Chapter 19: Garden of Yuichiro

The exact details of the Waterworks incident were never released to the public, but the mobilization of heavy equipment and demolition teams by the police caught some attention from the media. Smelling some salacious happenings, the reporters flocked under the guise of harmless civilians to the scene and related departments, both the bravest kind who put their lives on the line to publish an exposé for the sake of the greater good and the most depraved kind who willingly prune the story and choose the most damning words to inflame the audience, hoping to gain some insight—something, anything to feed their columns. To their disappointment, all they were able to infer was that there was a clash—which was predictable in the eyes of all who were politically savvy—between the police and the netpolice, that whatever happened in the Waterworks was not a minor incident in that it required the involvement of law enforcement, and that the tension between the two organizations was heightened. Few tabloid journalists, who were free from the standards of substantiated honesty of major news outlets, gleefully wrote their speculations about whether or not the disagreements between the two branches of law enforcement was reaching a flashpoint, but the vast majority had no choice but to wait for the official statements, which everyone knew as would be incomplete if not outright dishonest.

Unable to hide the entire happening, and finding the interest of the public too persistent, the government released several details and its version of the event. In the creation of the story, it was no exaggeration to claim that Dr. Yuichiro was a major player, for it was he who was able to feed the authorities with information that satisfied their desired narrative. WWW was pointed out as the culprit. Up to this point, WWW was not a well-known criminal entity for two reasons: one, Dr. Wily and Yahoot did their jobs with proficiency and did not leave much trace in their past works. Two, WWW was, objectively speaking, a rather small fry. Dr. Wily was struggling to purchase even 4 million-USD worth of retiring components for his rocket engine, which in mint factory condition costed around 40 million dollars. WWW's presence was also rather local. On the national scale, there were far more relevant and significant problems.

The story went like this: WWW installed one of its viruses in the Iceman, the government netnavi in the facility with the highest clearance. The netnavi malfunctioned at a designated time and shut down the place. The mass wanted to know: how was this possible? Since when was government security so penetrable? An unfortunate man, a subordinate of the chief engineer Dr. Seiji Froid, was pointed out as a WWW agent. He was a perfect scapegoat for everyone who was in need of a believable culprit: that man had been on bad terms with the administration, was awkward with people, had no friends to advocate for him, and when engaged in a conversation was found to be subscribing himself to antisocial ideals and sickening prejudices. The man denied all allegations, but the circumstantial convenience, coupled with a discovery that he made contact with WWW five years ago (he was not an agent, but a debtor), sealed the fate of the man. He was dismissed from his post and then charged with 19 different crimes by prosecutors who were determined to turn that man into one of their medals. When the bloodthirst had been quenched, the masses also wanted to know: what was the goal of WWW? To this end, everybody speculated while nobody had an answer.

An obscure senator who went by the name Akira came forward and asserted that he had known this organization for a long time, that he had repeatedly warned the government to allocate its resources to exterminate this dormant menace, and that he was ready to champion the cause once again. According to him, WWW was one of many sleeper cells of China, intended to undermine the nation. Not all believed, but many were swayed. He was originally a right-wing politician who voted for moderate policies, and therefore, remained unnoticed; seeing that his once-in-a-lifetime chance had come, he quickly rebranded himself into a hyper-nationalist and called for stronger police, stronger army, stronger central authority, and harsher sentencings arguing that they were the only way forward ensuring the national prosperity. His popularity soared.

Dr. Seiji Froid continued to occupy his post, even hailed as the hero of the day who remained in the control room and fought off the terrorism of WWW. As for Tory Froid, in him a very peculiar observation the doctor made; an observation he did not expect, and had he not heard the ramblings, recorded by Netto, himself would not have believed. That son of the chief engineer no longer remembered the terrifying details of Iceman's eerieness; some of the details were changed into innocuous misperceptions. All he admitted was that he went to Waterworks on that fateful night to bring some snacks for his hard-working father. No one suspected anything of him, and sympathetic officers did their best to praise the boy's virtues while boasting to him that they were always ready to help.

Without the consent or knowledge of Tory, Yuichiro used a lie detector—a polygraph— on that boy when he visited the office led by Netto a couple of days after the incident. There, the doctor coaxed some answers with friendly questions; Tory repeated what he had told to the officers a few days earlier. To the doctor's surprise, the machine recorded Tory to be lying on all accounts except for his last remarks that while he was asleep in the arms of his father, in the control room, he saw Iceman in his dream, briefly. Yuichiro detected in that boy suspicious movements of hands, avoidance of eyes, and constant attempts to change the topic of discussion, all of which only solidified his acceptance of the polygraph readings. Tory, however, remained calm and looked at the doctor straight, without wavering, when he spoke of the dream and how he found peace with all that had occurred; by his demeanor, Yuichiro knew that Tory was at least speaking his version of the truth at the end, especially when he said that he missed Iceman. When asked about what exactly happened in the dream, Tory declined to elaborate, saying that it was something that should remain private, that when spoken aloud it was a silly thing, that in doing so the magic would be broken, that he would become a nervous wreck again, and that in a corner of his mind he had already accepted it as a childish folly. Yuichiro, by the science of deduction, concluded that whatever happened in the dream was responsible for the boy's decision to speak naught about the anomalies Iceman demonstrated and save the reputation of all involved—Seiji Froid, Iceman, and himself.

Some time passed since the incident, and the heat for WWW had died down a bit. The droughts, floodings, storms, earthquakes, weakening national currency, the alarming rate of currency inflation based on the Consumer Price Index, and speculations of a shrinking economy drowned the attention cycle of people in no time. In some ways, daily life was restored at the expense of one engineer and one silly organization.

This morning, Yuichiro sat down at the breakfast table and reflected on what he knew, while sipping his coffee. Seeing Haruka preparing his breakfast in the kitchen brought a great satisfaction to him—a possessive kind in realizing that the girl he loved the most was indeed his—and also a peace he sorely needed amidst the supernatural turmoil he was to navigate through. He went through the newspapers on the table, freshly delivered this dawn, by people who were more diligent than the ever-constant sun.

The National had a column praising Senator Akira. The author hailed him as the next pillar of the nation, defended recent allegations against him by flatly painting the opposition as delusional yet jealous lunatics, and exhorted the police to double their efforts in finding the whereabouts of WWW. The author then remarked that such crimes were often caused by the influx of immigrants who import with them cultures of dubious values (it was clear that the author wanted to assert their inferiority without saying the word itself). The article ended with a reminder that the recent-most scandal in Scilab was caused by a man of Slavic origin, Mikhail Sergeyevich Cossack.

The Denizens had a column questioning the qualifications of Senator Akira. The unresolved allegation of the senator being involved in a money laundering scheme was shortly summarized, urging the senator to produce evidence to disprove it as he claimed to have and cooperate with the prosecutors' office without further delays. The author also noted the inconsistency between the senator's past voting patterns and his sudden transformation into a hyper-nationalist. She concluded that based on his history, it was more than probable that the senator was simply a crook chasing the votes, that he had no conviction of anything, and that the promises he made were vacuous—physically incompatible.

The People's Tribune had a column extolling the rising diversity in the population, demonized the senator for his isolationist ideals, argued that the economy was on the rise based on the government reports, and lamented that the nation was still far away from developing adequate tolerance to foreigners. According to the author, the future of the world was a globalized one where people of all races would mix and live in harmony. She ended the column with a hint of optimism by introducing some activists and their accomplishments, saying that there were people hard-working to overcome the establishments propagating discrimination.

Yuichiro tossed away all three of them in disgust. Right-wing was filled with man-children who seemingly never progressed beyond the phallic stage of psychosexual development. Left-wing was filled with perverts of insatiable needs who have collectively decided that the reality was optional. They wanted the reality to be whatever they wanted it to be. As for the moderates...Yuichiro considered them spineless lukewarm cowards who never seriously contemplated matters of right and wrong. They championed the status quo as the realistically acceptable equilibrium of affairs. All three were eager to oppress, with the goal of them becoming the oppressors. Honesty, fairness, and merits were dying concepts in the world Yuichiro lived in.

Enzan Ijuiin once vocalized his concern that the doctor had too much power in him in the form of Rockman. Not the social power or a financial influence, but the true power through which the world could be brought to an end. Back then, the doctor did not deny it. Mulling in the evil of the world, which was pervasive everywhere he laid his eyes, and growing tired at his repeated failures to install a proper meritocracy in Scilab, the idea of ending it all did not seem too bad. First, he would let Rockman reveal his true identity to Netto, let the two be happy for a while, and then, when the world started encroaching upon them, he could deliver the ultimate punishment of extinction to mankind. All nuclear arsenals would rise and fall, and he could orchestrate their coordinates to ensure that every inch of the earth was covered in ashes and radiation-

"Are you done with the breakfast? Have a nice day, son." The refreshing, bell-like voice of Haruka tickled his ears. Yuichiro realized that he had been immersed in the villainous plan too much to not notice Netto joining him at the table, finishing his breakfast, and then getting up to leave. He quickly left his seat and hugged the boy who was about to leave the house.

"Have a nice day, Netto, Rockman. Don't worry, I'll find a way..."

In them, Yuichiro saw a kind of resigned smile. They did not believe him. Well, the doctor did not believe himself too...He lifted the bandana, kissed Netto on the forehead, and let them go.

When the boys left, Haruka donated her opinion:

"Dear, what if...what about freezing Saito until you can find an answer?"

"Yes, I have considered it, and have accepted it as one of my contingency plans. Except..."

"I'm listening."

"Saito is hiding something, and Netto is helping him to hide that something. I can only infer from his behavior that he has reached the truth of his condition and the enigma of dreaming netnavis...or at least very close to the truth. At any rate, he hides it and has not shared it with me. I don't think it's because I have wronged him before...have I, Haruka?" Yuichiro turned and faced his wife, earnestly seeking an answer.

"He knows you too well. Remember what he told us, of what he saw before returning to us? He must be thinking that in telling you what he has discovered, you will do something reckless. I have to agree with him."

"Am I-"

"Dangerous? Yes, you are. You are doing something on your own in Scilab, aren't you? And you believe you will reach some kind of conclusion with it. You are even looking at the possibility of curing Saito's digital body. Otherwise, you wouldn't be this absorbed in thoughts. Even last night, I had to practically yell at you to make you go to the shower."

Yuichiro spent too many nights in the Scilab alone. The side effect was a decline in his hygienic standards.

"...What do you propose?"

"Watching all this unfold from the side," Haruka sighed "is like watching a soap opera. We are all trying to save Saito, nothing less, nothing more. A second chance we were given by a miracle that is beyond our comprehension...with many uneasy implications, but still. Why do the three of you insist on having some secrets? I say you tell them everything. At least everything you find in...whatever you are doing right now. I know I cannot persuade your stubborn heart to let Netto know already that Saito is next to him. If so, let everything else be known."

"Do you really think this way, Haruka?" Yuichiro went forth and embraced his wife. "You already know, don't you? You already know, as you always did...I tried many things, but nothing remains in my hand. I only have speculations, and I only dream of solutions. I still don't even know how to approach this matter, and there is no one to help me. How can I go around speaking to others about souls and the afterlife? Even I struggle to believe that this is reality sometimes...and...and...I really don't know what I will do once Saito inevitably departs us the second time..."

"Yuichiro, my love." Haruka softly whispered. "Do what you can. We will do what we can. If nothing changes, and Saito is no more...then so what? You will be free to do that which you were scheming on the breakfast table."

"What scheme?" Yuichiro's heart sank.

"The end of the world. I saw the fire of indignation in your eyes. I know you don't need Rockman to make that come true. Without Saito, where's the strength, meaning, and will in all three of us? If it is the will of God to return to us what was lost and then take him back in another great suffering...then our conscience will be clean in taking everything that breathes on the Earth with us."

"Haruka!" Yuichiro pulled himself away from his wife. Her whispers were as sweet as honey, good to his soul.

"What?"

"This...this is a matter that should not be seriously considered!"

"Yes it is." Haruka approached Yuichiro, who was backing away as if he had found a viper coming out of bushes. "My husband, do you not see? We are monsters. Do not try to tell me otherwise, especially after you have created that body of Saito...monsters married and then begot a saint. In the light of that saint, we bathed. When it disappeared, we went crazy. We could not go back to the darkness. We tasted the light."

When Yuichiro eventually ran out of space, his back to the wall, Haruka finally got hold of him. Like prey being constricted, he became helpless. She continued.

"Men I can forgive, seventy-seven times and then more if necessary, for it is what is right. I decided to walk on the path of virtue, for it is the only path worthy for a mother of Saito Hikari. But God, should he wrong me, I cannot forgive. Why should we forgive him? Is it not his definition—to be the only goodness in the world and be blameless? Even if Saito's second existence was bound to be limited, where is the reason that he should suffer this much? Now, let us reason together. We will hold the world hostage, and our ransom will be the life of Saito. If God cares about this world in any amount, then Saito shall live. Simple, isn't it?"

Yuichiro was envenomated. He could not resist. He could hardly breathe.

"...Ha-Haruka..."

Haruka nodded and softly hissed into his ear, most intimately.

"Yes, Yuichiro. Either he lives, or everything ends."


Between five and six in the afternoon, Enzan Ijuiin burst into the office of Dr. Yuichiro Hikari. The little officer did this occasionally since their last dealings. As much as Enzan loathed the doctor for using him as a pawn in his great game (Enzan erroneously believed that Yuichiro's chief motivation was politics, not something supernatural and sinister), it was also the inconvenient truth that Enzan had no allies in the netpolice. Hence, he inadvertently found himself dropping by here from time to time, venting out his unhappiness to his only 'ally.' At least the doctor honored a kind of confidentiality, listened patiently, and sometimes offered useful advice.

"Unbelievable! Simply unbelievable!" Said Enzan as he slid into a chair near the cheap coffee table in Yuichiro's office.

"I hear that phrase awfully often from you nowadays. Care for a coffee? Tea?"

"No, no, doctor. I am not- I need to go soon. It's just-"

"Water it is then! Tell me. What's the matter?"

Yuichiro found the candor of the officer rather amusing. Unlike Enzan, who considered Yuichiro as an ally and an enemy in equal amounts, the doctor genuinely thought that they were getting along just fine.

"What's the matter? You know what is the matter! How could you let...let that innocent man be turned in? You fed them the information!"

"I do not know what you are talking about. Would it be safe to guess that the topic at hand is that poor engineer in the Waterworks who was found out to be a WWW agent?"

"Found out to be? You very well know he cannot be an agent! We very well know Iceman had something installed to him when he was abducted! Mr. Yamitaro is the key to all this...he has to be!"

Enzan was exasperated at the law enforcement willingly setting up a scapegoat to save its face, and at his helplessness in preventing it. Worse, he had found that many in law enforcement began to believe the lie they created in the first place. A series of self-fulfilling prophecies was all that was needed.

"Officer Ijuiin, I have done nothing wrong. I simply told the investigators that, based on my analysis of the remains of Iceman, the culprit was WWW. The data signature of their modification work was present inside him. I gave them enough cross-reference data to overcome their doubts. What more was I supposed to do?"

"That it was related to Mr. Yamitaro? I say he was released prematurely!"

"That is beyond my jurisdiction. Surely you have brought this matter to your superior?"

Yuichiro came and sat on the opposite side of Enzan, putting on the table a cup of water for the youth and a cup of instant coffee for him.

"I did! I should've known better..."

"Of course, they did not listen. What did you expect?"

"That someone would have a speck of decency and be moved in conscience?" Enzan drank out the cup in one go.

"But it was netpolice that scanned the Iceman when he first returned from abduction. It was netpolice that concluded nothing was done to it. It was netpolice that accommodated the request from the local government to trivialize and close the case in haste. Of course they cannot go against their own words...think about the humiliation they would be forced to endure had that happened! They had no other option. If they were right, then WWW must have broken through after that incident..."

"And the police accepted!"

"They have no reason to reject the report of netpolice." Yuichiro sipped the coffee.

"And then there is the problem of that boy who accompanied Tory Froid...say, doctor, do you still have that tape?"

Yuichiro crossed his legs and leaned back.

"...No? I already handed it over to the netpolice, curious myself what conclusion they might reach...perhaps you should double-check the evidence storage?"

Enzan gave him a strange stare, clearly not having expected such an answer. After tapping on the table for a while, he communicated with Blues in written form, and then looked to the doctor once more.

"No. I am positive that the tape recording is not on our evidence list."

"That can only mean one thing."

"Yes. Somebody got rid of it, because it did not fit the current narrative, which they already triumphantly declared to the public as the definitive version. Shit!" Enzan smashed his fist on the table, knocking off his empty water cup. The coffee was spared, as it was safely held in Yuichiro's hand. "What do you think about that unidentified boy, recorded in the footage?"

"Me? You are not really asking me what I think is the possible explanation of what was recorded in that tape. You probably already have many suppositions and found each of them unsatisfying. I know what you wish to ask, without admitting it yourself. You are actually asking me whether I really think that boy could have been Iceman. Am I correct?"

Iceman! In the real world! Enzan hoped to not admit that he was considering such a daft concept with any degree of seriousness. Just allowing that thought to formulate was already mortifying enough. Even if it was true, the phenomenon failed to explain many things in the case. Had it not been what the chief engineer said in the control room, and what Blues saw and heard in the last part of the Waterworks server, the question would not have haunted him into sleepless nights.

"...Yes."

"I shall leave no comment on that matter." Yuichiro was coming around to the idea that Iceman could have materialized, based on the results from his recent 'experiment,' in addition to his knowledge of the nature of Saito Hikari's existence. However, he was not going to share his insights; it was not a pleasant prospect to acknowledge that he had fallen into a practitioner of forbidden rituals and occult magics. By refusing to comment, he was not lying, but he was at the same time willingly (and deniably) insinuating that Enzan should feel ashamed for the question.

"...I understand. Maybe...just maybe, I am overthinking this whole affair..." Indeed, Enzan was ashamed.

"What did Dr. Froid say about it? He won't tell me much, even in private, and I cannot ask him too specifically, for otherwise it would become clear that I have some inappropriate access to the inside information."

"He has been...impenetrable." Enzan mused with his hands in his pockets. The fury that grasped him a moment ago was replaced with a vague dissatisfaction at the mystery that defied all rational explanations.

"How so?"

"At that night, he fiercely accused us of turning his netnavi into something that could materialize in the real world. He even asked if I brought a gun with me to kill that...devil. You know what he said; I sent you a summary already. A day after, however, he completely changed his narrative, saying that he said strange things in his panic...and the police had no reason to suspect him. I mean, people do stranger things when their amygdalas are stimulated beyond the threshold..."

"Perhaps that boy in the parka was an unimportant, inconvenient coincidence."

"No, you should be the last person to tell me that. You know you don't believe that." Enzan leaned forward quickly, his tone accusatory and damning. "Did you find anything else from the remains of Iceman?"

"No. Did netpolice?" Yuichiro lied.

"Netpolice? Hah, as if they can find anything in that corpse after someone like you have swept through it...you pecked it clean." Enzan added, "Truly, you have not found anything?"

"No." Yuichiro lied again. So smoothly, in fact, that Enzan did not suspect.

"...Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" After emitting a sigh of unresolved annoyance, Enzan kicked the ground and stood up. He had to get going.

"Have a nice day, officer. I won't see you off."

Enzan nodded to the doctor in acknowledgment, approached the door, and opened it, but suddenly halted before the threshold as if he had been struck with lightning. He remained silent and still for some time; Yuichiro curiously observed him in silence, deciding to not interfere as he sensed something dangerous brewing inside the officer which would require a delicate and precise response on his part. Enzan spoke, as suddenly as he came to stop, and did so without turning to face the doctor. Was it a choreographed effort to make the inquiry seem incidental and harmless, or was it an actual curiosity popping into his head at the last moment?

"Oh, doctor."

"Yes, how can I help you?"

"One question"

"Go on, officer."

"Who is...Saito Hikari?"

Another moment of silence ensued. Enzan remained standing in the same orientation, his back towards the doctor, which made his intention that much more enigmatic. The intention was clearly not to investigate the doctor based on his response. Had Enzan turned around, he would've surely noticed that his question hit the mark, as he would've seen Yuichiro's composure completely broken, even showing signs of shock.

"He was my first son, passed away about one year ago. Why do you ask?" Yuichiro's face was shaken and contorted, but his speech was unaffected as ever; all his effort was singularly concentrated on maintaining the facade in his voice. Thankfully, Enzan still did not look back at him.

"...Nothing. Sorry for asking. Have a nice day, doctor." And Enzan left.

Yuichiro remained frozen for some time after Enzan had left the place. Wherein the question of Saito Hikari originated? There was no reason for that name to be found in the mouth of Enzan. There could be only one explanation: the officer's report of what happened in Waterworks was not fully inclusive of all details, the name Saito Hikari was mentioned somewhere, and Enzan was struggling to fit that name into the ugly puzzle at his hand. The youth officer had no chance of reaching the proper conclusion, for he was an excellent human being, armed with scientific thinking and rationality. The truth behind this world, as Yuichiro recently began to understand to his dismay, was an irrational one: the one of souls, dreams, and demons...

The truth was that Yuichiro had found something inside Iceman's body as he meticulously disassembled it. It was a program that appeared black and muculent when seen through a net navigator display. Yuichiro quickly realized that it was the key to his pressing questions, especially that of saving Saito, and began organizing an experiment to test its effects. He had one problem: his experiment could not be shared with others, nor be known to anyone. He had no time to write and apply for the approval of the ethics committee; his effort had to be expedited. Besides, how was he going to justify his need to waste many netnavis into the torturous end? How was he going to confess that he came to believe in supernatural truths of the world? How was he going to convince others that all these resources were necessary to save his already cremated son, Saito Hikari? Whom he recreated as Rockman? He was the chief of Scilab. The idea was dead on arrival.

He had a private laboratory underground, which he had not utilized for a while. His office could not become the site of this experiment, as Enzan frequented the place, and that officer was too keen to not notice structural changes to the room. So, shortly after acquiring that black program, Yuichiro installed a new server at the corner of his neglected laboratory in a way that it looked most insignificant when glanced from the entrance. He then collected many netnavis and applied the black program on them, observing its effect. The results were of the exact same nature as what Dr. Wily observed; it excited the doctor. The mystery of delirious netnavis that he only read in the reports was replicated before his eyes. The secret to Rockman's ailment was close. Even though he was confident that this program was never installed in Rockman, the unmistakable pattern was there: when some of the maddened netnavis, near their auto terminations as they became too corrupted to function, made near-incomprehensible ramblings about soul, perfection, and eternal life, Yuichiro almost leaped in joy. Rockman housed Saito Hikari's soul, and to hear that word from artificial intelligence! He was close. Very close.

Based on his initial result, he came to the same conclusion as Dr. Wily: some navis resisted the corruption longer than others, and it was linearly correlated with the complexity of the subjects' minds. In a pure coincidence, he made the same categorizations as Dr. Wily did. What Wily labeled as 1 was Yuichiro's A. What Wily labeled as 2 was Yuichiro's B. What Wily labeled as 3 was Yuichiro's C.

Hoping to brute force his way into an insight, Yuichiro then quickly expanded his experiment. Yuichiro's version of the study was far larger in scale than Dr. Wily, owing to his position in the Scilab and as a person deeply involved in the making of netnavis. The work he committed himself required a significant amount of data processing. He needed a high-functioning custom netnavi to aid him, with a condition that it had to be completely unrelated to him; one without the risk of being analyzed later to track him down. Yuichiro serendipitously happened to know just such a navi; one who was independent yet not belonged to any one person at the moment. The navi who possessed such a hatred of mankind that it would rather be deleted before being forced to cooperate with authorities. The navi only he knew how to search and contact, even though it could be done only once. The navi who would help him only out of a need to even the score, for he helped Dr. Cossack, the only person this navi cared about, when the situation was dire for that scientist of slavic origin.

Once this navi joined Yuichiro and a deal was struck, the experiment went ahead in full force. Over one thousand subjects were surreptitiously gathered and given to that black program. They perished in droves every day. Category A was easy to replace; it was a group of standard navis. Category B was somewhat easy, for it was a group of retiring standard navis. Scilab offered navi deletion service for individuals who wished to dispose of them for various reasons. Yuichiro simply requisitioned from that pool of candidates, and no one questioned. How they got deleted or disappeared did not matter to the administration—in the bookkeeping, they were all the same. Category C was custom navis; Yuichiro found them a valuable resource to his experiment, but surprisingly hard to acquire without leaving a record. Nevertheless, he did not spare any. The experiment quickly transformed into a hellish purgatory and a meat grinder. Yuichiro sardonically called this place his garden. A garden in which he constantly pruned and planted netnavis.

It did not take long for him to realize, just as Dr. Wily did, that something was trying to contact him from beyond the dream of navis. When the garbled speakings of navis from category C had been found to be forming a message of a kind, Yuichiro's contract netnavi assembled those infernal ramblings of those subjects, decoded them, and gave him a daily report of the results. Yuichiro, unlike Dr. Wily, did not attempt to deny the supernatural origin of these cryptic and provocative messages. His acceptance of Saito Hikari's return had already prepared his mind for such a result, though it alarmed him greatly. Since then, he had been maintaining a 'conversation' with this mysterious entity, which was something sinister and intelligent, speaking in enigmatic metaphors. Worse, it was far smarter than he first estimated; no matter how he designed his questions, he seemingly could not cajole it into revealing important information. So far, it spoke, and he listened. As the time passed, so did the doctor's patience wane at the lack of progress.

Sometime after Enzan left the office, throwing that bizarre question about Saito Hikari, Yuichiro started his way to his laboratory. The doctor took the utmost precautions on his way there, making sure that he was not followed or suspected. In his paranoia, Yuichiro constantly imagined that he saw in his peripheral vision Enzan or a netpolice officer somewhere around the corner behind him, spying and tracking him with mistrust, and took unnecessarily convoluted paths to his lab, pretending he had business here and there. When he became reasonably convinced that none of his fears was substantiated, he finally homed to his intended destination. Upon arrival, he even changed the passwords of all three door locks that a person had to go through in order to reach this dingy corner of an insignificant-looking laboratory space, after which he finally felt safe. The mention of Saito Hikari by Enzan truly spooked him beyond sensibility.

"Hmph, took you long enough." A husky boyish voice greeted Yuichiro as he plugged in his empty PET to his private server.

"Sorry for the wait. So, how fares our subjects?"

"Twenty-seven perished."

"Their categories?"

"Twenty in A. Six in B. One in C. I updated the roster."

"Thank you." Yuichiro said as he applied himself to the roster that filled the PET screen. Compared to yesterday's report, indeed twenty-seven entries were crossed out. "I will make haste to replace them."

"Additional five of category C, I suspect, will be rendered useless by 18:00 tomorrow." The delivery of information was dry but spiked with contempt. The navi sent the scan reading of those five subjects in support of his conjecture.

"That will be a blow to our work...maybe...if I can...hmm, then, yes, three should be replaceable in under a week. What if I ask Dr. Regal in passing? Will he have some spares left? It is imperative that we expand the size of category C-"

"Your work, not mine. You sicken me, Yuichiro. Once this is over, I owe you nothing." The husky voice added, not trying to hide his hostility. One would imagine from his tone that it was a pure miracle that this netnavi even agreed to work with the doctor.

"Of course."

"Had it not been for-"

"-for Dr. Cossack. I know. I am very grateful." Yuichiro interrupted. He heard this phrase too many times by now.

"And also, once this is over-"

"Yes, the black program, you can have a copy of it. I promise."

Yuichiro closed the roster.

"As if I can trust you humans."

"But you trust me."

"Trusted." The voice corrected. "I made a mistake. After seeing you do this sick stuff, I see that you are the same as others. No standards. No morals."

Yuichiro paused and looked straight at the navi, confused at the double standard he was being subjected to. The only standard this navi had was that of unexercised hatred towards humankind and the only morality was the primal instinct of 'might is right.'

"Correct. I used to have them. Now I have neither. You also don't have them, remember? Besides, you are intrigued yourself. That's why you are sticking around, even though you can always destroy this...garden of mine and leave at any moment. Now, let's move on to the category C report."

In his admittance, there was no shame. Yuichiro waved his hand and the navi dutifully produced the report with a reluctant face.

"It said some funny stuff today." said the navi.

"Oh? Did it say something damning about me?"

"That would've been very nice, Yuichiro...No. It claimed that it was the god of all netnavis. It's certainly not my god. If it was, then where was it when I..." The netnavi, seething with umbrage at the sense of betrayal at its claim, for he knew what kind of responsibilities were expected of that ostentatious title, ground his teeth. "I can't wait to drag that thing down, trample it under my feet and-"

"Yes, that's why you wanted the black program so much, because you believe you can kill that thing."

Yuichiro opened the report. Each of the daily reports was not even a page long, for unfortunately limited was the number of custom navis of category C in his server. Lamentable to Yuichiro was that he had no way of improving the kinetics of his conversation with this being.

"Killing? No, Yuichiro...I will show it its place and make it kneel before me. It will have to answer my questions...oh so many of them I have...and then its beggings for mercy will be like music to my ears. You know, Yuichiro, once I figure out how to make its powers, what small amount of it it has, mine, and exact my vengeance upon mankind, maybe, just maybe, I'll spare you and your family for the old time's sake. Ha-ha!"

The power mania of this netnavi was an intriguing question. Had the doctor not been in a hurried chase to identify the nature of this mysterious being in the dreams of navis, and an imperative to make a cure for Saito, he surely would've spent some time elucidating how this artificial intelligence came to develop such a personality. Ever since the netnavi was created, Yuichiro noticed some eccentric tendencies in him, and even questioned Dr. Cossack about the creator's intentions in making such an entity. Cossack maintained that it was a necessity in order to create a truly independent AI. Why? What was the purpose of such an AI? Cossack said that it was simply his dream that served no practical purpose but could be decorated with many excuses. Cossack was an individual who was a bit crazy in his own way, just like any other productive scientist in the Scilab; Yuichiro detected a hollow honesty in that answer. Hollow, for in achieving his lifelong dream, Cossack fell into an aimless depression; he no longer had anything else to pursue. The goal was so brilliant when out of reach; it was so dim when inspected in possession. Yuichiro shook his head in pity.

'...I wonder what Dr. Cossack was thinking when he made you. In the creator's abandonment, you, too, lost your purpose...is that facade of yours a coping mechanism, or is it truly representative of what you have become?'

In today's report, the 'hideous light' as the dreaming navis called it, indeed proclaimed its identity as a god of netnavis. It also said something about Tadashi Hikari, although the entire sentence did not come through due to the insufficient number of subjects in category C. Yuichiro scoffed. For a supernatural being with powers to drive everything it contacted with madness, its ambitions were dreadfully childish. Underneath the cool of Yuichiro, however, was uneasiness. It was a kind that he could only repel by finding reasons to downplay the calamity of the threat.

"So, what's going to be your reply?" The navi urged in impatience.

"Two words." Yuichiro paused to make sure that his resolve was the correct one. As much as he wanted to take his time in the conduction of this experiment, Saito was running out of time. He had ample reasons to suppose that this entity was connected to the condition of his most precious son. "Saito Hikari."

"...Hikari? As in your name? Saito? Who is that?" The navi could not hide his interest.

"No need to know. Just those two words."

"Hmph, very well. Have it your way."

"...Thank you, Forte."

Forte turned around and headed inward, to the highly secured parts of the server, to the compartment in which category C subjects were imprisoned, to implant the message in one of them. On his way, he had to go through the cells containing subjects of categories A and B. The corridor was saturated with beggings and screamings of hundreds of navis, all installed with a copy of that accursed black program, writhing in despair. Many perished and were continually replaced in the name of science, to meet some undisclosed goal of Dr. Yuichiro. Forte did not sympathize with any of them, but over the recent days during which he worked with the doctor, he became convinced of this fact: Yuichiro was not so different from himself; he sensed that they both were chasing for something they had no hope of attaining.