Chapter 11: Research
"Where're you going in such a hurry all of a sudden?" Larxene called out and looked at him with curiosity written all over her face.
"I just need to check something," Roxas said over his shoulder and left before she had a chance to ask another question.
Roxas ran through the bright white corridors of the large building, panting hard from the effort. His body may have recovered pretty fast from the coma, but he still was in a lousy shape. The stairs were an even greater trial, but he forced himself to keep up the speed, continuously going over the details in his mind and hoping with all of his heart that his conclusions were wrong.
Exhausted and with his throat sore from the heavy breathing, Roxas finally stopped and hammered his fist against the number eight bedroom door, which belonged to Axel.
When there was no answer from the other side, Roxas' heart shrunk to the size of a pea, before he told himself that Axel not being in his room at this particular time of the morning didn't prove that he was missing or...
Roxas pushed the thought away and rushed back to the stairs. Taking two steps or more at a time, he moved downwards almost as fast as if he'd not used the stairs at all. Gravity was on his side though, and luckily he didn't fall over as he rushed down. He kept going past the computer central and got himself to the stairs leading further down in the building.
He was aiming for the cellar level, where he'd find the library and the archives.
If his calculations were correct, Zexion would have just gotten down there for the day's work.
Just like he'd thought, the small blue haired young man had just opened up the doors to get inside.
"Zexion, wait!" Roxas called out as he ran the remaining distance between them.
Zexion turned around with a start and was too surprised by Roxas' presence to even get angry with him for scaring him.
Roxas tried his best to catch his breath and bent over, leaning his hands onto his knees for support in order to keep upright.
"I... need to... to talk... with you... about S... Sora and... Riku... and that... Ansem guy..." Roxas breathed out in short puffs of strained sound, the air cutting through his throat like sandpaper.
Zexion looked at him with a dawning curiosity.
"What do you want to know about them and why? None of you technical know-hows usually pay attention what so ever to these books and files that I care for. Why the sudden interest in history?"
Roxas looked at him as he tried to figure out whether or not this guy was making fun of him.
"I just..." Roxas was still panting and tried his best to make his voice come out steady and clear. " I just need to know some... details. Like... why Riku pulled the plug on Sora and... why there's supposed to be some connection between me and him."
Now the librarian was starting to show real interest, his eyes awake and wide open as his mind went through all the memorized data concerning the subject.
"Come inside the library with me then," he said coldly with a short nod and turned around to continue through the door he'd been holding up.
Roxas straightened himself out and stumbled after him into the old library. As they got inside, Zexion closed the door behind them before he set off between the rows upon rows of bookshelves that filled the large and dusky lit area.
Afraid to lose sight of the librarian, Roxas rushed after him in a slight jog, eyes locked on the dark blue hair as they got deeper into the library. Seeing the countless volumes of books, that in some places shared their space with external hard drives, CD- or DVD-records and other digital storage devices, made Roxas for the first time wonder about for how long the organization had existed and been operating in the dark. Just as he was about to ask Zexion about this, the librarian stopped him, holding out a hand to keep him at a distance that he preferred.
When Roxas stopped on the spot, Zexion stepped up to the shelf left to them and took out a grey external hard drive, slightly swept the dust off it and went over to a computer standing on top of a table just big enough to fit the machine, a mouse on a mouse-mat and the external hard drive on the side of it. Beneath the table the stationary hard drive was placed, already humming with electricity.
Zexion plugged in the memory device and turned to Roxas while it started up a program for reading the material on it.
"Now, I haven't looked into these files for a long time, so I'm going to have to read through some parts to refresh my memory," Zexion said calmly. His curiosity towards Roxas' use for the requested information was apparent in his face and voice. "Is there something else you'd like to know, while I'm at it?"
Roxas nodded.
"That program for... memory replacement? The Na- something..."
Zexion slightly raised one eyebrow as he looked at him.
"I'm guessing you mean the NAMINÉ, right?"
Roxas' face lit up.
"Yes! That's the one! Do you know anything about it? Like what it was used for and why it was shut down..."
Zexion nodded and started to walk down the row of shelves again.
"Stay where you are, or I'll make sure you'll never get out of here," he called out to Roxas over his shoulder, before disappearing behind one of the shelves.
Roxas did as he was told, not because he seriously considered the threat as anything else but a mean way of joking, but because he was almost certain that he would actually get lost if he moved more than two steps to the side.
Zexion was back with him in a matter of minutes, carrying a thin folder in his hands and a troubled expression in his face.
"Is something wrong?" Roxas asked as he reached him.
Zexion snorted.
"Someone's been down here without my permission. The entire hardware storage in that apartment is a mess and I can't for the life of me find the NAMINÉ software or hardware..." Zexion stopped himself, but realized, by the look on Roxas' face, that he'd said too much.
"You've kept the program intact? But... Xemnas said it should have been deleted..."
Zexion sighed his surrender.
"It should had been that way, yes, but it never was deleted, obviously, just taken out of use and stored down here in case it could come in handy some time."
Roxas looked at Zexion with the doubt obvious in his questioning face.
"Come in handy? Who decided that? I mean, Xemnas thought it destroyed..."
"Marluxia made the call to keep it intact, but I'm the one who took care of it and made sure that it wouldn't be known about."
"Well, obviously someone knows," Roxas commented with a nod towards the shelves in the direction from which Zexion had come from. "Do you happen to know what was in those files and programming that would be, let's say, worth stealing?"
Zexion's eyebrows went upwards.
"Well, now that I come to think about it... The last person to be exposed to the NAMINÉ was Sora. I guess his memories must still be intact within the data for the last session..."
Roxas felt a cold ball of ice forming in his stomach. This was rapidly turning into a very uncomfortable situation.
"I think you're right in that assumption," he said, his feelings towards it all sneaking into his voice.
Zexion looked at him with obvious interest and a hint of suspicion.
"How come?"
"Because for some reason I woke up from that coma with his memories mixed with my own."
Now Zexion was surprised and it showed in his entire being that it was information that he found vital.
"Why haven't you told me about this before?" he asked in a high-pitched voice.
"I told Xemnas and Axel about it the same day I woke up, and since Marluxia for some reason has learned about it, I guessed everybody knew it already, OK?" Roxas bit back fiercly. "If you want to jump someone for keeping information from you, I suggest you go to them!"
Zexion shook his head.
"Never mind, it's not that important," he said tensely. "But the fact that the NAMINÉ is still operational and that the one controlling it most likely is Diz... now that is troublesome."
Roxas hated this constant game of asking the right questions in order to get the answer he wanted, but he also knew that Zexion was one of those personalities that worked that way. He simply knew too much to be able to extract the vital information in a question and then give the answer searched for. Instead, he took every question literally and didn't bother too much about filling in blanks, unless the person wanting the information had patience enough to drag it out of him.
"What is it that this program does, more precisely? I still haven't got a good explanation for that, or why it is such a big deal that it still works," Roxas asked and tried not to show his exasperation. "How does it work?"
Zexion opened the folder he'd been keeping in his hands until now and turned it for Roxas to look at the contents.
"It was designed for the purpose of saving important information, but the main use for it turned out to become an act of extracting and re-shaping a person's memory. In Sora's case, which was the last time the program was used, it was done to the extent of almost erasing his entire person. We never found out what had gone wrong in that session, but never the less it was decided that the NAMINÉ was too dangerous to use."
Now Roxas had to cut in before Zexion went on.
"Wait, you almost erased his entire memory? But..."
"...how did he manage to get back to normal?" Zexion finished his question. "We managed to realize what was happening before it was all too late and stopped the process before it was completed. That way we could back track the process and re-create the memories that were taken, or at least most parts of them. Some things did get completely lost though, but nothing important."
Roxas thought about it all for a moment.
"So, why was he exposed to it in the first place?"
Zexion looked away, his visible eye focusing on something Roxas couldn't see.
"Xemnas ordered it done to prevent a possible disaster once he learned that Sora was looking for Riku, who'd mysteriously disappeared one week before. We all figured that Riku had gone over to one of our enemies and none of us wanted Sora to join them as well due to the persuasion that a friend can conjure up. So when Xemnas ordered for Sora's memory to be altered, it was merely in order to keep him out of trouble. It was meant for the program to take away every connection Sora had to Riku, but somehow it sort of backfired and instead of picking out and erasing a certain detail in his memory, the NAMINÉ started to take away and re-shape every single memory he'd ever made".
Roxas sifted through the papers in the folder as he listened.
Suddenly his attention was entirely drawn to a photo kept with the other material. It showed a young woman with dark red hair, dressed in a pastel pink and black businesswoman outfit, the blue- and on the photo almost violet -eyes glittering as she smiled at the camera.
Roxas knew that face.
Or rather, Sora knew it.
Roxas himself had never seen her before in his life.
Zexion noticed his fixation with the photo and took a look at it.
"Ah, she's quite beautiful, isn't she?"
Roxas didn't answer.
"It's the woman behind the designing of the program..." Zexion started to tell him, but Roxas interrupted him.
"It's Kairi."
Zexion blinked.
"You've seen her before?"
Roxas shook his head slowly and put a finger on his forehead.
"I haven't. But Sora knew her very well it seems."
"Yes, that's correct," Zexion said hesitatingly. "You actually do have Sora's memories?"
"Yup. Most of it, at least," Roxas said with a grimace. "The trouble is, I can't make any sense of it, can't pick and choose what to remember and when." He paused for a moment. "And some of his memories seems to have blocked out parts of my own memories. And, as if that wasn't enough, they keep giving me some really horrific nightmares. It's more than annoying, to say the least."
Right then, the computer made a sound telling them that the data of the hard drive plugged in was finally available.
"Seriously, Zexion, you should update that machine..." Roxas noted, but Zexion only snorted at the comment as he opened the desired files.
"Just because it's slow it doesn't mean it isn't good."
"Being really old doesn't make it good either," Roxas shot back under his breath.
Zexion muttered something unintelligible, his eyes focused on the screen.
"What files did you want?" he asked a moment later.
Roxas moved in closer to the screen.
"Sora, Riku and, if it's possible, anything you can find on Ansem."
"Well," Zexion said and let Roxas be in control of the mouse so he could read the files opened," I can give you Sora and Riku, but Ansem is a tough one. I'll have to check with the catalogue on my office computer to see if there even is a separate file on him."
"I'll stay here and read, OK?" Roxas said without taking his eyes off the screen.
"Fine..." Zexion sighed and started to walk away, but turned back around after just a few steps. "I just came to think of something... Why do you want this information now?"
Roxas swallowed a lump of worry that was building up in his throat.
"Because for some reason, Marluxia found it funny to inform me of what he mean is Xemnas' true reason for keeping me in the organization and the fact that I've never heard of Sora before sort of made me worried that he might have told me the truth..."
Despite the silence that followed on this, Roxas didn't turn to look at Zexion. He didn't need to.
"What did he say?" the librarian asked a minute later.
"That Xemnas intend to use me for the same purpose that Diz had my mind remodelled and coded, that he wants me to open the Kingdom Heart."
Another pause of silence passed.
On the screen Roxas found himself staring at two photos. One of the photos was showing a young, attractive man with shoulder length silver hair and sharply turquoise eyes. He was dressed in a black hooded sweater and purple pants of the baggy kind. His eyes seemed to drill their way into the beholder and he sported a slight smile on his lips that told of mischief in the making.
The other photo was of a slightly younger guy with brownish dark blond hair arranged in a wild spikey fashion. The bright blue eyes looking out from behind long bangs were glittering with an optimism that matched his welcoming smile. He was wearing a short sleeved, hooded black jacket with white brims, a dark blue shirt underneath it and wide black pants.
Roxas had gotten goose-bumps all over as he saw the photos.
He knew the faces and the information they packed up in his mind was enough for him to wish he hadn't come to the library.
Zexion took a deep breath somewhere from behind his back.
"If he wants the Kingdom Heart, why did he wait this long before putting his plan into work?"
Roxas had to admit that Zexion had a point, but he still wasn't entirely convinced that Marluxia's words had been nothing but a prank.
Zexion moved closer as he noticed how Roxas was staring on the photos on the screen.
"Is something wrong?"
"It's Riku and Sora," Roxas said slowly. "I know their faces, I've seen them in my dreams... But Sora's memories... they don't fit the written information at all..."
Zexion put a hand on Roxas' chin and forced him to look at him instead of the screen.
"What do you mean, 'they don't fit'?"