Chapter 8 - part two
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"So what we decided," Chika said, "is that we're not going to report you." Miaki bowed his head again. It was hard to tell whether or not he was relieved. Chika went on, "Part of the reason is what you've already been through, and Kenji defending you. But we need you to keep working with us, for something more important. And even Kenji understands this, and agrees about it. You're going to have to work with the rest of us on the larger problem we've discovered. We can't have you running off on your own any more, to try to get your revenge on Mr. Tanaka."

Miaki's hands clenched into fists. He didn't look up. "So that's where it ends? I have to visit my father's grave and know who murdered him, but just let it go?" It sounded like he was weeping.

"No." Toshi put a hand on his cousin's hair. "Miaki, wait. Don't lose hope yet. Let us tell you everything. Chika and I found out something last night. We were right – some of the VR simulations at the school do intrude into the real world. It didn't strike me right away, but I've been thinking about the list of simulations today. They're all military in some way."

"That was worrisome enough," said Chika, "but I'd forgotten to tell Toshi what I found out when I double-checked the specs for one of them last night. It was a military rocket laboratory that isn't on any publically-known government register in the world."

"Which is very suspicious," said Toshi.

"But the other thing I found out when I checked the specs to get into the security camera system – is that it's a laboratory inside the military of the Pacific Rim government."

Miaki's head shot up. They could see that there were, indeed, tears in his eyes. But his eyes had sharpened on Chika's face, full of intense excitement despite himself.

"Pacific Rim...," he breathed.

"Yes," Toshi said. "It might explain the big money donation yesterday. And Mr. Tanaka is obviously connected somehow. And if the secret is really big – then if your father accidentally stumbled on some information about it – that would explain why Mr. Tanaka killed him."

"So you see," said Chika. "We're going to insist that you stop your own investigations and work with the rest of us. But it doesn't mean you have to abandon trying to bring your father's killer to justice. If there is a military plot going on, contravening all world peace agreements and putting the world in danger – and if we can find the details and help to bring down the plot – the man who killed your father is likely to fall as well. You can add your evidence to everything else we find, and the authorities will deal with all of it."

"But investigating the larger plot has to be the priority," Toshi said. "I want to bring my uncle's killer down almost as much as you do, Miaki. But I've agreed that this larger danger has to be investigated first, even if it means sacrificing our family's need for justice. The big question is whether you can agree to this too."

The cousins' eyes met and held for a long time, Miaki's darkly shaded and overshadowed by his dark hair, and Toshi's bright beneath his sunny hair. None of the others could tell what communication might be going on beneath that intense gaze, but after a moment they saw Toshi smile fondly.

"I knew you'd understand," he said.

Miaki turned toward Chika. "I can agree to that."

"But what we need if you're going to work with us on this," said Julie, "is some sort of guarantee that you're not going to go off the deep end again. Which is a problem, because I don't know if you can give us that, Miaki."

He leaned back against the wall and made his fists unclench. He looked very weary. But his eyes were clear as he looked back at her. "I will never do anything like that again," he said. His eyes moved to Kenji's strained face. "I mean it, Kenji," he said softly.

"Yes," said Julie. "I really believe you mean it now. But what if you get another shock, like you did yesterday? You seemed to have total control of yourself for a few weeks, and then you find out about Mr. Tanaka and all that control gets blown to bits. How do we know it won't happen again?"

His hand moved to the chain around his neck. Toshi had grabbed it last night and returned it to him when they'd gotten back to his room. His fingers found his father's literary medal and clasped around it. "I swear it," he whispered, "in the name of my father. Let him curse me from his grave if I ever do such a thing again."

They greeted this declaration in silence, searching his solemn face. But Toshi flopped himself onto his back on the bed, propping himself up with his elbows.

"I case you haven't figured it out," he said, "that's about as solid a guarantee as you can possibly get."

"Alright," Chika said. "I think you're right. We'll hold you to it, Miaki. I think we all need a couple of days off, so let's meet again two nights from now. And I think it's a good idea to meet in the room you went to last night. Not as a reminder of what happened between you and Kenji, but because it's fairly out of the way and not used much."

Toshi added, "We've started thinking that if there's some element at ISCE that's involved in something covert, maybe we'd better take even more precautions than we've taken so far. Julie's already working on setting up some kind of advance warning device to tip us off if anyone comes near the room while we're all in the VR world. And we've got other things we're going to try, too. But starting in that room is a good way to go, for now."

Chika asked, "Is that okay with you, Kenji?" He nodded. "Right, then. Let's all get a good night's sleep tonight. I think we need it." She opened the door, and ushered Kenji and Julie through it, before departing herself.

Jin went to the desk and pulled out the chair. "Come and eat, Miaki," she said. "I bet you haven't been able to eat all day. But I think you'll feel better now."

To Toshi's surprise, Miaki obeyed immediately, going to the desk and sitting down. Sitting at that level, he had to look up at Jin's face, though only barely. "You didn't say anything that whole time," he said. "Do you really hate me?"

She laughed. "Are you afraid I've put poison in the food?"

To Toshi's further surprise, Miaki actually laughed back, a little. "No," he said. "Though you probably should have." His smile faded. "But I still...don't get..."

"I was there when you found out for sure about Mr. Tanaka, remember?" she answered. "I made sure they knew how bad it was when you found out. But what you did to Kenji was very bad, too. I wanted them to decide what they've decided, but...I didn't really think I could try to push the decision either way. I felt it was Kenji's decision to make. We all did, really. I was just hoping this was the way he'd go. He's a very good person, Miaki. Very brave when he needs to be."

Miaki bowed his head. "I know. And I'm..."

Jin put a hand on his shoulder. "You're a good person too. I know that, Toshi knows that, and I think the others know it too, or they wouldn't have decided the way they have. So don't worry about things now. Just have something to eat and get some sleep."

He touched her hand for a moment, and nodded. Though even after she'd finally left, he sat in silence for a moment, brooding.

Toshi remarked from the bed, "Look, cousin, if you don't get on with eating supper before it gets any colder, I'm going to grab it and eat it myself, to justify having brought it all this way. That hot plate, burning my delicate hands, while it smelled so good all the way down the hall and it was so hard on me and I used so much self control and didn't have even one teeny little bite – "

He broke off in consternation as he saw Miaki's shoulders starting to shake. But his cousin suddenly threw back his head and laughed. He kept laughing, helplessly, as Toshi pushed himself off the bed and moved to the desk. Toshi grinned down at him, then took a fork, stabbed a piece of fish, and tried to jam it into Miaki's mouth. Miaki knocked it aside and it fell on the floor. For some reason, this struck him as funny too, and the laughter started all over again.

The two of them laughed like that for a long time, Miaki calming down enough to start eating, and then catching Toshi's eye and bursting out again. The meal did get eaten. Eventually. But Toshi didn't mind how long it took. He knew the laughter was mainly a release of the terrible tension Miaki had felt all day, and it probably wouldn't make much difference to how he felt tomorrow. Yet all Toshi could think, through the unexpected happiness he felt, was that he hadn't seen Miaki laugh like this for over a year.

* * * * *

Julie had stopped with Kenji when they reached his door, and asked to come in just for a minute. Chika had raised a speculative eyebrow, laughing a little as Julie rolled her eyes at her, and then continued out of the men's dorm wing by herself.

Once inside Kenji's room, Julie quickly got down to business.

"I know Miaki has made that big promise," she said, "but I still think you need a little protection, just in case."

"Do you?" Kenji asked uneasily. "He seemed to mean it. I thought so, anyway."

"You're probably right, but I still think it would be a good idea to give you something extra. Hold still." She pulled her little "wand" out of a pocket, and changed a setting on the tiny panel on its side. Then she took Kenji's hand, with its locator ring, and waved the wand over it.

Kenji turned his hand over a couple of times, looking at the ring, examining its metallic sheen. It neither looked nor felt any different.

"What did you do?" he asked.

"I've set it to protect you in the VR world," Julie said. "It will let your avatar and Miaki's interact at a distance, and even interact up close for short periods of time. But if there is any prolonged contact with his avatar, yours will start to repel it."

"You mean, actually push it away?"

"Yes. So if he was trying to hold you in one place for a long time, you'd automatically push him away. You might not be able to get out of the sort of cage he had you in last night, but he wouldn't be able to hit you. And if he grabbed you really suddenly, with more than normal force, the pushing would start sooner."

Kenji didn't seem entirely comfortable. "And you think I really need this?"

"I hope not. But I think you're better safe than sorry," she said. "In fact, I'm trying to refine the program, so he can never stop you from logging out either. That's a bit trickier. And you probably won't even need this much protection. But at least you'll be safe now if he does blow his cool again."

Kenji flexed his hand once more, then smiled ruefully. "Okay, if you really think I should have it. I guess it can't hurt, can it?"

"No," Julie smiled back. "It can't hurt at all. Especially if you keep it private. The fewer people who know about it, the less likely he'll be to find out, and figure out a way to get around it. So don't tell anyone, okay?"

"I won't."

After she had gone, Kenji got ready for bed. Chika had gotten him to remove the makeup before they went to Miaki's room, so his assailant could see the full results of the beating last night, but he still felt like washing his face again. That stuff really stuck. He gave himself a thorough wash, and finally crawled into bed. He laid in the dark for a while, trying not to think. Of course it was hopeless, since it had only been 24 hours since he'd found out the awful truth about his father.

So many things he and Miaki now had in common, in such a twisted way. So many hurtful, haunting things.

Kenji gingerly touched the cut by his mouth. He could feel the weight of the altered ring on his finger, and enclosed it with the fingers of his other hand.

He still wasn't comfortable with the idea behind Julie's new program, but he guessed it made good sense. He'd just have to assuage his uneasy feelings by reminding himself what she'd said. It was just a precaution, that he probably wouldn't need. Nobody even needed to know it was there. And it couldn't possibly hurt anyone.

Chapter 9 - part one
- posted by Phyl @ 1:51 PM