what was missing from this picture; Nanette's apron! When they'd first met her this morning, she had been wearing the cutest white apron tied around her waist. Now, it was gone. "Oh! It's your apron, isn't it?"

"Yes! Yes please, I… the chip…" Nanette stammered.

"Apron? What apron?" Rockman asked.

"She was wearing it earlier," Roll answered.

"I don't remember it…"

"It's big and white," Roll scoffed, "and covered about half of her torso. How did you not notice it?"

Newell-hakase buried his face in his hands. "You've been making all this fuss for a fashion chip?"

"I don't care what you say; I need my apron! Stop whining and look for it!" she snapped back. "If… you could… please?"

The search ended thirty seconds later when Meiru made a noise of surprise. "Ack! I think… I think I found it, and I think I stepped on it." She leaned over to pick the small chip up off the floor, but Netto shooed her away and did it himself. "I'm not an invalid, you know!" she huffed.

"Uh-huh," Netto nodded absently, not paying attention. "I think it's still okay. Newell-hakase?"

Newell-hakase took the offered chip with an irritated grunt. He slotted it in to his PET. "There. Happy?"

A large white blur appeared in front of Nana; as the resolution became better and better, a frilly apron came into focus. When it had completely materialized, Nanette grabbed it before it could flutter to the floor. "Yeees, thank you much!" she cheered. In less than a second, she tied it around herself with an elaborate bow. She smoothed out the wrinkles and gave a long sigh. "That's so much better."

For some inane reason, the apron gave Nanette a new sense of confidence. She hopped out of her hiding spot and burst out, "Hello dears! I know who you are, obviously, but I'm sure you don't know me." She stuck out her hand and shook each of their hands vigorously. "My name is Trinity. EXE, but that's such a boring old moniker, so please! Call me Nanette!"

How "Trinity" related to "Nanette", Roll had no idea. But it would be rude to ask, so she settled for, "Nanette? Netto-san called you Nana."

"Oh, that," Nanette blushed.

Netto chuckled. "When I first met her, all she could say was 'I'm Na.. na… na…'. It bothers her, so I call her that."

"He's too stubborn to change it," Nanette sighed in resignation.

"Nanette," Newell-hakase interrupted, "we're running late thanks to you. Can you do the tour while I set up for our appointment?"

"Caaan dooo! Hikari family, let's begin the awesomely awesome tour!" Her voice turned cold. "Rockman, Roll, follow me. Hikari-san, you and your wife may be seated; we will be walking between servers, but you have no need to move." Just as suddenly, her face brightened. "I love giving tours!"

The first stop was the main server. Rockman was curious why they'd come here; he was here every single day, and there was hardly anything special about it.

"Now then!" Nanette said. "This tour is a history of Newell-hakase's work. Newell-hakase has worked in Navi Development for… well, a long time. How much do either of you know about Navi Development?"

"Erm…" Rockman glanced at Roll. She returned his blank look, so he answered, "Nothing more than the basics."

"M'alright then, I'll explain a bit. A Navi is composed of two parts: the body, which we call a "frame", and Soul Data. It's real easy to write an executable program and give it some blank data to make what looks like a Navi, but all the higher AI functions require Soul Data. Regular commercial "Person" type Navis and Mr. Progs contain very little or poor Soul Data; as such, they can carry out basic commands but can't really think for themselves and don't really display much in the way of emotion. Security type Navis have a bit more Soul Data, because they need to recognize threats and react correctly to situations. Customizable Navis, however, have much more Soul Data than any of those. This is what enables them to be so human-like; they not only recognize and react to the world, but learn from it. They…" Nanette paused, looking stumped, "basically, more Soul Data means they have emotions, among other minutia I won't go into."

"Yes, I know a bit about that," Rockman nodded. "Papa—er, Hikari-hakase was one of the original creators of Soul Data." Technically, he was the reason Papa had gone into Navi Development and nearly revolutionized it, but he wasn't about to tell Nanette the reasoning behind that choice.

"Yes, yes, Newell-hakase has worked a bit with Hikari senior… I'm surprised you've never heard of him before today."

She and Roll gave him an expectant look.

"Oh, uh…" he blushed, "I don't know all of Papa's secrets. He's very tight-lipped about his research, even to us."

"Hm," Nanette hummed, "oh well. Regardless, it's Netto-san we have to thank for our current work."

"What? What did I do?" Netto gaped.

"I'm getting there," said Nanette. "From start to finish, it takes about two years to create a fully-customizable Navi. This is because the most crucial part, the Soul Data, is not easy to create. Obviously, many people have been looking for a way to make this long, expensive process more efficient. You and Rockman gave us a step forward when you discovered 'Spontaneous Generation'. Or the virtual version of that, anyway."

If spontaneous generation was a theory that life formed from inanimate objects, then… "Oh!" Rockman said, understanding. "You mean when supposedly deleted Navis come back to life in the Undernet?"

"Oh, like… Shademan?" Netto ventured.

"Very good," Nanette smiled. "Yes, Navis like that. They are created when surviving fragments of the original Navi combine with enough spare data floating around to reconstruct a body. They're usually quite incomplete, though; without complete Soul Data, many of them have severe AI defects."

"So that's why they all act deranged," Netto muttered.

Rockman thought about admonishing him for being rude, but… he kind of had a point.

"When you first discovered one, it was thought to be a strange, rare occurrence. After several such Navis were reported, people began to take the theory, or in this case threat, much more seriously. Newell-hakase was the first to try and put spontaneous generation to better use… and created me!"

"You were the first Navi he ever made?" Netto asked. Rockman could see laughter in his eyes, and knew what his Operator was thinking: That explains a lot.

"Yep!" Nanette said proudly, missing Netto's implication. "He took the Soul Data of three incomplete Navis and combined them together to make one, finished product. I am one third fully-customizable, one third security-type, and one third NormNav2. They make up a complete set of Soul Data, but… well, Soul Data is a bit different depending on what kind of Navi you want to make, and they… don't mix together absolutely perfect. It's why… I have such mood swings."

"Doesn't everybody?" Roll giggled. "I get mood swings too; ask Rockman."

Rockman was unsure how to reply. Saying yes would make Nanette feel better, but then Roll would think that he thought that she was moody. He gave a small chuckle, hoping that was both a neutral and good enough answer.

"You're sweet," Nanette smiled. "But! Yes, I was first, and no, I am not perfect. So, Newell-hakase began to look at new ways to create Soul Data."

She started to walk in the general direction of the front desk, where two female Navis sat behind a virtual desk all day, taking calls and making appointments. Rockman did not know their names, but everybody called them "the twins"; they were colored white and back and were an exact mirror of one another.

One of them noticed Nanette. "Trinity! Giving the tour?"

"Yep!"

"And so… these two?" the other asked.

"Not sure yet. Roll-chan, Meiru-chan, I'd like you to meet Yin and Yang."

Roll giggled. "What cute names! They fit you very well!"

"Yes…" one sighed.

"…we get that a lot," the other finished.

"They are another of Newell-hakase's experiments. The idea was to take complete Soul Data, split it in two, and then let the halves grow back to full size. He was hoping the halves would be able to grow back to their original sizes faster than normal, giving him a kind of two-for-one effect, but… In the end, it wasn't fast enough to be profitable. Plus, each time you split the Data you're just making a clone, not an original Navi." Nanette turned away from the desk. "So we gave up on that pretty quickly. Next, we trie—"

"Ahem," one coughed.

"No good-bye?" asked the other.

"O-oh!" Nanette peeped. She bowed deeply. "I am glad to have seen you today. I will try and visit later so we may have a proper chat." As she stood back up, her body relaxed. "So take it easy, mmkay?"

"Mmkay!" Yin and Yang chorused, imitating her slight accent.

"Now then," Nana smiled, "onwards!

The next server did not have any Navis in it, but instead was filled with rows and rows of long glass tubes that were sealed at both ends. Many of the tubes were glowing brightly.

"Welcome to the Nursery!" Nanette whispered with a smile. "This is where I'm usually at."

"What are all of these?" Roll whispered, gesturing at the tubes.

Nanette laughed. "Oh sorry dears, you don't need to whisper in here. Just with the name and the atmosphere, I always feel like I should. Come get a closer look." She walked up to the nearest tube and hugged it. Her arms only went about halfway around the glass, but she did not seem to care. "Helloooo little ones," she cooed. "How are you today?"

Behind the glass, there was a bright sphere of pixilated light. It swirled and shifted constantly, and every several seconds a few pixels would reflect and glint a different color of the rainbow.

"How pretty!" gasped Meiru. "What is it?"

Rockman knew the answer, but Netto beat him to it. "It's Soul Data," he said, smiling in recognition.

"So this is what Roll looked like before she had a body?"

"Sure did, hon!" Nana nodded.

"Why…" Rockman squinted. He knew what he was looking at, and had therefore noticed a strange detail. "Why are there two?"

"Two?" asked Roll.

"Look there," pointed Nanette, "going around the bigger one."

Sure enough, there was a smaller ball of light tumbling around the bigger one. Rockman thought it looked like a fragment kept breaking off the big one and rejoining… but if Nanette said there were two, then there were two separate pieces.

"Our next idea was to let two Souls develop side-by-side. That also turned out to be a flop; with splitting we got identical twins like Yin and Yang, and with co-development you get a sort of fraternal twin. They look different, but share certain attributes personality traits."

"Do they develop any more quickly?" Rockman asked.

"Nope," Nanette sighed. "Have you met Lloyd down in communications? The conjoined-twin-Navi that thinks he's only one person?" She laughed at the face he and Roll made. "Yeah. He's the reason we abandoned the idea of co-development… But it gave us our next idea, which turned out to be a turning point. What we have in these tubes here is Newell-hakase's greatest achievement, and it is currently the way IPC produces about 80% of its custom Navis."

"Whoa, that much?" Netto asked.

Rockman was impressed, too. Once again he wondered why he'd never even heard of any of this.

"Yep! It's a new technique known as "Soul Shadowing". Basically, you let a newly created Soul hang out with a more complete one. The smaller one kinda… well "feeds" sounds bad; it's more of a mutalistic thing. They kind of share with one another, and it really speeds up the development of the smaller one. Once it gets big enough the first Soul is removed, usually to become a finished Navi, and another, smaller Soul gets added to share with the Soul that just grew big. It's a cyclic process, so once you get a cycle started it's really easy to keep going."

"Well that's creative," Rockman mused, "but why not put a bunch together, like a torrent file? Even if it you don't have a lot downloaded, you can still share what you have with someone who has less."

"We tried that, but it doesn't work so well. At large numbers the Souls start to clump together and lose their individuality, and larger Souls will start to eat the real small ones…" Nanette grimaced. "It's not such a pretty picture. We've tried a variety of small numbers, but so far two seems to work best."

"How long does it take to make a complete Navi with this method?" he asked.

"We start out by creating a little seed of Soul Data… that takes about a week, and then it goes into the tube. It spends about five to six months as a little brother, and another five to six as a big brother. After that it gets moved into a Framing Capsule, which… well, it's another process that takes a month or two."

"So rather than taking two years, it takes a bit over one," Netto finished for her. "Half the time with such a simple idea! Why couldn't we have thought of it, Rockman? We could have made so much moneeey…"

From somewhere outside of Rockman's view of the real world, Newell-hakase called out, "I don't actually see much of that, junior."

Netto mumbled something about his new car, and Rockman rolled his eyes. He turned back to the glowing tube… and suddenly had to stifle a laugh. Roll was leaning towards the tube with her butt stuck out comically, and was squinting at the Soul Data with the utmost concentration.

"I still can't… gah! How big is the little one in this tube? He's hard to see!" she complained.

"Uh…" Nana twisted her face up in thought. "What tube is this? Number…uh…" Giving up, she tapped a funny black symbol near the bottom of the glass. A large translucent monitor display popped up in front of the tube. "036-42! So this guy just got put in last week… he's a real little baby."

"Aww…" Roll and Meiru cooed in unison.

Roll laid her right palm gently on the glass. "That's so swee—ooh!" The bright sphere at the top of the tube suddenly got dimmer. "I didn't hurt them, did I?!" she gasped, yanking her hand away.

Nana grabbed Roll's hand and put it back on the glass. "No, they're fine. Wait and watch."

Again, the bright sphere dimmed. A second later, a small light came whizzing down and bumped into the glass where Roll's hand was. "Oh!"

"Careful, baby!" Nana laughed. "Small Souls automatically attract to larger ones. This little guy here can tell that you're a custom Navi, and he thinks you've come to share with him."

"Oh my gosh," Roll breathed. She looked at Rockman and her face broke out into a huge smile. "That's adorable!"

The glow from the tube made her smile seem brighter. Unable to resist her cheerfulness, he returned the smile. "He really likes you, Roll-chan."

Roll put her other hand next to the first with a delighted squeal. "Hello there! Hiiii. How are you? My name is Roll-chan… hehee…"

Rockman stepped up beside her to get a closer look. Really, this Soul looked just like regular old Soul Data. He didn't understand why women thought smaller versions of normal things were cute. Roll was completely enamored with the tiny Soul; she was now moving her hand around on the glass, gently encouraging it to follow her.

…It was a shame she didn't want a baby Navi; she would be such a good mother.

"That brings me to my next point," Nanette said. "Do you see how the little brother prefers Roll over the big brother? Small souls not only attract to bigger ones, but to the largest one they can find. This is similar to what Rockman suggested before about torrent files; it's better to share with somebody who has a complete file, rather than someone who can't give you all of it."

"Oh," said Roll, looking a little downcast, "that's why he likes me?"

"Partially, yes. But do you see where I'm going?"

"You tried to have a little brother share with a finished Navi?" Rockman suggested.

"Yep!" Nanette nodded. "We got Yin… or Yang, I really don't remember which, to connect to one of these tubes and nurture a Soul through its entire development."

"How did that work?" Roll asked.

Nanette shrugged. "Good and bad. She was connected to it for about eight months, but we still had to put the Soul in a Framing Capsule for a month to finish it. There are some things you just can't share. And plus, you know, she was stuck at SciLabs for eight months. The way she was connected she couldn't move more than two yards away from the tube, so we dragged her desk up here and she lived in her own special little server."

"Ew!" Roll grimaced. "That doesn't sound very fun."

"She didn't mind too much, seeing as she normally sits behind the same desk for hours and hours every day, but… No, I wouldn't like it either," Nanette agreed. "Can you imagine making that large-scale? You'd have a room full of immobile Navis all connected to creepy glowing machines… that's horror movie material right there."

"Why not make a smaller tube?" Rockman asked. "One that she could carry with her?"

"Our thought exactly!" Nanette bit her lip, but it did little her hide her excited giggle. "Come with me."

Roll followed a demure two paces behind Rockman back into Newell-hakase's server. She figured the tour must be nearly over. It had been interesting, but somewhat confusing; why had Netto wanted them to take this tour in the first place? With the way Nana was smiling, Roll knew there had to be some sort of twist coming.

Rockman stopped suddenly, and Roll nearly bumped into him. She peered around his body, and saw what had made him stop. Before, the middle of the room had been empty; now, it was filled with a large virtual table, equipment, and three Navis. The Navi sitting on the table caught her attention the most. She was a cute, purple humanoid Navi (very similar to Roll in a few ways), but… was fat. Very fat.

"Hyacinth!" Nanette shouted happily.

Now that the Navi was looking their direction, Roll tried to stare a little bit more discretely. There was something about her weight… about how she carried it… Roll gasped, realization hitting her hard. "She's pregnant!"

Rockman and Meiru made almost identical noises of shock.

"W-what?" Rockman stuttered.

"Baby Navis don't need to develop nearly as much as full grown ones…" Roll reasoned out loud (more for her own benefit than Rockman's), "and size-wise they're much smaller."

Nanette shooed the two NormNav1 away from the table and grabbed Hyacinth's hand warmly. "So they can get everything they need from their host while fitting conveniently inside of said host," she finished. "Host is such an ugly word, but mother isn't quite right either… We've started to call them surrogates. Baby Navis normally take about a year to make… but with surrogating, they're done in three months."

"Three?!" Rockman gasped.

"You'd best believe it!" Nanette chuckled. "Fast, cheap, and easy!" Her face fell. "Oh… oh that doesn't sound right, does it? Even if it is similar to human pregnancy in a few ways, it's not…" She shook her head, as though that could negate what she'd just said. "Anyway! This lovely surrogate here is Hyacinth, and she's due… Er, how did your examination go?"

"Newell-hakase said I have one more week to go!" Hyacinth beamed.

"Yaaay!" Nanette cheered, giving her a hug.

What had started out as a shocked excitement somewhere near Roll's stomach turned into lead and sank. She knew what was coming: they were going to offer to let her be a surrogate. She'd never heard of this before, which meant that Newell-hakase was still keeping it under wraps because he didn't have a patent yet. He must be looking for volunteers inside of or related to SciLabs to try it out…

Rockman knew that she was a little jealous of Meiru, but it was obvious now that he had made Netto his confidante. That was why Netto had offered to buy her a baby Navi and then gone through all the trouble to get them here. "Netto-san…" She wasn't sure how to say no without sounding rude. He was trying so hard to make her happy.

Surprisingly, it was Rockman who objected first. "Netto-kun, I see where you're going with this, but… I thought… you didn't want a random Navi for your baby. I thought you wanted something special."

"Oh!" Meiru gasped. She smiled at her husband. "That's very sweet of you, dear."

"It will be special!" Netto laughed. "Where do you think its core programming will come from?"

"You said you didn't have time to write one…" Rockman frowned.

"Write one? Why should I do that, when you two have perfectly good ones?"

Roll was unable to stop her hands from flying to her beet red face. On the upside, though, they clamped her mouth shut before she could make any funny noises.

"W-what do you mean?" Rockman asked, incredulous.

Roll knew; it was faster to re-use bits of coding than writing something original, and you could choose attributes that you liked about one Navi to incorporate into a new one. In fact, it was somewhat common for baby Navis to be created using the code of two Navis… kind of a virtual "family". She'd known that ever since she started researching baby Navis, but had never brought it up; she was terrified that Rockman would offer to do it with her.

"So…" Rockman said slowly, looking between Netto and Nanette, "Roll and I…"

"Could have a baby together!" Nanette chirped, helping Hyacinth off the table. "You two would make such a cute baby, please say you will! We're looking for volunteers, you know, and—"

Rockman sent her a curious glance, and Roll quickly looked away, trying not to go any more red than she already was. "Roll-chan…" he said quietly enough so nobody else would hear it over Nanette's continued ranting, "that would be… close to Meiru-chan, wouldn't it?"

She returned his stare, but hers was stony. She knew perfectly well what he meant by that: 'it's as close as you're ever going to get'.

"No!" Roll shouted. The volume of it surprised everyone, including herself. She went red and stammered, "I mean… no thank you. I… just because Meiru… I don't…"

Everyone was staring at her. And everyone looked… disappointed. She shrunk under their combined gaze and suddenly had to fight back a powerful urge to cry. This was what she wanted more than anything else in the world. Now all of sudden, everyone in the room was not only offering her dreams to her on a silver platter, but wanted her to do it … and she couldn't say yes. It would be for all the wrong reasons.

"Roll-chan?" Meiru asked softly, "Is something wrong?"

"N-no…" Roll didn't trust herself to speak. They would want an explanation if she rejected their offer, and it was an explanation she did not want to give. Shouting out "because Rockman doesn't love me!" would… just be absolutely the worst…

…especially if Rockman tried to deny it; it would be a lie, and that would hurt even more than the truth.

Roll turned away from everyone, finding it impossible to keep a straight face. "I'm sorry!" she whispered. She logged out into her PET, and shut the path behind her with a firewall.