NEO World of Advent Chapter Nine
Cero leaned forward into his controller as he egged his avatar - the rendered green body of Harpuia - into action. Beside him, Clover stuck her tongue out in concentration as she jammed a series of buttons together to release Zero's combo slash. They were playing a fighting game called Hero Simulator, based off of famous reploids. It was ironic, but Harpuia was his favorite fighter despite having told his father that he used Zero. Clover was the one who preferred the close-up action of the sword, hacking and slashing her way to victory in most of their games, even if it was by a close margin.
Harpuia's avatar represented a more 'midrange' style of combat. You could use his two energy sabers for a quick burst, but most of the time you used his electricity to stun an opponent before getting in close enough to deal significant damage. Cero egged Harpuia on, trying desperately to evade the final hit in Zero's combo slash - the most damaging one - and failing in the process. Zero leapt up, the flash of a glowing sword reducing Harpuia's dwindling life points to zero. Cero bowed his head in acknowledgment of Clover's superior skills.
"Why are you disappointed if you won?" The real Zero's voice startled Cero, who hadn't seen him enter the room. It was a common occurrence, actually, not noticing when his father was in the room. Cero supposed it had something to do with having to stealthily cut down mavericks for a living during some missions.
"Uh yeah," Cro said, "That was me. Totally. Um, Good game, Clover? Better luck next time."
Clover, for her part, stuck her tongue out at him, typing "rekt" in the chatlogue. She still couldn't speak, but her body was a significant amount more mature. She had been approved to leave the incubation chamber a week ago and had been enjoying her newfound freedom. She looked, to Cipher, about four years old, in human years. It was amazing how rapidly her body grew.
"So what brings you here Dad?" Cero asked the legendary reploid. "I didn't miss another training session did I?"
"No," Zero said. "But take care not to forget again. I'm here to assign you a mission of sorts."
"A mission?" Cero's neck hairs stood on end at the thought of violence. "Nothing dangerous, right?"
"More like a kind of training, really." Zero folded his arms. "You two need to find a way of cooperating that doesn't include video games. I have a task at hand that needs solving, delicately. Perroquiet has accused Hirondelle of mistaking his research materials for his own and demands he return them. Hirondelle, for his part, denies any thievery, even if it were by accident. He says that Perroquiet lost them himself and is blaming him for his clumsiness."
"What do you want us to do about it?" Cero paused the video game, folding his controller beside Clover's.
"I want you to find the missing research notes without either of them ever finding out," Zero said. "Perroquiet does not like admitting when he is wrong, so this will be a lesson in diplomacy as well."
Cero put his hand up to his chin, resting his head as he thought about it the situation as a whole. On one hand, he disliked having to leave his game, but a chance to impress his father with something that didn't involve combat was too good to miss. Besides, he didn't like the thought of Hirondelle and Perroquiet fighting. "Clover can't talk," he said at last. "How are we going to figure that out if we need to communicate quickly?"
Zero pointed to a nearby communicator. It was an old model, but Cero had rigged it so that it could interface with different forms of data. It might even work with a cyber elf if configured right. "Use your imagination. Figure something out; you have until the end of the day to prove to me your success."
"On it, Dad." Cero grabbed the communicator and started tweaking it with a few new commands to the programming. "We won't disappoint you."
"See to it," Zero said, lingering at the door. "This is something I think you should do well at."
Cero wondered if that was his father's roundabout way of giving him a compliment. Deciding not to think too hard on it, he made the last of the necessary changes before handing it to Clover.
Clover put the device on her head, frowning when Cero laughed as the device drooped down her slimmer head and around her neck. Cero put his arms up in a gesture of apology and adjusted it to fit her better. It wasn't a perfect fit, but it stayed on, even if it wobbled a little bit. Cero took a step back to admire his handiwork.
"How does it work?" Clover asked, jerking back when the device made the sounds in a default masculine tone. "I don't like the voice. How do I change it?"
The two of them spent the next twenty minutes configuring the voice, trying everything from inhumanly deep voices to super high pitched squeaks. Clover eventually settled on something feminine, older than her physical appearance might suggest. She made a few random words, then smiled, pleased with it.
"This is strange," she said. "But I like it."
"I'm glad." Cero pulled up a chair for her to sit beside his computer. "Do you have any idea how you want to go through with this?"
Clover hummed in thought, something she had seen Cero do countless times. "I can try looking through his files for it," she suggested.
"Perroquiet and Hirondelle both encode their work," Cero informed her. "But they have a definite way of going about it. A sort of style, if that makes sense."
"It does," Clover said. "Like how different games look on the internet."
"You can see games?" Cero asked, interested. "What do they look like?"
"It's kind of hard to describe," Clover said. "Like art, maybe? They all look different, but it's not easy to say how."
"Huh." Cero filed that piece of info away. It might be interesting to go over later. "I'll see if I can replicate the way they code things. Look for something like that."
"Will do!" Clover swung her legs from the chair, humming contentedly. "Do you think Hirondelle took it?"
"I don't know," Cero said. "It's possible, but it wouldn't be the first time Perroquiet misplaced something."
Clover made a face as she realized something. "Cero, it might not work if you can't get it exactly right. Are you sure you know how they encrypt their things?"
"I don't know about doing it perfectly," Cero admitted, "But I have a pretty good idea. Is that not good enough?"
"Not really," Clover told him. "It's like if you used a different color that you normally use to paint or a different brush. It just wouldn't look right. I wouldn't know the real one from your copy."
"In that case," Cero said, "We might have to find something they made ourselves. Dad said this was a reconnaissance mission, right? Maybe we have to do this sneakily."
"Like Steel Gear Liquid!" Clover got out a box from nearby. "We can hide under this in case someone sees us."
"I don't think real life works like that," Cero said gently, trying not to burst his Elf's excitement. "We can't let them know we're doing it at all."
"Oh." Clover thought for a moment. "Doesn't Perroquiet like to bore people with his history lessons around this time? Maybe we could see if he has anything lying around there."
"I don't think they're that boring," Cero protested. "But yes. That could work."
"You're such a dork," Clover told him. "Who likes listening to lectures about old stuff that happened in the past? I'm only a few months old; everything's history to me and I still find it boring."
"There's a lot to be learned from the past," Cero said. "If we don't learn from it, we're doomed to repeat it."
Clover groaned at Perroquiet's oft-repeated mantra about history but let the manner drop. "If we hurry maybe we can sit somewhere near his laptop."
Cero felt guilty about planning on going through another person's things, especially if it was someone he knew, but he knew it was necessary. Zero expected them to succeed and he knew Hirondelle wouldn't talk to Perroquiet again without an apology. "Alright. Let's go."
The two of them snuck down into the main halls, where mission briefings sometimes were held and classes were held the rest of the time. Sure enough, Perroquiet was busy talking to a class of students from a nearby college. He had recently acquired his license but preferred teaching at the Resistance. "It's more familiar to me," Perroquiet had informed them one time.
The two of them slipped inside as the class filled with more people. Clover sat in front, where she eyed his laptop with ill-disguised concern. Perroquiet rarely left the room; getting to it might prove more difficult than they had originally thought.
"Welcome class," Perroquiet said to a drone of 'Morning Professor.' He gave Cero and Clover a familiar nod before continuing. "I hope you remember today's lesson, as it's an important one. It's on the Elf Wars. Now can anybody tell me why it's important we learn from history?"
"Because we're doomed to repeat it otherwise" was the expected, automatic reply from the rest of the class as Clover mouthed the words. Her face was taut with concentration as if focusing on something outside the room. Soon, fifteen minutes into the class, an alarm went off outside, giving Perroquiet pause.
"One moment please," he said. "I'm sure it's nothing, but if you don't mind." He quickly stepped out to check on the source of the commotion and Clover leapt up as soon as the class started conversing amongst themselves.
"Come on, Cero," she whispered. "This is our only chance."
"Did you cause that?" Cero asked her. "You could get in big trouble!"
She shrugged. "Only if I get caught. Besides, that alarm's been unstable for days now. It was time someone brought attention to it."
Cero sighed but quickly swiped something of his design - making a copy of Perroquiet's data on the computer, before quickly sitting down again. Moments later, a disgruntled Perroquiet came back, the alarm silenced.
"Faulty alarm," he told the class. "Settle down. Now, who here remembers Omega's involvement…"
The rest of the class droned on without much incident. Cero was much too preoccupied on his recent attempt at illegal hacking (was this how you became a criminal?) while Clover made triangular shapes out of the papers Perroquiet gave them and flicked them at the side of Cero's desk.
When a timer sounded, Perroquiet dismissed the class. "That alarm was supposed to go off," he assured them. "Run along now. I'm sure you have places to be." He walked up to Cero and Clover, an icy claw digging into his heart as Cero thought he was about to be questioned for his breach of data privacy.
"It's good to see you in the classroom again," Perroquiet told the two. "I've missed seeing your faces. Do you have any plans to make this a regular thing?"
Behind him, Clover shook her head frantically, waving her hands in an exaggerated "NO" gesture.
"No sir," Cero said regretfully. "We just wanted to see how you were doing."
"Is that so?" Perroquiet sounded pleased. "Well feel free to stop by anytime you want. It doesn't have to be during class hours."
"Of course." Cero felt bad about the deception, but it was better than being interrogated over information theft. He felt Clover climb on his back. "Clover?"
"I'm tired," she explained. "I don't like walking around this much."
"Oh," Cero paused. "Can't cyber elves float?"
"I don't know how to." Clover hugged his head, legs dangling on either side. "Come on, we have to figure out the thing."
"It's embarrassing," Cero said. "Can't you just walk the rest of the way?"
"Nope!" Clover hummed happily. "It's not a long ways away."
"That's kind of my point," Cero grumbled, ignoring the stares he got as he carried his elf back to their room. Once there, Clover hopped down onto a chair.
"So what now?"
"Now," Cero said, getting out his disk and injecting it to his own computer, "It's your turn. Take a look at this and see if you can find it somewhere other than Perroquiet's room."
Clover took a good look at the encryption, looking up when she was done. Her eyes went unfocused and Cero saw his computer make changes without him touching it.
"Clover? Are you doing that?"
"Quiet, Cero. I have to concentrate." Cero saw his computer make a few more unsettling jumps, where it settled on a grey screen with a multitude of different colored dots proliferated on the screen. The computer seemed to zone in on a few of them before getting back to the tab Clover had left to do whatever she just did.
"There," she said. "I found some stuff in his classroom of course, and a lot in his personal room, but I think Menart has something in his room as well."
"Bingo," Cero said. "Menart likes to play practical jokes," he explained. "He probably thinks this is some sort of prank. Can you take the data from his room without having to be there?"
"Yup!" Clover's eyes went unfocused once more as his computer did that weird thing with the data again. Soon, one of the dots in particular was magnified to fit the screen.
"Delete it as you go," Cero told her, "So Menart doesn't do something else with it. But be careful not to delete too much or we'll really be in trouble."
Clover swatted his side irritably as her eyes screwed tight in concentration. "Oh. Right," Cero apologized. "Sorry."
Soon, Clover had the complete packet of data on a separate file in Cero's computer. "Don't talk so much when I'm doing that," she complained. "That's the first time I've ever done something like this. It takes a lot of effort."
"Sorry," Cero repeated. "I didn't know." Clover shrugged it off.
"No big deal. Hey, we got it right?"
"Yeah!" Cero gave his elf a triumphant smile. "Now all we have to do is send it to one Perroquiet's files. Maybe he'll think he just saved it to a different space and will apologize to Hirondelle."
"Will do." Once the data was in the hands of its rightful owner, Cero erased what they had copied from Perroquiet. "It's not polite to meddle with other people's information," he explained. "We did it this time because we had to, but most of the time it's not something you should do."
"Got it." Clover stared at him with wide, trusting eyes. "What should we do now? We have the rest of the day to ourselves now, right?"
Cero gave the matter some thought. "We can finish one of our games later tonight. I want to see how Hibou is doing."
"Okay!" Clover got to her feet, following him as they made their way to the storage unit where Hibou looked after most of the Resistance's Energy Crystal stock.
The door was suspiciously closed but opened when Cero swiped his ID card in it. Inside, the dimly lit room held a snoozing reploid. His arms were folded like a pillow around a framed picture of Allouette.
"Hibou?" Cero prodded the snoring reploid awake.
"Huh? What? I wasn't sleeping," the reploid said defensively.
"I never said you were," Cero said with some amusement.
"But you totally were," Clover added. Hibou jumped at the sound, looking around wildly. "Who was that? Is there someone with you two?"
"It's just me," Clover said, pointing to her communicator. "Cero made something so I could talk. Sort of? If I want to, this thing does it for me."
"Oh," Hibou said, relieved. "Ciel would never let me live it down if I was asleep on the job while an intruder got in."
"So you admit you were sleeping?" Cero grinned at the reploid's blunder.
"I'll show you around if you forget about that," Hibou grumbled. "The one time I fall asleep…" Hibou introduced them to a large vault of crystals beside a massive generator. "This is a version of the Ciel System," Hibou said. "It can produce energy crystals or give out energy in its raw form for almost nothing. Neo Arcadia has something like this, but a lot bigger."
"Cool," Cero said. Taking in a spread of paraphernalia like a poster for the upcoming tournament, Cero read it aloud. "The Gran Serena - Witness a World of Competition!" Cero noticed a ticket beside it. "Are you going?"
"Sorra and Grey got me tickets," Hibou said happily. "We haven't had the chance to spend much time around each other, with them being on missions all the time, but they got me these so we could go together."
"Cool." Cero knew of their story from the twins themselves. Sorra and Grey's parents had died when they were young, but Hibou kind of stepped in as their guardian since they were good friends with him. Hibou was kind of like a godfather to the twins. "That should be fun to see."
"What about you?" Hibou asked. "Are you planning on attending? The first match is tomorrow, so tickets might be a little pricey if you haven't gotten them yet."
"What is this thing anyway?" Clover took a look at the poster from atop a chair, nudging a bobblehead as it introduced itself as Fightin' Spirit Flare, wishing them a good fight. "Is it like a game?"
"Yeah," Cero said, "But a different kind. It's not a video game like Hero Simulator. People actually fight in real life."
"Can't that get dangerous?" Clover looked concerned.
"It can," Hibou told her, "But they take special precautions to make sure no one gets hurt. It doesn't really matter anyway since the whole thing's staged, but it makes for a good time."
"It's staged?" Clover asked as Cero groaned. Hibou, among his many wonderful qualities, was big into conspiracies.
"Oh yeah," Hibou said. "Neo Arcadia already knows who's going to win - at least the Gran Division anyway. Everyone thinks it's going to be Flare, but what if Venti took him on? Or Specter?"
"They disappeared, remember?" Cero sighed, tired of arguing the matter. "Something happened a while back and they left Neo Arcadia."
"That's what they want you to think," Hibou said. "Why would the children of the Guardians leave the city? I can see it now: Flare's holding the trophy, but BAM! Venti comes flying in to challenge him for the title."
"I don't think that's going to happen," Cero said awkwardly. "It didn't sound like they wanted to come back." It was true; news of Venti and Specter's defection had played throughout the news stations for weeks as Harpuia and Phantom searched for them. He had actually met them before; it was surreal to think of at the time.
"Anything could happen," Hibou conceded. "But you really should go. The civilian bracket probably isn't staged. I mean, they might have a really strong plant, but who knows. It should be exciting all the same."
"Can we go?" Clover looked at Cero excitedly. "It sounds really cool."
"I don't know," Cero said. "Maybe I could get Dad to give them to me as a birthday present? I could frame it as wanting to learn from different fighting styles." The thought struck him. "Actually, he might do it for free if I tell him that. I wonder if having been on the Most Wanted list counts for a military discount. Probably not," he decided.
A quick call to Zero later, Cipher had the order settled. It had been surprisingly easy to convince his father over the speaker, who had made tentative plans to go with him anyway. Cipher stared at the confirmation order contentedly. "There we go. All set."
"Cool!" Clover reached out, two very real tickets manifesting from the screen. "What's wrong," she said as Hibou and Cero stared on in shock.
"You made something appear from the internet!" Hibou said. "Can you do it with other stuff? I wonder what Internet E-Crystals taste like."
"Is this not normal?" Clover frowned. "I thought everyone could do this."
"Not really," Cero said. "Most of the time data is intangible. I suppose you can bridge the gap because you're made of data yourself." Instantly, Cero could tell he said the wrong thing. Clover's expression became guarded, hurt.
"You mean, like a website?" she asked. "Is that all I am?"
"No!" Cero quickly remedied the statement. "I mean, you are made of data, but you're sentient. It's different."
Clover nodded, but Cero could tell that it still bothered her. They wished Hibou a good evening, heading back to their room to pick up the game where they left off. A few games in, it was clear that Clover's heart wasn't in it. Cero had managed to beat her all three rounds without her pulling off a single combo move.
"What's wrong?" he asked. "Are you still upset about earlier?"
"I don't want to be different," Clover said. "I keep hearing about how I'm a Cyber Elf, like that's supposed to mean something to me. Sometimes I don't think people look at me like I'm real."
Cero felt his heart lurch in sympathy. "I didn't realize you felt this way. I don't think of you as any less real," he promised her. "If anything, I'm the freak. Cyber Elves have existed for hundreds of years even if humans couldn't interact with them until recently. Advents haven't even been around for around twenty years."
"Is that what you are," Clover asked. "An Advent?"
"Well yeah," Cero said. "My mother is a human and my father is a reploid. Something new."
"So an Advent is a new kind of person?"
Cero shrugged, unable to see where she was going with it. "I guess so."
"Then I want to be an Advent," she said. Cero didn't have the heart to correct her. Instead, he wished her a good night as she curled up at the edge of his bed. It was a little strange to him, sharing his room with a girl, but he felt like now wasn't the best time to bring it up. He pushed some of the covers her way before turning over.
What was Croire like? The thought came unbidden, to Cero. Had she been this alive, so full of personality? Of hopes and desires? The thought lingered. He sent his father two messages, one confirming their success with Perroquiet and Hirondelle, the other about Croire. His Dad would know, Cero thought, as he closed his eyes.
