In Limbo
Netto was sleeping in his bed in his room in his home in Akihara Town.
It had all been just a dream.
He couldn't wake up.
Someone was waiting for him.
It wasn't real.
He didn't want to wake up.
It was like he was floating under the covers, unable to feel anything.
How old was he, anyway?
This had been real, once, but it wasn't anymore.
He had to wake up.
"You're barely standing. Do you want to risk re-opening his wounds?" said a man's voice. It might have been Laika's.
Netto hadn't gotten the chance to see Laika again before the attack on the Ministry. There was no way Laika would ever forgive him for all the bloodshed.
"I can take care of my own, Sharan." That was definitely Atsuki. Why were they so far away?
The General had made it clear he had two choices, to either soften up the Ministry or arrange the Net Saviors' deaths, and he'd chosen to save the Net Saviors with no hesitation.
Many in exchange for two.
The closest thing to forgiveness he'd ever get from someone as honor-bound as Laika would be a swiftly snapped neck.
He sank further down into sleep, further away from the dream he couldn't wake up from,
until
there
was
nothing.
Netto found himself surrounded by white. Walls, ceiling, even his own clothing was white. It had been that way for a long time; it would probably be that way for as long as he lived, at this rate. White light poured down from above, relentless and bright, like a perpetual high noon. But despite the brightness, there was no warmth, only a coldness that sapped his energy and sank deep into his bones.
"Good morning, Netto-kun!" said a faint voice from somewhere in the room. Netto looked around, but couldn't see anything. The voice became clearer; it was Rockman's. "It's been a while, hasn't it?"
"No," Netto choked, curling into a ball on the padded floor and squeezing his eye shut.
"Netto-kun?" asked Rockman's voice, puzzled. "What's the matter?" He came closer, his boots going tap, tap, tap just like they did in the Internet. "I just want to help."
"You're not here," Netto told the apparition.
"Of course I'm here!" Rockman said. "I'm your Navi, Netto-kun! I'll always be here!"
"Then get me out of here," Netto begged, looking up into Rockman's green eyes. After Netto had gone so long without visitors to break up the stark white of the Solitary Chamber, they were so green that they seemed to glow. "Please get me out of here."
"I can't do that," Rockman said, his voice keeping the same friendly tone. Netto's head fell forward onto the padded floor. "Nobody can." Netto looked up to see that Rockman was still standing there, smiling down at him, green eyes blinking robotically. "Have you done your homework yet? You shouldn't read comics if you haven't."
"Of course not," Meiru said somewhere behind him. She was just as Netto remembered her: much younger than he probably was now (though it was hard to tell—it felt like he'd been under the Citadel for years—was he under the Citadel?), bright red hair, bright pink skirt. "He wanted to copy my answers, I bet."
Netto could no longer tell whether the conversation made sense or not. His head felt fuzzy. Everything around him was starting to detach.
"How many times must I remind you to do as you're told?" Rockman asked coldly. Meiru nodded in agreement. Netto knew neither of them would have said that. That was the General, right before he'd taken a whip off the wall and beaten Netto bloody. Netto wished the General had just stopped ramping up the punishments once they'd gotten so violent; it had been bad enough. He wished he hadn't kept trying to run until the General had cut out his other eye and thrown him in Solitary. Now, he had nothing but ghosts for company. "Such a child."
"Why can't you just behave?" Meiru asked, as if agreeing with his current train of thought. "You make it so difficult for everyone, and then you're surprised when they won't put up with you."
"Anger doesn't help anything," Enzan said coldly. "Neither does self-pity."
Netto curled back into himself as the conversation changed gears again. "Did you know they only have regular holidays at the solstices and the new year here?" Rockman asked. "Anything else is dependent on something happening that's worth celebrating. It's really different after all the holidays in Japan, isn't it!"
"Bet you're disappointed about the lack of days off," scoffed Enzan.
"I heard that culture is getting more similar around the world anyway," Meiru said. "Maybe everyone'll have the same holidays in a few years. Maybe we'll all be using the Roman alphabet instead of kana and kanji, too, since that's what all these programming languages use."
"Do you really think they'll be able to uproot all the older people, though?" Enzan mused. "Sure, I can see us switching over, but I don't think they'll want to learn."
"Maybe they won't even be able to learn," said Rockman. "They say there's a certain time to learn these things well."
"Yeah, and once you miss it that's it," Meiru agreed. "Do you think Netto's even paying attention down there? He seems upset."
"Don't be sad, Netto-kun," Rockman said. "We'll keep you company until the end."
"It's not easy being alone, is it?" Meiru asked, kneeling in front of Netto's head. "But we're here. We'll make it okay, Netto."
"You should sleep," Enzan advised. "We'll be here when you wake up."
Netto's eye drifted shut. "That's right," he muttered. "I died. I'm in Hell." Reacquainted with the truth, his head slowly started to insistently pound. When he next opened his eyes, his vision was blurry, but his surroundings were no less white. He could still see a blurry red head and Enzan's eggshell, though now Atsuki's blue flame had shown up, too. "Why's it so bright in Hell, too?" he complained as best he could through his numb-feeling mouth.
"Netto-kun, are you all right?" Rockman asked.
"Well, at least he's alive," Enzan said sourly.
"Oh, you got older," Netto noticed about Enzan's voice. "That's funny."
"…Netto?"
Netto laughed at Enzan's bewilderment, since it was even funnier that the Enzan-hallucination was puzzled by its own tricks, but it came out as a wheeze.
"Where are you?" Atsuki asked.
"You all know," Netto mumbled.
"Yeah, we do. But indulge me," Atsuki said, the blurry blue flame tiling quizzically to one side.
"Solitary," Netto croaked. Just admitting it made him feel even more tired, or maybe that was whatever Two'd shot him up with. Why did he still have to feel if he was dead? "That's not fair at all."
There was a pause. "Okay," Atsuki said. "Go back to sleep."
"What does he mean?" Hikari-hakase's voice asked desperately, ragged with pain, as Netto closed his eyes.
"What does he mean, 'what does he mean'?" wondered Kaita. Netto opened his eye; he was sitting in the little padded room, and Kaita was next to him.
"Papa's confused because he doesn't turn up as often," Rockman explained. "There was a long period of Netto-kun's life where he was traveling a lot for conferences, and he was always busy once he'd settled in at the Ministry, so Netto-kun doesn't have many memories of just hanging out with him. That's why it's usually Meiru-chan, Enzan, and I."
"We were on standby at the Ministry a lot," Enzan seconded.
"And now I'm here, too!" Kaita finished. "Because Netto always felt like he could share things with me that were too childish for anyone else."
"Too childish, or just too honest?" corrected Punk. "We've only been tryin' to get that one through for days now."
"You don't deserve to be in here," Meiru said gently.
"You never did," Enzan seconded with conviction.
Rockman smiled, patient and kind. "I'm glad you're starting to accept that."
"You know he's supposed to be in Hell, right? Like, Ameroupian-type capital-H Hell. Doesn't that make us his personal demons? Shouldn't we act more like it?" Atsuki pointed out.
"Nah, that's not like us," Rockman said. "It's bad enough that he knows we're not real."
"Bad enough he knows we'll never talk to him again," Meiru added, back to being younger but now with her older self's longer hair.
"Bad enough you'll never change," Laika said coldly. Netto whirled around to see him, startled; Laika was never a particularly friendly ghost.
The voices surged together until there was just one voice that belonged to none of them, over and over.
"So used to getting your way–"
"Did you really think you could outsmart me–?"
Netto squeezed his eyes shut, the pounding in his head returning.
"Anyone out there has forgotten you–"
"You'll learn your lesson, sooner or later–"
"Just stop," Netto cut in, shielding his head with his arms.
"Netto?!" asked a voice that sounded like his mother's.
"Now, reflect on what you've done."
"Please, I really will do better this time," Netto begged, even though it never helped against the General. "I'll behave from now on. I promise."
"Netto!" Enzan roared.
"How can I believe a word you say? You ungrateful child," the General growled. There was no visible doorway in the Solitary Chamber; the old man simply turned and walked away through the wall as if he, too, was just an apparition.
"No…"
"Wake up, Netto-kun!" Rockman stridently called. "You're having a nightmare!"
"No…"
"You aren't in Solitary!" Meiru pleaded.
He was alone again, he'd never get away, he was falling and falling and falling and—
"No," Netto said, glaring up into the corner where he knew the camera had to be. "I'm not a good person, but I'm not a bad person."
"Did your imaginary friends tell you that?" the General asked.
"Yeah, they did," Netto said, looking him straight in the eyes. The details of his face twisted and bent with ambiguity, but his eyes remained in place, two solid pinpricks of flinty cold.
"He promised he'd remember!" Rockman seconded. "It feels good, doesn't it?"
"It's still really corny, but I guess it does," Netto admitted before turning back to the General: "Either you and I are wrong, or everyone else is."
"But no one knows you better than us," the General said. "You can't hide behind someone else's opinion and pretend you didn't do all I asked of you."
"But you didn't do everything he asked." Rockman embraced Netto in a hug he couldn't feel. This was, after all, still a dream. "You tried your hardest not to. Nobody would've known if you'd just given up."
"But I failed," Netto couldn't help but point out. Rockman hadn't even been there for all those times he'd tried to find a way out—and the long, slow realization that there wasn't one.
"Even when you were followin' along by the book and you knew there wasn't any goin' back, y'still tried to make things a little less bad," Punk said. But the most important of those, too, were memories neither Navi had been there for; thrown-out experiments that couldn't be saved, bystanders that ended up in the crosshairs, scrabbling for deals within ultimatums. "An' when it didn't work, all those folks went out knowin' they weren't totally alone. You tried an' tried."
"I did," Netto admitted. "It didn't amount to anything, and that hurts so much, but… I did try. Even though it didn't work, it's not completely my fault." Netto looked over to see the room had expanded, if it was even a room any longer; Meiru, Enzan, Laika, Atsuki, and Kaita were standing across from him and his Navis. "And if I were going to live, I… I'd want to be with all these people who care about me. Even if the rest of the world sucks, I can still look out for them, and… and they can look out for me."
"Is that really what you deserve after all of this?" the General, only a voice in the air, asked.
"I don't care anymore if it is or not!" Netto said, squeezing his eye shut. "Get out of my head! I want to live!"
This time, when Netto opened his eyes, he was presented with a marvelously accurate rendition of the Ministry of Science cafeteria. Even the diner-style counter where Netto had whiled away many, many hours with some combination of Meiru, Enzan, and Laika was there. Somehow, he was lying down in the center of it, with an IV line leading from his bandaged left arm to a fluid bag, Rockman and Punk on the monitor above it and Beat roosting atop that. Since there was more space and it was less blurry, everyone was there, his friends and Meijin and even his parents.
This time, their eyes were sad. "Don't be sad," Netto mumbled. "I'm not sorry at all." He laughed weakly. "That's why I'm here."
Atsuki got up from one of the barstools, sauntered over, looked Netto in the eyes, and pronounced, "Nope, didn't work."
"He still doesn't think he's here?" Hikari-hakase sounded baffled.
"Of course I don't," Netto said. The swollen feeling had gone down, but he was still absolutely exhausted.
"Must think he's making the whole room up," Atsuki concurred.
"I'm so sorry, Netto," Poipu said. It was pretty surreal to see her, Laika, and Atsuki in the same room as one another now that Netto knew just how tense the relations between the Eastern Ameroupian nations were.
"But… but, Netto, you really are here," Kaita said, seeming a bit frightened. "At the Ministry of Science."
This definitely wasn't real, but Netto couldn't fight it anymore. Toward the end of his first prolonged stay, the ghosts had stopped going away when he asked them to; clearly, his mind was just picking up where it had left off. "If you keep drawing attention to it, this'll go away, y'know."
Enzan squeezed his eyes shut. "Okay. Fine. Then explain where you are now."
"Er, maybe not so confrontationally…?" Meiru cut in.
Netto snorted as Enzan massaged his temples between his thumb and first finger. Now he was a hallucination with a headache. "I'm glad you think this is funny," Enzan said, lowering his hand to glower at Netto.
Netto felt the cot sag next to his head. "Netto, look at me," Hikari-hakase said.
"How did you do that?" Netto wondered. Hikari-hakase was still there, and next to him was Hikari-san, her hand stroking Netto's hair gently. "How…"
He closed his eyes, the feeling soothing. It was either give into it or burst into tears. "We're right here, Netto," Hikari-san said. "I've missed you so much." Netto risked a glance up at her, the new lines by her mouth, the gray hairs at her temples. Had he caused those? "Don't worry," she said, the gentle hand in his hair never stopping. "I'm all right." His eyelids heavy, Netto felt his eyes slowly close as Hikari-san kept reassuring him. "It's all right."
Netto blinked, realizing what he'd just done. His eyes? The lens stayed open all the time; it only stopped transmitting information when he'd pulled it from his socket for the night. But now he was squinting both his good eye and the missing one somehow, and squeezing them both shut, and winking his one eye (nobody could tell with the lens, so he thought it was hilarious) before struggling to flutter the out-of-practice other eye closed. His good eye was half-squinting by the time he'd managed it.
Now Hikari-san and Hikari-hakase were smiling. "Our former Boss pointed me to someone on the way over here," Atsuki explained.
"A roboticist," Rockman clarified, the only helpful being in the crowded room. "It's an artificial eye that looks like a real one! Except for the color, but you can wear a contact lens over it if you want."
Netto had never given himself both eyes. Not even knowing full well it was all pretend. He still didn't think he was worth that much.
But, as he'd learned over the last fortnight, other people certainly did.
"This is… real?"
"I'm so glad you're home," Hikari-hakase said, palpably relieved. "You're safe now, Netto."
"You're a dumbass," Punk said, thoroughly shattering the idea that this was anything but plain old Earth. "Goin' on about freelancin' and then endin' up like this…"
Netto looked around at all the faces. There was Hikari-hakase, who he'd endangered more than once for the sake of some plan or another; Enzan, the real Enzan, who he already knew would never forgive him; Laika, of all people, who had to be calculating what the best way to dispose of a murderer like him was…
"I'm sorry," he rasped. "I know I can't possibly make up for—"
"We're just glad you're home," Hikari-hakase said, clasping Netto's more intact hand in his own.
"But you— Enzan— Laika—"
"Everyone's been worried sick over you," Hikari-san said soothingly. She began stroking Netto's hair again.
"It's okay now, Netto-kun. It really is," Rockman said. "Nobody thinks you need to apologize for anything." He wanted to believe that so, so badly. As if his Navi was reading his mind, Rockman added, "You can trust me on this, okay? I've been working here with Papa all this time, I know what I'm talking about."
"Besides, I'm right here, see?" Atsuki reassured him. "I can take 'em."
"Nothing's going to happen to you in this room," Hikari-hakase said, as though all Netto's worries were just monsters under the bed and he was pledging to fight them for him.
"Thanks." Netto's eyes drifted shut again for a moment, too tired to fight what felt like a soothing dream, but then he remembered where they had to be. Glancing back at Atsuki, he hurriedly asked, "Wait, if this is really the Ministry of Science, how are you here?"
Atsuki shrugged. "Your friends are weird."
Netto nodded along in agreement. With the shocks defused for now, he felt his energy resume its crash. "Would you like to rest some more, Netto?" Hikari-san asked. Something about her presence and her hand in his hair made him feel incredibly calm despite how many people were there.
He would be okay; Atsuki was there to protect him.
He would be okay; Hikari-san and Hikari-hakase still loved him, as if nothing had ever changed.
He would be okay; Rockman and Punk were watching over him from the IV monitor, their eyes the last thing he saw before his own fell shut.
Netto drifted back to sleep, completely at peace.
