![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small}
Title: Access Denied
Chapter: 6/??
Author:![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
evilgeniuskoji
Beta:visualcomplex
Pairing: Reita/Ruki
Genre: Mystery, scifi, general
Rating: PG-13
Warning: None
Summary: AU. Saiko Reality is the hottest new virtual reality simulator. With an in-game experience that questions your reality and theirs, PSC's newest product has establishd a wide branch all over Central Tokyo. Such a large corporation cannot go witout its dark secrets...and as he struggles to remember his past, Ruki finds himself ensnared in the very heart of the problem.
Comments: Oh gosh, I am SO sorry how long this took. ><;; I didn't mean to drag it out so long, but I had the hardest writer's block ever. =/ Let's see if I still have readers after this.
File 01 | File 02 | File 03 | File 04 | File 05 |
The address scrawled in the book lead him to an apartment complex on the opposite side of the city. He pounded on the door, dripping water all over the welcome mat.
It swung open to reveal Reita in a grungy t-shirt and a pair of holey sweats. He blinked as he took in Ruki’s soaked appearance. The rain came unexpectedly on his way here, and had dyed his hair a shade darker, plastering it to his head. Specks of raindrops spotted his glasses. “…Ruki?”
“Don’t address me so familiarly,” Ruki snapped, shoving his glasses up as they slid down his nose. He wasn’t the most sociable person when his socks were wet. “Just tell me something—what does Kai have to do with this mess? If he does, then where is he?”
“Kai?” Reita repeated, his brows knitting slightly.
“My friend. He disappeared after the fire,” explained the other man. He studied Reita’s blank face and deflated, suddenly feeling very tired. “Never mind. You obviously didn’t even know he existed. I’ll go now.”
“Wait!” the blonde cried. “Where are you going? Didn’t you come to learn about your past? Isn’t that why you came here?”
Ruki turned back around. “I need to find Kai. I’m worried about him.” He smiled half-heartedly. “That guy can’t take care of himself for very long.”
“But—but don’t you want to know who you are?” Reita burst out with a tinge of desperation in his voice. “Don’t you want to remember?”
He dropped his gaze to the floor. “Of course I do. But everything you have to tell me—that already happened.” His lip curled. “Kai’s been a cheerful pain in my ass for a long time now. Whatever you have to tell me can wait until I’ve made sure he hasn’t forgotten his head somewhere.”
A hand wrapped around the soaked sleeve of his jacket before he could turn again and leave. Reita’s distressed face stared at him. “Listen to me. You have to know some of the stuff we can tell you, if only to know what choices to make from now on.” The grip around his arm tightened unconsciously. “Morita-sensei died trying to tell you. The least you could do is know what he risked his life for for. I don’t want you to die too.”
He must have seen Ruki’s hesitation, because he quickly added, “We might be able to help you find your friend, too. It—it’d be easier with help, right?”
Reita’s eyes were full of pleading desperation, but it was the mention of the late doctor that froze Ruki in his tracks. He spent several long seconds, torn—then his shoulders slumped in a soft sigh. “Alright. I’ll listen.”
“O-oh, okay,” the taller man seemed as if he didn’t expect Ruki to agree so readily. “I—come in before you catch a cold.”
Ruki felt like refusing just to be spiteful and demand their conversation out on Reita’s front door, but the rain was coming down harder than ever. “Alright,” muttered the blonde. “Sorry for intruding.”
Reita nodded and stepped aside. “I’ll go get a towel,” he murmured, and disappeared into another room.
Ruki glanced down at the carpet that he was dripping water all over and felt guilty. It was a well-lived in apartment. A jacket was draped carelessly over the backside of the couch; Ruki had a faint urge to hang it up somewhere but he shook it off. Video games spilled out of a pile by a wide-screen TV, and a controller lay tangled in the loops of its own line.
It felt both strange and familiar to stand here.
He almost didn’t catch the noisy footsteps coming up behind him. When he turned, Reita’s arms were piled with clothes and a folded towel. “I found some clothes. Bathroom’s to the left. You’ll fit in these.”
Ruki eyed Reita’s broader shoulders and height. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that.”
The other shrugged.
Sighing, Ruki relieved him of the stack and muttered his thanks. The bathroom was small and cramped, but the way his clothes stuck to his skin was starting to make him itch, so he began to strip them off. Reita had found him a t-shirt spray-painted with various logos and a pair of charcoal colored jeans worn at the knees. Both fit strangely well, and were at odds with Reita’s preferred style of dress if his plain sports shirt and shorts were any indication. A clean, soapy scent clung to the clothes—no doubt some sort of detergent. It settled over him like a cloud, and he inhaled deeply. The smell was familiar.
Frowning, he emerged from the bathroom. Reita looked up, a steaming mug in hand. He handed it off to Ruki as the man drew near. “How do they fit?”
“Perfectly,” Ruki said slowly. The mug was full of tea, and by the pleasantly familiar odor wafting from it, his favorite brand. He wondered how Reita knew, and felt oddly warmed. “They aren’t yours, are they?”
“No, they’re yours,” Reita replied without thinking, but immediately winced as if he regretted it.
Ruki stared, but then shook his head. “Never mind,” he muttered, nursing the cup of tea between his cold hands.
An awkward silence fell over the room, the two men carefully avoiding one another’s gaze. At last Reita cleared his throat and picked up an old-fashioned paper folder that hadn’t been there before Ruki went into the bathroom.
“Here,” he said, handing it over to Ruki. “Your life, in a nutshell.”
It struck Ruki how very thin the folder was. For a minute he only held it aloft, wondering if his life really had been so empty—and if he really wanted to open it.
When he finally made the decision and opened the folder, staring back at him from a photograph was a younger version of himself. Dull, limp red hair, rounder cheeks, a shyer smile. A name was printed next to the picture: his name.
Matsumoto Takanori
His breath caught. There were other things, bits and pieces of information that jumped out at him from the text as he skimmed through the pages. Age 27. Male. Family, mother, father, older sister, dog. A word that seemed strangely familiar caught his attention before sliding away again. Harugin.
The end of the folder consisted of two sparse lines. Current condition: Missing after a power shortage during a session of Saiko Reality aborted the mission. Presumed dead by the authorities and PSC.
Ruki snapped the file shut. “That can’t be it.” He heard his voice strain.
“Yeah, it’s not.” Reita sighed. “That’s the official police file on you.” He got up and shrugged on his jacket.
“Where are you going?”
“Taking you to someone who can explain it better than I can.”
---
“Here we are,” Reita announced, coming to a stop in front of a small and dingy store. It only had one story, so the taller buildings towered over like hulking mountains beside it. An old neon sign hung in the window, looking shabby next to the holographic advertisement glowing in a store across the street. ‘Shiroyama Games’, it said, but one of the characters sputtered unsteadily next to the steady glow of the others.
Reita shoved the door aside and disappeared into the shop. After a moment of hesitance, Ruki followed. It was a maze inside, one cramped aisle leading to the next, sleek video game chips crammed side by side with the bulky disks of an old generation. Somehow Reita found his way through the mess and lead them straight to the counter.
It was empty, but their footsteps must have alerted someone, because soon there was a muffled “Just a sec!” from deeper within the store. A man emerged with a large pile of magazines in his arms a moment later, which he promptly dropped onto the counter with a soft thump. “How may I help—oh, it’s Reita.”
“Aoi.”
“What brings you here?” his eyes skittered over to Ruki . “Oh, no. Oh, no. I thought we agreed not involve him.” He looked horrified, lashing out at Reita almost viciously.
Reita shrugged it off. “He insisted.”
“Well, insist on not telling him.”
“If you’re done talking about me like I’m not here,” Ruki said loudly, “it seems like everyone knows who I am but me. Who are you?”
The other man sighed. “Shiroyama,” he relinquished grudgingly. He had overlong, dark black hair that looked like it hadn’t been washed in a few days and eyebrows that were plucked to the point of near invisibility. A black piercing hung from his lower lip. “Or I guess you should know me by ‘Aoi’…Ruki.”
---
Beneath the store, there was apparently a basement in which Aoi appeared to be living in. Ruki refrained from asking why he didn’t live above the shop like a normal person and tried not to trip over too many steps.
The stairway led to a door with an unusually outdated security measure: a padlock. Aoi pulled out something that didn’t look like a key, but the door opened in the next second and the dark-haired man walked in.
It was a startling contrast to the less modern settings upstairs. State-of-the-art screens were mounted up on the walls, computers scattered upon just about every flat surface, their monitors, holographic and solid, alive with color and movement despite the fact that no one was tending to them.
“What is all this?” Ruki wondered as he followed them into the room. “How did you…”
“Oh, we couldn’t afford all this on our own, of course.” Reita flopped down on a couch gracelessly. “Morita-sensei donated a lot to us a few months ago, including the terminal.” He pointed at the large, oval-shaped contraption shoved up against a wall.
“He’s been very good to us.” Aoi had settled into a chair positioned in front of the largest screen, and as he spoke, his fingers tapped over the keyboard. “I’m sorry he’s dead.” Despite his words, he sounded indifferent, like a bystander remarking on someone else’s tragedy.
Ruki fell silent at the mention of the late doctor, but the quiet in the room didn’t last long. “I’m guessing Reita brought you here to tell you everything,” Aoi broke in. Reita made a noncommittal noise and Ruki nodded, so he went on. “How much do you remember?”
“Not much,” Ruki admitted. “It’s all bits and pieces.”
“You remember more than you think you do,” Reita interrupted. “Like your book?”
“Yeah, I read some of that.” Aoi nodded and steepled his fingers thoughtfully under his chin. “Scenery’s directly out of Saiko, isn’t it?”
“Saiko?” Ruki’s brows furrowed. “That’s the game they found me in when I lost my memories, isn’t it?”
“Of course.” The dark-haired man looked surprised. “Don’t tell me you never got curious enough to try and get back in the game.”
He shrugged awkwardly. “Morita-sensei warned me against it every time I brought it up. Something about how it might mess up my brainwaves, but I didn’t really understand that.”
“Of course he would,” Aoi muttered. “The old fool.”
Ruki had to bite back his scathing response to Aoi’s lack of manners and respect for the dead. “So why don’t you explain to me why…Saiko Reality…is so important to all this?” he said when he finally regained control over himself.
“Important?” A bark of laughter escaped the older man. “SR is the crux of everything.
“At the turn of the century, some new company called PSC released a new game on the market that took the gaming world by storm—Saiko Reality, a virtual reality game that was supposed to give you more in-game experience than ever.”
“Of course, all the virtual reality games say that,” Reita muttered.
Aoi smiled wryly. “Yeah, but PSC actually meant it this time.” He turned to Ruki. “In Saiko, you keep every sensation you have in the real world. Everything. Touch, scent, sight, sound, taste.” The dark-haired man rattled them off effortlessly. “You could touch gold and silver, or the person beside you, smell smoke as you watch a forest burn down. You could even eat something and taste it, though you won’t be getting any nutrition from the food.”
Ruki’s breath caught. “But how does it do that?” he demanded. “How can a game make you feel all that?”
Aoi got up and walked over to the machine Reita had called a terminal, rapping his knuckle on the hollow, translucent blue glass top. The rest of it was sleek and silver. “This is the terminal connects you to SR.”
Ruki drifted over for a closer look when the glass suddenly lifted and revealed a cushy-looking chair, surrounded by flat, metallic screens and a control board. “So how does it work?”
“You know how your brain sends out signals to the nerves in your body so it can move and react and stuff?” Ruki nodded. “It’s like that with SR. They send out signals to your brain so it processes the sensations. Likewise, when you want to move your character within the game to, say, touch something, SR intercepts those signals and the motion is carried out.”
Reita made his way over and grinned at Ruki’s frown. “Confusing, right? I didn’t get it at first either.” He tapped two small, rectangular boxes on either side of the headrest of the chair. “These are the main sensors, apparently. They send out brainwaves and your brain,” he tapped Ruki’s head then, “reads the signals, and makes you feel like you’re doing what the game says you’re doing.”
Ruki waved Reita’s hand off irritably, a motion that, for some reason, felt practiced and familiar. “Okay. I guess I can understand that. But what happens to our bodies when we’re in that thing?”
Shrugging, Aoi tapped the lid of the terminal closed. “The sensors put part of your mind into a comatose state so you don’t go around physically doing everything your mind says you’re doing. It’s all in your head, basically. Or,” his lip twisted bitterly, “that’s what they say.”
Ruki didn’t have time to puzzle that cryptic comment out. Aoi turned around and strode towards one of the desks weighed down with computers. From its drawer he pulled out a slim, rectangular card that seemed to be made of glass. The iridescent sheen was familiar.
“I have something like that,” Ruki said without thinking. “I had it when they first found me,” he explained when the other two turned to stare.”
“Do you still have it?” Reita’s voice was barely containing its excitement.
“Yeah.”
“This is an ID card, sort of,” Aoi held the chip up. “They call them a ‘pass-cards’. In SR, this little baby contains all your info, your data, for the character you’ve created. If you still have it, then that means we can still access your old account…good. You’ll need one of these cards to interface—that’s when you go into the coma and enter the game completely—and PSC requires you to register at one of their buildings in person to get a new one. We don’t want to mess with them right now, so it’s good that you still have your old one…You can get into your old account, and you should feel more comfortable in that skin.”
Most that that went over Ruki’s head, so he dismissed it immediately. “But what about Kai?” he asked Reita. “You said you’d help me find him.”
“Kai?” Aoi blinked, confused.
“My friend. He disappeared after a fire at my apartment.” Ruki gripped his fists unconsciously. “I got a call from him right before I found the fire, but I haven’t heard from him since then. When I went back to my apartment today, I thought I saw him outside…but he was acting strange, and he looked different too, so I can’t be sure…” his voice trailed off. “I found something in his room, now that I think about it, it kind of looks like that.”
He pointed at the chip in Aoi’s hand, digging around in his pocket till he retrieved a similar object. It was the same size and shape—but etched in one corner was a logo of red and white squares. Frowning, Aoi approached with his hand held out. Ruki dropped it into his palm.
“This is the PSC logo,” Aoi muttered. “But I’ve never seen them on pass-cards. Have you?” he asked Reita, who shook his head. “You said you found it in your friend’s room?”
Ruki nodded.
Several long seconds passed as the dark-haired man contemplated the card, turning it over and over in his hands. At last he shrugged and opened up the terminal again, hopping into the seat and sliding the card into a small slot. The top did not come down again, so Ruki and Reita watched curiously as the screen in front of the seat came to life.
The first thing to flash across the screen was a logo made of red and white squares, just like the pattern on the card inside the slot. Three letters were stamped over the squares: PSC.
The logo faded and was replaced by white letters on a black screen.
PLEASE CONFIRM USER. ENTER PASSWORD HERE.
A cursor blinked consistently on a thin white line.
Aoi cursed fluently in a dialect Ruki didn’t quite catch. “Dammit! These things aren’t usually locked down! What kind of pass-card is this?”
Frowning, Reita came around. “They have a password on it?”
“Yes, and that’s damned weird!”
“They don’t usually have a password?” Ruki wanted to know.
“No,” the blonde echoed. “Some people pay extra for the security, but most don’t bother. Aoi, does it matter?”
The lanky man shrugged. “If it really belongs to your friend, we might learn something from this weird pass-card,” he told Ruki. “And I’m itching to know what’s on here now.”
Ruki frowned. “How will you get in if there’s a password?”
A mischievous grin flashed up at him. “Hack my way in. I’ve done it before, but it’ll take a while.” He noted Ruki’s sluggishness and said, “Why don’t you just stay the night? You and Reita can. He knows where the spare futon are, and you can take the next room.” Aoi turned away from them and attached a cable from a nearby laptop to the terminal. The screens on both machines became erratic with movement, and Aoi began typing, muttering to himself as he worked.
Reita nodded silently and jerked his head for Ruki to follow. The clicking of keys faded away as the door closed behind them.
Chapter: 6/??
Author:
evilgeniuskojiBeta:
visualcomplexPairing: Reita/Ruki
Genre: Mystery, scifi, general
Rating: PG-13
Warning: None
Summary: AU. Saiko Reality is the hottest new virtual reality simulator. With an in-game experience that questions your reality and theirs, PSC's newest product has establishd a wide branch all over Central Tokyo. Such a large corporation cannot go witout its dark secrets...and as he struggles to remember his past, Ruki finds himself ensnared in the very heart of the problem.
Comments: Oh gosh, I am SO sorry how long this took. ><;; I didn't mean to drag it out so long, but I had the hardest writer's block ever. =/ Let's see if I still have readers after this.
File 01 | File 02 | File 03 | File 04 | File 05 |
The address scrawled in the book lead him to an apartment complex on the opposite side of the city. He pounded on the door, dripping water all over the welcome mat.
It swung open to reveal Reita in a grungy t-shirt and a pair of holey sweats. He blinked as he took in Ruki’s soaked appearance. The rain came unexpectedly on his way here, and had dyed his hair a shade darker, plastering it to his head. Specks of raindrops spotted his glasses. “…Ruki?”
“Don’t address me so familiarly,” Ruki snapped, shoving his glasses up as they slid down his nose. He wasn’t the most sociable person when his socks were wet. “Just tell me something—what does Kai have to do with this mess? If he does, then where is he?”
“Kai?” Reita repeated, his brows knitting slightly.
“My friend. He disappeared after the fire,” explained the other man. He studied Reita’s blank face and deflated, suddenly feeling very tired. “Never mind. You obviously didn’t even know he existed. I’ll go now.”
“Wait!” the blonde cried. “Where are you going? Didn’t you come to learn about your past? Isn’t that why you came here?”
Ruki turned back around. “I need to find Kai. I’m worried about him.” He smiled half-heartedly. “That guy can’t take care of himself for very long.”
“But—but don’t you want to know who you are?” Reita burst out with a tinge of desperation in his voice. “Don’t you want to remember?”
He dropped his gaze to the floor. “Of course I do. But everything you have to tell me—that already happened.” His lip curled. “Kai’s been a cheerful pain in my ass for a long time now. Whatever you have to tell me can wait until I’ve made sure he hasn’t forgotten his head somewhere.”
A hand wrapped around the soaked sleeve of his jacket before he could turn again and leave. Reita’s distressed face stared at him. “Listen to me. You have to know some of the stuff we can tell you, if only to know what choices to make from now on.” The grip around his arm tightened unconsciously. “Morita-sensei died trying to tell you. The least you could do is know what he risked his life for for. I don’t want you to die too.”
He must have seen Ruki’s hesitation, because he quickly added, “We might be able to help you find your friend, too. It—it’d be easier with help, right?”
Reita’s eyes were full of pleading desperation, but it was the mention of the late doctor that froze Ruki in his tracks. He spent several long seconds, torn—then his shoulders slumped in a soft sigh. “Alright. I’ll listen.”
“O-oh, okay,” the taller man seemed as if he didn’t expect Ruki to agree so readily. “I—come in before you catch a cold.”
Ruki felt like refusing just to be spiteful and demand their conversation out on Reita’s front door, but the rain was coming down harder than ever. “Alright,” muttered the blonde. “Sorry for intruding.”
Reita nodded and stepped aside. “I’ll go get a towel,” he murmured, and disappeared into another room.
Ruki glanced down at the carpet that he was dripping water all over and felt guilty. It was a well-lived in apartment. A jacket was draped carelessly over the backside of the couch; Ruki had a faint urge to hang it up somewhere but he shook it off. Video games spilled out of a pile by a wide-screen TV, and a controller lay tangled in the loops of its own line.
It felt both strange and familiar to stand here.
He almost didn’t catch the noisy footsteps coming up behind him. When he turned, Reita’s arms were piled with clothes and a folded towel. “I found some clothes. Bathroom’s to the left. You’ll fit in these.”
Ruki eyed Reita’s broader shoulders and height. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that.”
The other shrugged.
Sighing, Ruki relieved him of the stack and muttered his thanks. The bathroom was small and cramped, but the way his clothes stuck to his skin was starting to make him itch, so he began to strip them off. Reita had found him a t-shirt spray-painted with various logos and a pair of charcoal colored jeans worn at the knees. Both fit strangely well, and were at odds with Reita’s preferred style of dress if his plain sports shirt and shorts were any indication. A clean, soapy scent clung to the clothes—no doubt some sort of detergent. It settled over him like a cloud, and he inhaled deeply. The smell was familiar.
Frowning, he emerged from the bathroom. Reita looked up, a steaming mug in hand. He handed it off to Ruki as the man drew near. “How do they fit?”
“Perfectly,” Ruki said slowly. The mug was full of tea, and by the pleasantly familiar odor wafting from it, his favorite brand. He wondered how Reita knew, and felt oddly warmed. “They aren’t yours, are they?”
“No, they’re yours,” Reita replied without thinking, but immediately winced as if he regretted it.
Ruki stared, but then shook his head. “Never mind,” he muttered, nursing the cup of tea between his cold hands.
An awkward silence fell over the room, the two men carefully avoiding one another’s gaze. At last Reita cleared his throat and picked up an old-fashioned paper folder that hadn’t been there before Ruki went into the bathroom.
“Here,” he said, handing it over to Ruki. “Your life, in a nutshell.”
It struck Ruki how very thin the folder was. For a minute he only held it aloft, wondering if his life really had been so empty—and if he really wanted to open it.
When he finally made the decision and opened the folder, staring back at him from a photograph was a younger version of himself. Dull, limp red hair, rounder cheeks, a shyer smile. A name was printed next to the picture: his name.
Matsumoto Takanori
His breath caught. There were other things, bits and pieces of information that jumped out at him from the text as he skimmed through the pages. Age 27. Male. Family, mother, father, older sister, dog. A word that seemed strangely familiar caught his attention before sliding away again. Harugin.
The end of the folder consisted of two sparse lines. Current condition: Missing after a power shortage during a session of Saiko Reality aborted the mission. Presumed dead by the authorities and PSC.
Ruki snapped the file shut. “That can’t be it.” He heard his voice strain.
“Yeah, it’s not.” Reita sighed. “That’s the official police file on you.” He got up and shrugged on his jacket.
“Where are you going?”
“Taking you to someone who can explain it better than I can.”
---
“Here we are,” Reita announced, coming to a stop in front of a small and dingy store. It only had one story, so the taller buildings towered over like hulking mountains beside it. An old neon sign hung in the window, looking shabby next to the holographic advertisement glowing in a store across the street. ‘Shiroyama Games’, it said, but one of the characters sputtered unsteadily next to the steady glow of the others.
Reita shoved the door aside and disappeared into the shop. After a moment of hesitance, Ruki followed. It was a maze inside, one cramped aisle leading to the next, sleek video game chips crammed side by side with the bulky disks of an old generation. Somehow Reita found his way through the mess and lead them straight to the counter.
It was empty, but their footsteps must have alerted someone, because soon there was a muffled “Just a sec!” from deeper within the store. A man emerged with a large pile of magazines in his arms a moment later, which he promptly dropped onto the counter with a soft thump. “How may I help—oh, it’s Reita.”
“Aoi.”
“What brings you here?” his eyes skittered over to Ruki . “Oh, no. Oh, no. I thought we agreed not involve him.” He looked horrified, lashing out at Reita almost viciously.
Reita shrugged it off. “He insisted.”
“Well, insist on not telling him.”
“If you’re done talking about me like I’m not here,” Ruki said loudly, “it seems like everyone knows who I am but me. Who are you?”
The other man sighed. “Shiroyama,” he relinquished grudgingly. He had overlong, dark black hair that looked like it hadn’t been washed in a few days and eyebrows that were plucked to the point of near invisibility. A black piercing hung from his lower lip. “Or I guess you should know me by ‘Aoi’…Ruki.”
---
Beneath the store, there was apparently a basement in which Aoi appeared to be living in. Ruki refrained from asking why he didn’t live above the shop like a normal person and tried not to trip over too many steps.
The stairway led to a door with an unusually outdated security measure: a padlock. Aoi pulled out something that didn’t look like a key, but the door opened in the next second and the dark-haired man walked in.
It was a startling contrast to the less modern settings upstairs. State-of-the-art screens were mounted up on the walls, computers scattered upon just about every flat surface, their monitors, holographic and solid, alive with color and movement despite the fact that no one was tending to them.
“What is all this?” Ruki wondered as he followed them into the room. “How did you…”
“Oh, we couldn’t afford all this on our own, of course.” Reita flopped down on a couch gracelessly. “Morita-sensei donated a lot to us a few months ago, including the terminal.” He pointed at the large, oval-shaped contraption shoved up against a wall.
“He’s been very good to us.” Aoi had settled into a chair positioned in front of the largest screen, and as he spoke, his fingers tapped over the keyboard. “I’m sorry he’s dead.” Despite his words, he sounded indifferent, like a bystander remarking on someone else’s tragedy.
Ruki fell silent at the mention of the late doctor, but the quiet in the room didn’t last long. “I’m guessing Reita brought you here to tell you everything,” Aoi broke in. Reita made a noncommittal noise and Ruki nodded, so he went on. “How much do you remember?”
“Not much,” Ruki admitted. “It’s all bits and pieces.”
“You remember more than you think you do,” Reita interrupted. “Like your book?”
“Yeah, I read some of that.” Aoi nodded and steepled his fingers thoughtfully under his chin. “Scenery’s directly out of Saiko, isn’t it?”
“Saiko?” Ruki’s brows furrowed. “That’s the game they found me in when I lost my memories, isn’t it?”
“Of course.” The dark-haired man looked surprised. “Don’t tell me you never got curious enough to try and get back in the game.”
He shrugged awkwardly. “Morita-sensei warned me against it every time I brought it up. Something about how it might mess up my brainwaves, but I didn’t really understand that.”
“Of course he would,” Aoi muttered. “The old fool.”
Ruki had to bite back his scathing response to Aoi’s lack of manners and respect for the dead. “So why don’t you explain to me why…Saiko Reality…is so important to all this?” he said when he finally regained control over himself.
“Important?” A bark of laughter escaped the older man. “SR is the crux of everything.
“At the turn of the century, some new company called PSC released a new game on the market that took the gaming world by storm—Saiko Reality, a virtual reality game that was supposed to give you more in-game experience than ever.”
“Of course, all the virtual reality games say that,” Reita muttered.
Aoi smiled wryly. “Yeah, but PSC actually meant it this time.” He turned to Ruki. “In Saiko, you keep every sensation you have in the real world. Everything. Touch, scent, sight, sound, taste.” The dark-haired man rattled them off effortlessly. “You could touch gold and silver, or the person beside you, smell smoke as you watch a forest burn down. You could even eat something and taste it, though you won’t be getting any nutrition from the food.”
Ruki’s breath caught. “But how does it do that?” he demanded. “How can a game make you feel all that?”
Aoi got up and walked over to the machine Reita had called a terminal, rapping his knuckle on the hollow, translucent blue glass top. The rest of it was sleek and silver. “This is the terminal connects you to SR.”
Ruki drifted over for a closer look when the glass suddenly lifted and revealed a cushy-looking chair, surrounded by flat, metallic screens and a control board. “So how does it work?”
“You know how your brain sends out signals to the nerves in your body so it can move and react and stuff?” Ruki nodded. “It’s like that with SR. They send out signals to your brain so it processes the sensations. Likewise, when you want to move your character within the game to, say, touch something, SR intercepts those signals and the motion is carried out.”
Reita made his way over and grinned at Ruki’s frown. “Confusing, right? I didn’t get it at first either.” He tapped two small, rectangular boxes on either side of the headrest of the chair. “These are the main sensors, apparently. They send out brainwaves and your brain,” he tapped Ruki’s head then, “reads the signals, and makes you feel like you’re doing what the game says you’re doing.”
Ruki waved Reita’s hand off irritably, a motion that, for some reason, felt practiced and familiar. “Okay. I guess I can understand that. But what happens to our bodies when we’re in that thing?”
Shrugging, Aoi tapped the lid of the terminal closed. “The sensors put part of your mind into a comatose state so you don’t go around physically doing everything your mind says you’re doing. It’s all in your head, basically. Or,” his lip twisted bitterly, “that’s what they say.”
Ruki didn’t have time to puzzle that cryptic comment out. Aoi turned around and strode towards one of the desks weighed down with computers. From its drawer he pulled out a slim, rectangular card that seemed to be made of glass. The iridescent sheen was familiar.
“I have something like that,” Ruki said without thinking. “I had it when they first found me,” he explained when the other two turned to stare.”
“Do you still have it?” Reita’s voice was barely containing its excitement.
“Yeah.”
“This is an ID card, sort of,” Aoi held the chip up. “They call them a ‘pass-cards’. In SR, this little baby contains all your info, your data, for the character you’ve created. If you still have it, then that means we can still access your old account…good. You’ll need one of these cards to interface—that’s when you go into the coma and enter the game completely—and PSC requires you to register at one of their buildings in person to get a new one. We don’t want to mess with them right now, so it’s good that you still have your old one…You can get into your old account, and you should feel more comfortable in that skin.”
Most that that went over Ruki’s head, so he dismissed it immediately. “But what about Kai?” he asked Reita. “You said you’d help me find him.”
“Kai?” Aoi blinked, confused.
“My friend. He disappeared after a fire at my apartment.” Ruki gripped his fists unconsciously. “I got a call from him right before I found the fire, but I haven’t heard from him since then. When I went back to my apartment today, I thought I saw him outside…but he was acting strange, and he looked different too, so I can’t be sure…” his voice trailed off. “I found something in his room, now that I think about it, it kind of looks like that.”
He pointed at the chip in Aoi’s hand, digging around in his pocket till he retrieved a similar object. It was the same size and shape—but etched in one corner was a logo of red and white squares. Frowning, Aoi approached with his hand held out. Ruki dropped it into his palm.
“This is the PSC logo,” Aoi muttered. “But I’ve never seen them on pass-cards. Have you?” he asked Reita, who shook his head. “You said you found it in your friend’s room?”
Ruki nodded.
Several long seconds passed as the dark-haired man contemplated the card, turning it over and over in his hands. At last he shrugged and opened up the terminal again, hopping into the seat and sliding the card into a small slot. The top did not come down again, so Ruki and Reita watched curiously as the screen in front of the seat came to life.
The first thing to flash across the screen was a logo made of red and white squares, just like the pattern on the card inside the slot. Three letters were stamped over the squares: PSC.
The logo faded and was replaced by white letters on a black screen.
PLEASE CONFIRM USER. ENTER PASSWORD HERE.
A cursor blinked consistently on a thin white line.
Aoi cursed fluently in a dialect Ruki didn’t quite catch. “Dammit! These things aren’t usually locked down! What kind of pass-card is this?”
Frowning, Reita came around. “They have a password on it?”
“Yes, and that’s damned weird!”
“They don’t usually have a password?” Ruki wanted to know.
“No,” the blonde echoed. “Some people pay extra for the security, but most don’t bother. Aoi, does it matter?”
The lanky man shrugged. “If it really belongs to your friend, we might learn something from this weird pass-card,” he told Ruki. “And I’m itching to know what’s on here now.”
Ruki frowned. “How will you get in if there’s a password?”
A mischievous grin flashed up at him. “Hack my way in. I’ve done it before, but it’ll take a while.” He noted Ruki’s sluggishness and said, “Why don’t you just stay the night? You and Reita can. He knows where the spare futon are, and you can take the next room.” Aoi turned away from them and attached a cable from a nearby laptop to the terminal. The screens on both machines became erratic with movement, and Aoi began typing, muttering to himself as he worked.
Reita nodded silently and jerked his head for Ruki to follow. The clicking of keys faded away as the door closed behind them.
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