Chapter 6: The Remission of Sin

The elevator was made of polished bronze from top to bottom, with only one button next to the door. However, what disturbed Saito was not the suspicious design of the machine, but his reflection on the walls. The polishing was not uniform, and his image appeared wavy, distorted to left and right, forming an illusion of him burning in a hellfire. Saito imagined if this was exactly what he was doing right now-returning to the hellscape. If he reunited with his flesh, then his life would be the simple continuation of the previous routine. As much as Saito realized he had a blessed, albeit short, life, the pain of HBD attacks was a reality he had to face. However, Netto's tears split his heart and compelled him to take this path of thorns. The lamentations of his lost brother called him from the dark depths of life.

The door of the elevator was still open. Once the button is pressed, there will be no turning back-the design of this place screamed of this fact. Saito hesitated; the train attendant was making a bow of farewell to him with the hat on his chest. Both of them knew the decision had been made, and that it would not be reversed. Once the train attendant boarded the passenger car, the heart of the engine fired, making a noise as loud as a cry of a hundred bulls. The train accelerated slowly away from the platform, delivering this season's harvest to the eternal rest. Saito watched the train leaving the station, until he could not see it anymore. He did not regret his current choice, but he also knew he would not have regretted his choice had he taken the train instead. Then how was this choice made? It was by the love for the another, not love for self. Saito took the narrow path.

Saito pressed the button. The door of the elevator closed slowly. Once isolated from the outside, the darkness covered Saito. Combined with the small dimension of the interior, the whole process evoked the image of the closing of a coffin lid. Suddenly, a lightbulb at the top of the elevator turned on, but the light was excessively dim. He could barely see his feet. Briefly, the entire contraption trembled with the action of gears and cables sliding against each other. The sound made by the mechanism was painful to the ears and to the soul, like the sound made by scratching the blackboard. Saito wondered if this bronze coffin was preparing to bury him alive. He tensed in anticipation of the unknown. His instinct cried out to him of imminent danger, but what could be so alarming-

The elevator dropped. Saito's feet were barely touching the floor-the entire system was in a freefall! Saito's lungs forgot to scream due to the suddenness of the release. All he could do was hold on to his consciousness with a stupid surprised face. The fact that there was no way to see the outside made the experience worse than the gyrofall. When was the stop? How far did he have to go? Would this break his legs? Some very urgent concerns popped into his head with no way to pacify them. The complete blockage of visual cues prevented him from getting himself ready in time for the inevitable impact. A terror crept into his heart. Saito started to regret his decision. Oh, only if he had known the nature of the travel by this accursed machine.

After a long fall that felt like an eternity, the stopping was rather merciful compared to the sudden beginning. The deceleration was gradual enough that Saito did not have to smack his face on the floor from the inertia. By a humorous irony, it was not gradual enough to prevent Saito from getting on his all fours like an animal. Saito barely held on. Had the process been a few seconds longer, his elbows would've failed and his face would've surely kissed the floor. With the elevator coming to a full stop, Saito stood up again, wobbling, dizzy, and disoriented. 'Never again,' Saito told himself.

'If I take this elevator a second time in the future, call me a madman.'

The elevator door slid open. The scene in front of him was a familiar one-it was his father's office in the Scilab, roughly three to five meters in front of the main work desk. He had a chance to be here a few times before, once because he demanded the tour as his birthday present, and other times because of official yet unimportant reasons such as 'bring a kid to work day.' The time of the place was still early as evidenced by the bright sunlight making the dust in the air uncomfortably visible. How his father survived daily in this low-quality air was beyond him.

'Why here?'

If he had a chance to guess, he should have arrived back in the hospital, where his body should be, or back in his room, where he would surely embrace Netto with glee. Regardless, there had to be a reason for the destination to be set here. Saito would have to explore and find it out.

'If the door is open, that means I can get off, right?'

Saito moved forward with the intention of leaving. His effort was rudely stopped as he ran into an invisible wall that separated the elevator exit from the world outside. After a puppy-like yelp, Saito rubbed his forehead and nose to soothe the pain from the collision. If he could not get off, but the door remained open, and the barrier was transparent, then there was only one other possibility: Saito was to witness what was about to happen through this window.

Not many seconds after the realization, the scene in front of him accelerated in time. As Saito counted the number of days passing by, which he did by observing the sky outside one of the windows, for the first two weeks, there were no visitors. Then, a person entered the scene: his father, Dr. Yuichiro.

"Papa!"

Saito shouted excitedly and hammered on the invisible barrier in front of him. The commotion did not reach the doctor, as he was seen sitting to start work completely unaffected, and then covering his face with a deep sigh while the computer was turning on. Saito tried getting his attention several more times, but gave up when it became clear that it was futile.

The time accelerated further. The day and night came and went in rapid succession. Saito noticed changes occurring to the large screen on the wall. At some point, a skeletal outline of a netnavi was made. Over weeks, the shape was fleshed out. At first, Saito looked at it with interest. Later, he watched with horror. The face of the navi was becoming more and more familiar as its features were completed. Saito knew what it was.

'Papa, is that...me? What are you doing?'

Saito witnessed his body being reconstructed from a double helix structure displayed at the corner of the screen. From the basic science education, he remembered it was the hallmark of DNA, and the circumstances pointed out that it was his. Father was translating his DNA. In the midst of the consternation Saito endured, there was a sense of pride. Only an unmatched genius like his father could accomplish such a feat while the world was struggling to even predict how proteins folded from the primary amino acid sequences. Saito's virtual body was then progressively covered with the suit and equipments for a netnavi.

'Papa, a work like this cannot be forgiven!'

With time accelerated significantly, Saito only had a brief moment each day to study his father. The deathly fatigue was perpetual on his face, venous expansion under the eyes, on the forehead losing turgor, sinking cheeks, the color of skin, and in the roughening hair. During some moments, he was lamenting over the old picture of the family, focusing intensely on Saito. Sometimes, he was mumbling something with aimlessly wandering eyes, clearly descending into madness. On some days he worked as if he was glued to the screen. He progressively appeared unkempt on average. Saito never saw his father in such a state; in his memory, father was always rational, resolute, and reliable. He was like a tree planted by water. Saito remembered the hallucinatory voice of Netto

-We can't live without you

'Netto kun, was that really you?'

Time decelerated until its flow rate came back to normal, and, unfortunately for Saito Hikari who had been leaning against the invisible barrier, the opening of the elevator became commutable. Saito barely gained balance before falling forward. After the stumbling, he was only a meter behind his father. Yuichiro was bent over his desk with his hands clasped together. Saito heard the suppressed, trembling voice that oozed out from this crushed man:

"...Mea culpa, Saito, mea maxima culpa"
"Papa, I am here, don't worry. It's okay. It's okay, so...please stop"

Saito knew his voice would not reach his father. Nevertheless, he hoped. When Yuichiro started inserting a USB into his computer, Saito tried to hug his father, but his arms went through as if he was made out of air. Well, the air he might be, for his action made a small cold wind blow around Yuichiro. Saito corrected his posture and suspended his arms around Yuichiro, trying to form a hug without clipping into Yuichiro's body.

"Papa...now I see."

Saito did not need to be told the details as the situation was painfully simple. Netto was dying in his unending lamentations. Yuichiro was descending into the heretical interpretation of life and death by constructing a duplicate of his son. Saito could not even imagine what state his mother would be in, that woman with a heart as sensitive as a lily. Saito also understood why he was sent here. There was only one way to redeem the sin of his father-by making his twisted wish come true. Saito loosened his arms around his father and turned towards the large screen. There lay the netnavi created in his image. He had to become that navi, and that navi him. Only then would the work of his father be blameless.

"Do not worry, papa, I can fix this."

Saito floated towards the screen and then clipped into it. Instead of going through the device and then though the wall behind it, and finally emerging into the corridor, Saito somehow crossed into the cyberworld. This inexplicable crossing of dimensions was taken as evidence that his analysis was right. Emboldened, he lay on the table on which the blue navi was placed, overlapping himself with the body. It fit him perfectly. Saito closed his eyes as a strange sensation of a thousand needles lightly poking every inch of his skin covered him.

When this sensation similar to a bad case of muscle cramp subsided, Saito reopened his eyes. The strange ceiling, full of constantly changing transparent cubes and rectangles, reminded him that this was not a dream, and that now he became a dweller of this man made purgatory. He was really back, in this body, in the world fundamentally severed from his family. The body was very unresponsive and sluggish, but surely this would be solved with time. For now, he turned his head with a struggle and found Yuichiro across a floating display. Their eyes met. His father was visibly shaken; oh, only if he could hug the poor man as he did just a moment before. Saito tried to speak, but he was not yet fully calibrated to the body. The only sound he could create came out like that of a dying sheep:

"Papa..."
'Don't worry. I am here.'

Saito saw Yuichiro collapsing on the floor on his knees. Tears wet his face, which was white as snow from the shock. Saito could only extend his arm towards the display with a faint smile in the hopes of soothing his father.

"Rockman"

The barely audible voice was squeezed out of Yuichiro.

'Rockman'

His new name. A blessed name. The name that bore the sin of his father. The name that will bear the sin of others.

.

.

Yuichiro could not stand the innocent gaze of the emerald green eyes. They convicted him of his crime. From thistles came thistles, and from figs came figs. He was well aware that his work was fueled by his distorted defiance towards fate, yet contrary to all the natural laws, the innocent gaze filled with friendliness came out of his twisted work. As shadows were darker near the light, so did the navi made Yuichiro's wickedness visible for all the world to see. God said to Adam "Where are you?" and Adam replied "I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself." As Adam ran away, so too was Yuichiro running away from the work of his own hands. God did not tempt Adam to eat from the tree of knowledge; the world did not compel Yuichiro to recreate his son. Was he the only parent to bury his son with his own hands? There were cases far worse than his, yet they all learned to move on. Yuichiro was a failure of a father and a failure of a human being.

Yuichiro could not stand the lovely smiling face of his reborn son. It uncovered the monstrosity within him. He just created something that thought of itself as Saito Hikari. It was an unforgivable sin, a mockery of the human soul. Yuichiro had no intention of defending himself from this grievous charge, but the worse part was that he liked it. He wanted to scream to the world in defiance: 'See that? I did it! I saved my son!' Could he say it, truly? Was the human condition so trivial and simple that it could be described as an addition of emotion and memories? If Yuichiro was convicted that this simple equation was true, then why was his heart refusing to accept the creation as his complete son? His nonacceptance was blatant hypocrisy, which was a human quality he always found most abhorrent when he observed it in the actions of companions of Tadashi. The smile of the navi plunged him into the despicable depths, for it just made him the same hypocrite, too.

Yuichiro could not endure the arm of the navi extended out to him as if expected to be held. It burned his soul with hellfire. It was a gesture of comfort, forgiveness, and acceptance, all of which he did not deserve, nor could he stomach. When he was very well aware that the only chance at forgiveness was by the deletion of his work and erasing of all its evidence, the promise of salvation only appeared as appetizing as poisonous mushrooms. Yuichiro wondered if the Saito's personality installed in the navi successfully deduced, in that short time, what had transpired. The scenery of the network as navis saw it-Yuichiro did not know exactly himself-unquestionably must have been different from the physical world outside. Did Saito's integrated mind figure out successfully that he was now in the cyberworld, and then accepted the reality before extending its arm as a sign of peace in order to save its maker's soul, given to temptation? All Yuichiro could do was apologize profusely while transferring the navi to Netto's PET, and then turn the device off as quickly as possible.

As the next step, he had to update the OS of the PET in order to house the custom navi. Yuichiro did everything he could to give the recreation of his son the best body possible, so the blue navi was packed full of features that made its specifications beyond what anyone should ever be able to possess without supervision. Yuichiro simulated many pessimistic scenarios in which his breach of ethics was exposed and the navi had to escape to avoid persecution and torture. To alleviate his paranoia, Yuichiro made sure that the blue navi was capable of breaking through all known firewalls and official systems. Now that the work was complete and the navi was to be handed over to his son Netto, from whom he did not expect much discretion, most of the offensive and infiltrative features were locked away. Should the need arise, he would give the key to Netto, and his cyber son, even if he was a fake one, would survive.

What happened next was only natural given the shaken state of Yuichiro. Once the work on the PET and last minute calibrations were finished, Yuichiro quickly disconnected the PET from the workstation and roughly shoved it into his pocket. The sun was rising. Yuichiro hurridly ran out from his office to take the first metro to his house. He needed someplace to hide, someplace secret to catch his breath and convince himself with the lie that he can still be saved, that what he did was not wrong, that it was inevitable, and that the navi was, in fact, the reincarnation of Saito Hikari.

In the train, the first metro of the day, completely devoid of passengers as at this time of the day people moved from house to workplace, not the other way around as Yuichiro was doing currently, the doctor finally noticed he was still wearing the lab coat. With a little curse, he took it off and hung it on his arm.

It was not long before he arrived at the doorstep of his house. How many days had it been since he last stood here was beyond his memory, though Haruka was sure to remember.

'Haruka, my love, I have become a disappointment. If I enter, will you ignore me? Will you scold me? Will you hug me and comfort me? Please, hate me if you must, but only do not abandon me, for if you do, then I...'

Yuichiro knew Haruka had not been herself since the funeral of Saito Hikari. He heard her dirge. He saw the sorrow decaying her little by little. He finally reached the conclusion of his jeremiad by committing a crime. The problem was, as much as he could confidently foresee what the endpoint of Netto's mourning would be (Yuichiro believed it would be a healing found in the compassion of Mayl Sakurai, though he could not be more wrong), he had troubles predicting what the endpoint of Haruka was. He was married to Haruka for more than a decade now, but now he had to admit to his shame that he did not know her well enough to know with certainty what lied beneath her sanity.

Yuichiro opened the door, carefully, as quietly as possible. When the door was only a third open, he shoved himself in like a weasel through a mousehole, and then closed the door behind him equally silently. He was entering his own house like a thief.

"You are back."

Yuichiro almost jumped out of his skin. In the kitchen was Haruka, in her white pajama that was like a long dress, standing next to the refrigerator. She was not facing him but was simply continuing in her motion of taking out a jar of cold water from the lower compartment. He could not determine with sufficient certainty whether she was angry or not.

'I'm back. I'm so sorry to have neglected you and our son.'

The words failed to materialize. Yuichiro found himself standing on the spot paralyzed, like a mouse before a snake. Haruka put down the jar and looked at her husband.

"Are you coming in? Do you need to leave soon again?"

When Yuichiro finally realized that Haruka was not holding a grudge against him, and that in her eyes were only kindness and support, his mouth unfroze and his feet unglued. He very slowly removed his shoes and entered the house. Haruka assumed her husband came to have breakfast and put the frying pan on the gas stove.

"I...I'm...I'm staying today."
"Netto will be happy to know that you are staying today, you know. He has been asking me all yesterevening wether I knew you would come today for his birthday. I tried calling you but you would not pick up the phone. Come on in, and take a seat. The breakfast will be ready in a moment. Do you have Netto's PET, by the way?"
"...Yes."

Haruka sensed something was wrong with her husband. Well, she would be a blind woman if she did not notice. Yuichiro had stopped in his tracks and was standing next to the dining table, with a vacuous gaze in the general direction towards her. She was not sure if he was looking at her at all. She washed her hands, turned off the gas stove, and faced her husband.

What Yuichiro's broken mind saw, Haruka would never know, for it is difficult to explain the inexplicable. The fuzzy morning light, so brightly yellow, came through the kitchen window and scattered softly like a pastel coloring. From his point of view, the scattered lights seemingly collected behind her, like a holy halo. She was shining, in the glory of the morning. He had a chance to witness an object that evoked a perception of holiness of this magnitude only once in his life, in the statue of the virgin Mary, the Pieta, by Michelangelo. The exhausted mind of Yuichiro malfunctioned somewhere in the frontal lobe. He accepted this impression as the truth and was convinced that his wife had been a saint all along. He reasoned thus: no wonder a narrow wicked mind of his could not project what she would do at the end of the grief. She would simply accept all there is, and all there will be. She will hear him. She will judge him. She will sentence him. Dostoyevsky was right: to every crime, a punishment.

"What is wrong?"
'Haruka! Come, come quickly, without delay, hold me as a mother does to her prodigal son, so that I might be judged! Please, embrace this sinner...'

What came out of his mouth instead was an irrelevant question.

"Where is Netto?"
"He left early today, just before you came in. Did you not meet him? I know, it is surprising. He clearly did not sleep much last night. I do not know if he was too excited to sleep due to his birthday party or has too much going on in his head because it's his first birthday without his brother. He won't tell me much. In times like these, I find him too much like you. He is your son, after all. So, care to tell me what is going on?"

Yuichiro took a sit on a chair slowly while his eyes still focused on infinity behind Haruka, trying to get a glimpse into the hint of eternity hidden inside the halo (this fever dream of an idea was what Yuichiro truly believed at the moment). Haruka knew exactly how to coax out of her husband the deepest secrets, and to bring him back to reality. Otherwise, their marriage would not have survived the first week. She approached Yuichiro, which, to him, appeared as a procession of a living saint that was too holy for him to even lay his eyes on. Haruka stood in front of Yuichiro and pulled him in, so that he was leaning his face against her bosom, between her breasts. His arms drooped limp and hung straight downwards like a set of pendulums. Her hands were firmly on his head. She quietly spoke into Yuichiro's ears.

"Shh...it's okay. Now, tell me, what is wrong?"
"...I have sinned, Haruka."
"We all sin, Yuichiro. We live to forgive, not to be forgiven. If it is my forgiveness you seek, then you already have it. Now, confess and do not fear. Only believe that I love you and will love you."

Yuichiro made a deep long sigh of relief, for the comfort was found in the breasts of his wife and in the promise of love. He knew Haruka would wait for him as long as it took, but would not let him go until he confessed. This imprisonment was exactly what he needed.

"For the past three months...I could not accept our loss of our Saito Hikari. He was a light to us all. I prayed to God, even, in my desparation, but...where is justice? Where is goodness? Why must this happen?"

"Yuichiro...I know you never lost in your life. In exams, you excelled, In career, unmatched. My hand, you won. I knew you would not handle this well, for you wrestled with the world, and for the first time, you lost. You must not dwell too much on this. Do you not see that you have now transformed the matter into something for yourself, not for Saito? We gave him everything we could, and he found happiness in life. He left in peace, and we saw the smile on his face. I am guilty as charged in that I do too miss him, more than I should, but we must not blame ourselves.
Look, we both know the world is full of vice. Many in Scilab, whom we call friends in the time of plenty, will betray us in a heartbeat in the time of famine. When the order fails, they will stab you in the back and rape me with unbridled exhilaration, yet we endure together for we have promised to live for each other, not for self. We decided to raise our sons in love, not in animosity, so that they might learn to love the world also despite all its flaws, and become a leader, like you, who will gladly sacrifice himself for the greater good. In virtue we raised them, and in virtue they conducted themselves.
I consider it a true miracle that Saito was given to our care. Even if we take into account all our efforts to teach him love, he was too gentle, too kind, too good for all of us. We named us Hikaris, but he was the light above all, and we were all blinded by him. He could not be hidden from the world. Never did he complain, displayed wrath, or failed to forgive. He was obedient, honored us, and found favor in the eyes of men. I learned more from him than him from me, for he was a peacemaker. Doesn't even Bible writes that the peacemakers will be called sons of God, for they are so few in numbers, their existence so miraculous, their work so powerful?
He left us before he could see the full extent of the malice of the world. In this, I am glad, In this, I have found peace. He was indeed too good for the world. If there is heaven, then surely he is there, for we had a saint among us. I can only hope to live a life worthy enough to see him again.
Just as life can be a curse to someone, so can be death a blessing. There was justice, for this evil world was denied of the goodness named Saito. There was goodness, for he did not witness the evil in his lifetime. Do you know what care we poured into him to keep his heart beating? He stayed here for us, not for himself."

There was a pause. Yuichiro remained speechless. He had been like a toddler compared to his wife.

"Let him go, Yuichiro. We all need to let him go. When our hearts stop bleeding, then let us all go and scatter his ashes together."
"...Haruka, I'm so sorry. I...lost to the temptation."
"What did you do?"
"I was so engrossed in my knowledge, my capacity as a programmer, my power to make dreams into reality...that..."

Haruka did promise forgiveness. Given the opening words of his confession, Haruka was no longer sure if she would be able to do so. What kind of abomination had he committed was beyond her estimations. All she could be confident was that bad news was coming. A really bad one.

"I have made a new netnavi for our son, Netto."
"A birthday present for him? A good choice. It will surely uplift his spirit."
"The navi was made out of Saito's DNA."

Haruka wished him to stop here. Alas, she knew him too well-Yuichiro was a completionist and a perfectionist. He would not be satisfied with only recreating the body of his lost son.

"And I implanted it with the personality and memory of Saito, using a brain scan I made one week before his death."

Haruka's motherly instinct of protecting the nest kicked in. This truth would be too devastating if found out by...anyone else. Netto had to be preserved. Consequently, what Yuichiro had made had to be deleted. Saito was already no more; why let the ghost destroy her remaining son? A man is prone to tomfoolery, and Haruka should've known a situation like this could arise at any moment. They had much work to do today if they were to clean up this mess in time.

"The...netnavi is in Netto's PET. It thinks it is Saito, and...and...I could not...and I named it Rockman. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry...oh, Saito, I am so sorry..."

By Jove! Her husband was completely mad!

"Yuichiro, you will ruin us all one day. Do you know this?"
"...yes"
"Today's worry is enough for today. Let tomorrow worry for itself. Now go and take a shower, you stink."
"...yes"

He raised his head from between his wife's breasts. He was liberated. It was not because he was forgiven, but because he was exposed. He carefully took out the PET from the inner pocket of his labcoat and put it in Haruka's hands. He then slowly retreated to the bathroom. He was to wash himself-it was prescribed by his most holy and benevolent wife. A baptism to cleanse him.

Haruka saw Yuichiro disappear into the bathroom before taking a look at the PET. The power was off. She was technologically inept, but even she knew how to find the on/off button. Turning on the PET revealed the blue navi, Rockman. Haruka heard what Yuichiro said, she understood what Yuichiro said, but she was not ready for this. A face she could not forget-what kind of mother would she be had she forgotten?-was there. The blue navi opened his eyes upon finishing loading in. Haruka instinctively covered her mouth. If she had the power to create such a thing, would she had not done the same as her husband? The thing looked exactly like Saito. The worst part was that, according to the descriptions of her husband, it also possessed all of Saito's memories and believed itself as Saito.

'Is it my son, then, even though it is only a mirror image of a ghost? Is it not my son, when everything it remembers and believes is being Saito? Where is the boundary?'

The blue navi's emerald eyes pierced into Haruka's troubled soul. Less than five minutes ago she was determined to delete it. Her heart, which was as cold as ice, was melting rapidly as if exposed to the summer sun.

"Mama!"

The answer to her question became clear as day. 10 years ago, She had borne him through the pain of the womb. Today she bore him through the pain of the heart. Just as no one ever had a choice of being born into this world, so did this poor thing. What wrong did he commit other than being loved and missed so much?

"Where is Netto kun? Dad won't let me see him or call him. I need to tell him that I am still here, and have to tell him that..."

Rockman remembered his last prayer. By his judgment, it was answered, but the result must have wrecked his Netto completely.

"...that code blue not prompting was not his fault."

A chill went down Haruka's spine.

'Did not Yuichiro say that the brain scan was made one week before the passing? Then how does he...? Could this be, by the slimmest chance?'
"Can you...can you please tell me what happened afterward?"

Rockman of course was oblivious of what exactly Yuichiro did, other than that he tried to recreate him in desperation. What he did not understand was why his dad was not happier when he came to life. Father was profusely apologizing before transferring him to the PET and then turning it off. What followed was complete darkness without any sensory inputs. Rockman did not like it one bit. He hoped his mother would not turn off the PET in a similar fashion. Naturally, motivated Rockman innocently told Haruka all about the train station and how he got escorted out.

When Rockman finished his story, Haruka was crying. She gave a kiss on the PET and hugged it tightly.

"My son
My poor poor son
Come to your mother
You must be so exhausted"

"... ...
I'm home"