Just as Austin had said, the wall opened to admit the two guards. Neither the golden, tiger-like Navi nor the squat penguin bothered to close it. Also as Austin had predicted, they completely ignored Meiru slumped over near the entrance, eyes shut. In addition, they had a struggle on their hands to distract them; Austin was putting up quite the fight, and the Navis were reluctant to rough up their prisoner before taking him to their leader.
Meiru was out the door before Austin was even close to exhausted. Just like the two Net Saviors had been banking on, the Irregulars had never had to contend with two people at once. She only wished she hadn't had to leave Austin behind, but he would be fine as long as she was fast in finding an exit and making it back to civilization to warn the Net Police.
It was only when she reached the end of that train of thought that she started paying more attention to her surroundings. This hall, its floor made up of large black tiles with red lining them, was sparsely populated. The static taps of her feet were the only sounds to be heard, a noise that was low enough in quality to sound unnatural yet familiar enough to remind her of footsteps. The taps a Net Navi's feet made while traveling the Internet.
The realization made Meiru's mind go blank with shock. As an experiment, she put a hand over her chest. She had no heartbeat. Somehow, the panic started her running faster.
As she ran, her initial reaction subsided; it wasn't long before she could take stock of what it all meant. There was probably no way out for her. Laika wasn't dumb enough to not set up a firewall, and any warp panels out would probably set off similar alarms. After peeking cautiously up the stairwell to see if anyone was coming or going, she ascended the stairs two at a time. Her priority now was finding a way to send a message out, and possibly a place for her to hide after that task had been carried out.
She quickly ducked her head out of sight after peering into the next room. It was obviously the base's center. Net Navis with animal-inspired designs went from one hallway to another; but there weren't many of them, and she felt like she stood a chance of getting through to the other side. Not many Irregulars were bothering to go through that opposite door, further bolstering her confidence. After a shark-headed Navi crossed the room, she took a breath and sprinted for the opposite door.
"Oh? What was that?" wondered Optic Sunflower's voice as Meiru stumbled to a halt. She was in a dark room with plenty of nooks and crannies, some fragmenting away. "That was a foot! I know it!" Meiru's black bodysuit acted as camouflage here, letting her duck behind a corner and into a pixelating dent in the wall before Optic Sunflower had even come in. The floating pixels covered her face and hair perfectly while letting her get a decent view of the area she'd arrived in. From her left came the humming of the plant-like Navi; to her right was a cylindrical chamber surrounded by windows. Inside the chamber floated a young teenager with mint-green hair. He was wearing the same bodysuit she was. His eyes were closed, but there was no mistaking that nose. "You're in here somewhere, Net Savior!" Meiru was starting to become impatient with Optic Sunflower's search. Couldn't the Navi just leave so she could see what a younger double of Laika was doing in here? Fortunately, Optic Sunflower was just as sick of it. "Come on!" she whined, floating past Meiru's hiding spot. "Come on-come on-come on - oh, fine!" The long-necked Navi floated back toward the door. "Don't think I'm running away - we've just got someone else to find! Just you wait!" she called. "I'll be right back!"
Meiru had no intention of staying long enough for the Navi to return. She ran over to the chamber. Up close, the person inside was obviously Laika from his days as Netto's friend. She wanted to believe he was somehow the real deal and not just a copy. It didn't make much sense for him to be this young, but there was a lot about this experience she found confusing.
In front of the chamber was a control panel. Meiru instinctively reached for the largest button on it, but recoiled after she saw what the label above it said: Emergency Release. In her experience, most things with 'emergency' on them came with complimentary alarms - the last thing she needed right now. "There must be some other 'release'," she muttered. None of the other buttons were labeled. On the one hand, her time was limited; on the other, there was no telling what a button would do to Laika inside. The windows weren't any help. They just displayed lots of squiggles, which made no sense to her untrained eye. "Here goes," she said, and pushed a button.
Whatever force had been keeping the young Laika suspended abruptly shut off. Meiru winced as he crashed to the ground, his face squashed out of shape by the digital glass. She pushed the button next to it. There was a faint chime, but Meiru couldn't see anything happening. The button after that lit up the entire room, and Meiru quickly hit it again to shut it off before it could draw much attention. Going in order was obviously not working. She skipped down two rows and over one. "Cross your fingers, little Laika," she said, and pushed it. She held the breath she didn't need to take as the glass-like substance vanished and the teen inside fell forward. She looked around at the windows, which continued producing the squiggles even as she took Laika by the shoulders and tugged him into the middle of the room.
The seconds ticked by. Meiru sat on her knees, watching Laika's face for any sign he was waking up. She was starting to get nervous - it had been a while since Optic Sunflower had left, and she didn't doubt the Navi was going to return. After glancing behind her, she looked back down just as Laika stirred. His eyes opened, their usual sharpness lessened by the confused look on his face. He stared up at her, obviously suspicious. "It's me," she reminded him. "Sakurai, remember?"
He continued to stare at her, now with disbelief coloring the suspicion. Just as girlish giggles began to echo down toward them, something clicked for him. He sat up, exclaiming, "Sigma!"
"Sigma?" echoed Meiru.
"I heard that!" crowed Optic Sunflower from outside. Meiru got to her feet, then grabbed Laika's hand to help him up.
"Bad news coming," she told him. "We've got to get out of here!" The Net Savior and her new companion sprinted for the next room over as Optic Sunflower cackled behind them.
0110100101100100011001010110111001110100011010010111010001111001
Laika's base was a four-hour drive from the military base that served as Sharo's Net Savior hub. It gave Enzan plenty of time for unwelcome thoughts, all of which were quickly shunted out of his head. He'd never paid such complete attention to the road in his life, which became necessary after it started showing signs of disrepair. A few dodged potholes later, he was in front of a large and run-down looking building. "Here I am," he muttered, getting out of the truck and slamming the door after him. "Come and get me, Laika."
But Laika wasn't there when he cautiously inched the door open and quietly walked inside. The other man didn't seem to be using the room, at first glance. It was large, but there was nothing here but the piles of rubble one would expect from a building so decrepit. Enzan doubted that was all there was to it. Ready to run if he heard the sound of weaponry coming alive, he gave the dark room a second look.
Enzan almost didn't hear the first disturbance of the silence. "Phone call coming in," Blues reported, "unknown -"
"Hi, Enzan!" came Black's voice from the PET.
"What the - keep it down!" Enzan snapped. Black wasn't sending over any image to go with his voice, leaving Enzan's PET to display Blues as it normally did. "I'm in Laika's -"
"Laika knew you were here the minute you set foot in his base," Black informed Enzan. "Luckily, the Dimensional Area doesn't start until you get closer to his office, so there's time for me to warn you about everything."
"You sent me the coordinates, didn't you?" Below, Blues was holding up a string of code, which shifted into a simpler number. After his Operator gave him a nod of approval, he stored Black's number away in Enzan's phonebook.
"Yes. But that isn't important. Now, you've actually got less to worry about from Laika's lackeys and more from his security system. I can keep down whichever room you're in pretty easily, so as long as you keep going he won't know where you are. But it'll take a while to force the whole thing offline, and you seem impatient. I'd suggest you wait for me to give you the all-clear before going through any doors, unless you think you can survive two or three machine guns firing on you?" Without giving Enzan time to answer, Black continued, "I thought not. Anyway, with me around, what you really have to worry about are the Irregulars. I'm sure you've heard about them. A few minor cases of terrorism here and there, and suddenly they're some 'terror of Sharo,' which is kinda ridiculous, I think. Well, they're his, and they number about eighteen at the moment. He likes to keep four out in the inner sanctum, two patrolling an outer line and two to randomly pop around and surprise people. Don't bother plugging in until you're in his center office; it'll otherwise set off an alarm, and poor Blues'll be smothered under the other fourteen in a heartbeat. But you're some way away from that, so I suggest you just get moving and leave this to me. I'm sure Laika's started wondering what's going on down here."
Enzan couldn't say he was pleased with the arrangement. "That sounded oddly thorough coming from you," he said.
"If I can do anything right, it's spout off information! It's part of my job," Black said. "Or it was, then one thing led to another and here I am beating up on little kids."
"You have different tasks?" Enzan asked, weaving around piles of scrap metal as he headed for the other end of the room. He was a little more glad Black had decided to lend a hand after he got a closer look at some of them - there was definitely a gun barrel poking out from under at least one pile. "You didn't sound that organized. Even after that kid's confession -"
"Teruo? He doesn't know shit. Anything he says is useless if you're trying to pin us down. Anyway, Atsuki's meant to be field, and I'm mission control. He doesn't know I'm doing this, by the way, so don't tell him. He already doesn't like you - and we're getting off topic! Don't go through that door," Black said as Enzan reached it.
"Wasn't planning on it," the Net Savior said.
A few seconds later, Black said, "All clear." As Enzan walked through to see a slightly more organized-looking room, his guide cautioned, "Stay close to the left wall here, or you'll trip a sensor. There's a door on that side you should take, but it might be blocked off. It'll lead to a hallway that's full of guns, but I've got their number after the last couple of rooms' worth."
The room was full of tubes and liquids, and the smell of rotting meat. Whatever was still in the tubes had gone a murky, opaque green with age. "What is this place?" Enzan wondered. It was even more unsettling thinking that this was all Laika's.
"They look like - growth chambers?" It was a little reassuring to Enzan to hear that Black sounded just as disturbed as he was. "What the hell is Laika doing with those?"
"Probably something like what you're doing helping Nova," muttered Enzan.
"Hey! That's completely different," Black protested.
"Is it? Because all I see are a pair of traitors." He tried to see what Laika was trying to create, but it was impossible. The liquid was too thick, and he didn't dare try to touch the glass around it.
"Look, I didn't know about Laika. He's got nothing to do with me. I don't like this any more than you do, his Irregulars... he's become a monster. He's so different..."
Enzan thought Black talking about 'so different' was pretty ironic. "No kidding."
"What's on those papers?" Enzan looked around. "That desk to your right," Black directed. There were a lot of papers, of varying ages. The ones closest to the top didn't look that old, but they were still coated in dust.
"Brainwaves. Brain patterns," the Net Savior reported. "And -" After seeing what was further down in the stack, he looked back over at the murky tubes, then returned to the papers. "He's trying to clone people, but modify their brains, I guess. Do you know anything about this kind of research?"
"No. No, that's odd. That's definitely..." Static rattled down the connection as Black sighed. "Keep going for now." As Enzan reached the door, Black called, "All clear!"
This was another laboratory. It looked similar to the last one, only cleaner and with better lighting. Despite what the papers implied, there were no embryos floating in tubes here; in fact, everything looked completely unused. "Is he planning on starting his experiments again?"
"He... might be. I'll have to see if we're right..."
"About what?"
"That's classified."
Enzan felt a twinge of annoyance. "Since when do you keep secrets?"
Black at least seemed a little cowed as he pointed out, "You know we aren't on the same side, Enzan."
"Aren't we? What are you doing helping me if we're not?"
Black was silent the rest of the way through the room. "All clear. Why don't you just drop it?" he asked lightly. "It's obviously upsetting you, and it's a distraction to boot."
Hearing that only made Enzan angrier. "If our roles were reversed, would you be able to forget it?"
"Anger doesn't shake me," Black said, irritation slipping into his voice.
"Can you ignore Laika up ahead? Is he just a target to you?" Enzan didn't get an answer. "Well?"
"No, okay?!" Black blurted, overtly upset at last. "But I have to dispose of him! This has to be done! He's -" The connection suddenly went quiet. If Enzan hadn't already figured out he'd struck a nerve, what Black said next confirmed it. "You're not supposed to understand," he said impatiently.
It hurt to hear that - it made it clear that Enzan was to be kept in the dark, tantamount to rejecting any help he might have given. It just hurt more to know that another conversation like this one would be waiting at the center of the base. Enzan's expression hardened. "Well, someone should've told me first. Or maybe you should've taken the proper precautions, so this wouldn't be a problem." Enzan forced a sardonic smile onto his face. "But go ahead. Why shouldn't I understand?"
"I can't tell you," Black said, sounding almost childishly upset. "Please don't talk like that. I don't -"
"You don't like it? You, of all people?" Enzan almost laughed. "You deserve everything that's going to happen to you," he said coldly. "You never meant a word of it, did you? Not the way I thought you did. Everything I ever saw in you turned out to be a bunch of meaningless words and empty actions - well, you don't fool me any longer." He looked down at his PET, its display unhelpfully devoid of any signs of being tampered with. "I don't know how you've opened this connection, but I suggest you close it. I don't like keeping secrets from my fellow Net Saviors - and the longer you stick around, the less inclined I feel to do you any favors."
He strode across the room. The silence wasn't satisfying at all; it was just more frustrating. He nearly made it through the door before Black said, "Wait." He sounded close to tears. "Just - a minute..."
"You heard me," Enzan said. Just because he was angry didn't mean he was about to disregard the security Black had warned him about; he peered into the room, looking for something that resembled a port.
"Enzan, this isn't what it looks like," Black said. He sounded tired, like he had that night at the tournament; tired and old and nothing like the friend Enzan had once known.
"Then what is it?" he asked, wishing Black would just stop talking.
"They're disabled, go ahead." Enzan was nearly across the room by the time Black started explaining. "You're right, Enzan. I failed. I wasn't good enough."
Enzan's initial anger was beginning to be replaced by concern - and some confusion. Whatever was going on, it was clear he wasn't getting the whole story. And irritating as that was, if Black was keeping him in the dark for a legitimate reason, it made the situation that much more worrisome. "What do you mean?"
"I lost," Black said, somewhere between careful patience and grief. "I couldn't be what you thought I was, or what I wanted to be." More hopefully, he said, "But you can. And so can Meiru-chan, and those kids. In fact - y'know, really, I'm glad you hate me. You're just like you were before - I'm so glad."
"Hold on," Enzan protested. "Whatever's going on, we can help you-"
"You don't have to worry - I'll take care of things. Just don't give up, okay? Keep doing what you usually would." Enzan got the feeling Black wasn't really listening anymore. Just what was wrong with him? If he'd 'lost' to the point that they were where they were now, why did Black seem so convinced that he could handle things when he probably couldn't? "If it gets too dangerous, I'll make sure nothing bad happens."
Enzan stopped at the door, considering his next move carefully. Black had been right, in a sense; they both needed to calm down and focus on the task at hand. But Enzan couldn't give Black the answer he wanted to hear, not honestly. One person alone couldn't be expected to stop the machinations of his - employers? Captors? Another question without an answer - and no matter who those people in command happened to be, Enzan intended to find out just what was going on before letting Black take matters into his hands alone. But he needed to say something for now. "You want us to do nothing."
"It's the only plan I have. It's the only thing he won't notice." Black sounded miserable and nervous enough for the both of them. "Please, Enzan, you have to understand…"
Enzan sighed; the idea he was getting wasn't the best, but it would certainly work for now. "There you go again."
"Huh?"
"First you say I'm not supposed to understand, then you say I have to. It's those kinds of contradictions that got you in trouble with me in the first place." Enzan didn't like misleading Black when the younger teen was this distraught, but it was preferable to this conversation dragging on and them both getting caught by Laika's Irregulars because of it. "I'll make you a deal," Enzan said. "So far, Nova's crimes have been more-or-less confined to the Internet - nothing major has affected our world on a large scale. So long as you keep it that way, I don't see why I have to pay any more attention to you than I would any other criminal." There was still the threat of action, and it wasn't so simple that it seemed poorly thought out and unlike his kinds of plans.
That sort of caution was all assuming Black wasn't hoping to be let off the hook. "So you wouldn't go after me?" Black asked, a little too eager for Enzan's comfort.
"No more than I would anyone else in your position," Enzan said; it wasn't a complete lie.
"Okay!" Black said quickly - a little too quickly. Enzan almost wanted to ask him to pay more attention. "Oh - um - you don't have to just stand there, there aren't any more guns. This part's the Dimensional Area one. I should try and be more professional; if I mess this up, you're gonna know real quick." True to his word, he sounded a lot less rattled when he spoke up again. "But... about Laika - my superior wants him to stop his activities as much as you do."
That took Enzan by surprise. "Really? What does this have to do with Nova?"
Black managed a single laugh, too clipped for Enzan to believe. "Outsiders don't get to know all our motives and operations," he teased, singsong. "But I can say my superior thinks this whole kidnapping thing has gone far enough, and that gives us a common goal. I need to give Laika some bad news, and you have a Meiru-chan to rescue. We both need in that head office, one way or another."
"Don't you have a Navi to get you in the normal way?" Enzan asked, skeptical.
"The office network's a one-way street. Signals get out and not in unless they're authorized, which I'm not. Besides, you're the perfect distraction. While Laika is wondering where you've gone, Punk is slipping in to bust Meiru-chan out. She's doing great, by the way. Nobody heard us having our heart-to-heart, because they were all busy wondering where she went! Duck into that storage room, there's an Irregular coming."
The Irregular's feet were clawed; Enzan could hear them scraping against the concrete floor. "They're almost all animals," Black said after the sound had died away. "Some of the others think it's a commentary. But I can't tell you why. I'm hoping it's not true."
"Don't tell me. It's classified," Enzan said, continuing on his way.
"Afraid so. You're going to have to try harder to get me to cough anything up," Black said cheerfully. When Enzan stopped next to another door, the hacker continued, "Go ahead, go through. Not much for me to disable." It was a hallway lit by candles. "I ought to come up with some parting words. You know, to convince you I'm still a bad guy. Let's see..."
It seemed a bit silly, but Enzan would take silly over talk about some nebulous defeat. It made him wonder what Black was trying to protect him and his allies from, and how the other Netbattler expected to do it if he'd been beaten so soundly. "You could always tell me what's in there," he said, gesturing to the door.
"Laika is, of course! And nothing else you need to worry about right now. Oh, I've got one!" With a put-on confidence, he proclaimed, "Don't mistake me for a pushover just because I'm not heartless. Just ask Meiru-chan and those little friends of hers - they all know just what I can do when it's no-holds-barred," he bragged.
"I don't know how you think you can scare me. I've beaten you before," Enzan said.
"But honestly, our last match would've ended in a draw," Black countered. Enzan could practically hear him smiling. "I hope we get to have a rematch. I wasn't at my best back there - when I'm in control of things, you'll lose fair and square!"
"We'll see about that," Enzan retorted.
"You're just saying that! You haven't even seen what I can do!" he complained. More sheepishly, he added, "Though, really, I haven't come up with much so far."
"Typical."
"Hey, I've been busy!" Black complained. "Oh, yeah! Did you bring a Synchro Chip?"
"Of course," Enzan said.
"You'll be glad you did." When Enzan reached the end of the hallway, Black said, "Well, Laika's in the next room. Now I get to be all threatening and businesslike on a big screen. It'll be awesome. Plug me in over there, and I'll see you on the other side!"
A/N: According to some notes I discovered the other day while pulling more of my old thoughts together on a better ending for this fic series, most readers should now know what the deal is with Black. So... do you? (And if you knew before this, when did you guess?) Relatedly, this chapter and the last one are the entire reason I decided to stick a "Drama" in front of the "Adventure". When Enzan dramas, he goes full drama.
Thanks for the review, MI3! Now that I've done some more looking at this one, I agree, the pacing really makes it; there's only one other thing I consider to be a case of wasted potential, and it would, much like the Laika-at-the-conference thing, just slow the plot down. Thinking of the first two as setup explains a lot about their pacing issues. I remember wanting NA/GC/third Kaita fic to be a continuous story, but all the really important stuff happens either when he's not around or in that last part. It didn't seem like it would be that way when I outlined it, but that's how it fell out.