.hack//LIMINALITY Fan Fiction / .hack//SIGN Fan Fiction ❯ .hack//CHECK ❯ Virus ( Chapter 25 )

Chapter 25 // Virus

. . .

"Do you remember the day we met? You had just completed basic training, and had some time off. It was a nice, cozy café with a lot of randomly placed pictures on the walls. You looked kind of upset when I first saw you, but I went to speak to you anyway. You were upset that your friends had gone out to drink, but you weren't twenty-one yet. Sitting there, speaking to you, I felt as if I had known you all of my life. Then... Then, you smiled. That smile. The smile that warmed my heart, and brightened my days. I wish I could see that smile again. Just one more time..."

. . .

"Ready?", asked Mastah Pimp as he extended his cane towards Swan. "CHARGE!"

From every nearby building rushed female characters. About thirty in number. Mastah Pimp began to spin his cane. "Ability ENHANCE!" He lifted his arms.

Immediately, the small army of female characters began to float in the air, and charge Swan. Swan readied himself, and began to giggle.

. . .

The expressway. Cars are still lined up. Horns honk, and tempers flare. "I hate the expressway.", said Tiffany. She looked over at Jack. He was staring out of the window at the sky.

"You look like something's on your mind.", she said.

Jack turned to her, and asked, "He said 'Duck, Duck, Goose', right?"

"Yeah.", replied Tiffany. "Why?"

Jack turned around in his seat to face Danny. "Hey, Danny, can you hand me my laptop?"

"Eh?", he replied, "Oh, sure." He reached back to retrieve Jack's backpack. He carefully removed the laptop, and handed it to Jack.

"Thanks.", said Jack. He began to power-up the laptop.

. . .

A female Twin Blade launched an attack. Swan dodged, and swung his humongous blade. Green hexagons flew off of the Twin Blade as she plummeted to the ground. What? He's not dealing damage. That's the fifth one that's gone down, and I haven't seen a red number yet..., thought Mastah Pimp. "Moira.", said Mastah Pimp.

"Yes, master?", replied a distant sounding voice.

"Record all that happens here, analyze it, and send it to Deacon Blue on my mark. Got it?", he commanded.

"Yes, master.", said the voice.

"Good."

Swan extended his right arm at the five fallen female characters as it began to glow. "Data Drain: Arc", Suddenly, five spirals of parallel lines shot from his arm and pierced the female character models on the ground below. They screamed as they began to pixelate, then disintegrate.

By now, everyone within the town was panicking, and running through the streets.

"Log out!", yelled Mastah Pimp at the females floating in the air. Swan's sword split into two once more.

Before any of them could comply, Swan disappeared.

"Dammit! LOG OUT!", he yelled. Before he had finished the sentence, green hexagons began to fly off of all of the characters in the air.

Swan appeared right next to Mastah Pimp, looking into the sky with his arms crossed. "Amazing, isn't it?", he asked, giggling. He extended his arm...

. . .

Tiffany looked over at Jack. As he typed frenetically, he asked, "So, Tiff, what do you do?"

"Well, I'm a college student.", she replied, "I'm taking the quarter off, though. Lately, I've been working at the arcade."

"College, eh?", said Jack, "God, I wish I could go back, sometimes. Having fun? What's your major?"

"Visual Communications.", she answered, "What do you mean by 'go back'?"

"Huh? Oh. I graduated a while ago."

"How long?", asked Danny.

"Hmm... Let's see... I'm now twenty-two. Which means that I graduated... five years ago. Wow. Time sure does fly.", said Jack.

"You were seventeen when you graduated?", she asked.

"Yep."

"What do you do? Exactly? I know you work for the FBI, but I've never heard any specifics.", said Tiffany.

"Well, now, I just maintain the FBI's servers. They snatched me up immediately after my graduation. Though, server maintenance was not originally part of my job description. My specialty was Artificial Intelligence.", he explained as he continued to type, "When I first joined, I was working on algorithms for an AI that would protect computers from being hacked by counter-hacking. It was pretty good, too. If I must say so myself. The only problem is that it had a 99.99% rate of success."

"That's pretty good.", said Danny.

"I would have thought so too if it hadn't encountered that rogue .01% so soon in its life cycle.", said Jack, "The main problem was that two people were able to hack into it without much of a problem. The first being Mastah Pimp (he left a calling card). The second is unknown. The second attack being the most brutal. It destroyed the program, but not before copying it. For some odd reason, our tracers wouldn't work. After that, all of us working on the project were either fired or assigned to maintain servers."

"I see... Did you ever find out who performed the second hack?", asked Tiffany.

"Well, I suspect that our friend Saint did it.", said Jack.

"Huh?"

"Think about it.", began Jack, "The World I servers were shutdown some five years ago. Until a few months ago, everyone was playing World II. After World III came out, 20 million of the estimated 40 million World II players migrated to World III, but players needed to obtain a randomly generated keyword to import their characters as well as fifteen dollars. Now, when I checked to see who was footing Swan's bill, not one time did I ever see a fifteen dollar charge for character transferral. Even Mastah Pimp had to pay to transfer his character. So, how could Swan get from a pirate server to the official World III servers? I'm guessing that he or the AI 'Dao-shi' modified the program. When we were first testing the counter-hacking function of our AI we would hack into the World I and II servers all of the time. This was during the time when they had god-like security. At the time, it was the security system of security systems. It doesn't seem too farfetched to me to believe that Saint was behind the second hack job."

"I think I see where you're going...", said Danny. "So, like, he assimilated your program as well."

Jack stopped typing. "Bingo!"

"I was right.", said Danny.

"Well, yeah... Plus, I found what I was searching for...", replied Jack.

. . .

With his golden aura aflare, Mastah Pimp took to the air, and Swan gave chase. The pimp twirled his cane, and pointed it at the pursuant Swan. "Nuclear Beam!", shouted Mastah Pimp. From the cane he fired a beam of light that exploded on contact. The red numbers 3204 rose from the explosion. Swan, seemingly unfazed continued his pursuit, and slashed Mastah Pimp higher into the air. The red numbers 0324 rose from his previous position.

Huh?, he thought as he stared at the fading numbers. Flying further into the sky, he twirled his cane again, and raised it into the air. Many balls of light began to surround the purple-clad pimp. "Blitz Bomber!", he shouted as he turned, and fired all of the light balls at Swan.

Still chasing Mastah Pimp, Swan used his blade to slice through as many of the light balls as he could, but the final ball hit him in a great explosion. The red numbers 350 appeared. With great speed, he shot at Mastah Pimp and performed a horizontal slash. Above Mastah Pimp, the crimson numbers 503 ascended from his person. Swan proceeded to slash in a diagonal fashion. Mastah Pimp blocked. Swan pushed in an effort to break the pimp's guard.

I see. So he deals damage dependent upon the amount of damage dealt to him. The numbers just switch around. So, If I did five thousand damage to him, he could theoretically reciprocate it, or it could only do five damage, or even just fifty., thought the pimp. Mastah Pimp pushed Swan back, and charged him to attack with his cane. Blocked. Swan slashed at Mastah Pimp. Dodged. Mastah Pimp thrust his cane at Swan. Parried.

. . .

"Project 'Duck' had two subjects. These two people happen to play World III.", said Jack, "but what gets me, is 'Goose'."

"What do you mean?", asked Tiffany.

"It says that the subject of 'Goose' believes that he's contracted some kind of unknown virus that seems to be degenerating his health.", explained Jack, "But, the thing is, he claims that his condition seems to be worsening on a daily basis."

"What exactly is wrong with him?", asked Danny.

Jack began to type again. "What isn't wrong with him would be the better question. According to his medical reports, he tells doctors that he goes completely blind on occasion, he feels anemic from time to time, he becomes unable to digest food, hearing loss, loss of sense of touch, nausea, dizziness, the list goes on. But, when they check him out, they find nothing wrong with him. So they've diagnosed him with hypochondria."

"Wait. I thought you said that 'Goose' was a success.", said Danny.

"It was.", replied Jack, "According to the medical evaluations, they haven't been able to find a link between these problems and the experiment. The subject seemed fine, so the project was deemed a success. However, I think that evaluation was a mistake."

"No kidding.", said Tiffany, "So, the question becomes 'why are the nano-machines making him ill?'."

"Apparently, his problems don't just end with his physical condition.", said Jack, "According to this psychological evaluation, he's been seeing things both in his dreams and while awake. The most common vision, he describes as some kind of large monster in the night sky. They asked him to draw it..."

Jack turned the screen so that Danny and Tiffany could see it. It indeed looked like a monster. It was a head on top of an inverted pyramid-looking structure with arms jutting out from the sides. From the pyramid-like structure grew what looked to them like roots. The head had what looked like spiky hair, and a large mouth with many pointy teeth.

. . .

Mastah Pimp lunged at Swan with a flurry of attacks. All of which were either blocked or dodged by the Heavy Blade. Swan countered. Mastah Pimp blocked, and threw Swan off balance. He quickly twirled his cane and shot another beam at Swan. Swan deflected the beam and moved to rush Mastah Pimp. The purple pimp glided aside as Swan flew past. Mastah Pimp used his momentum to continue in that direction to create some space. He rapidly twirled his cane and released a mighty wind. Within the wind swirled leaves that grew in number, and began to form a whirlwind. "GIANT DWARF, COME FORTH!", shouted Mastah Pimp. The wind suddenly stopped, and the leaves fell to the ground far below. Floating in the air was a humanoid. It appeared to be fifteen feet tall. It had a muscular build, with stubby legs and arms. It's painted chest was bare, and its green pointy hat and loincloth flowed in the wind. It wielded a giant hammer with monstrous claws on one end, and it was rapidly approaching Swan.

It swung its mighty hammer in a horizontal fashion. Swan flew higher in the air to avoid it. The Giant Dwarf swung his hammer again, claw end first, in an effort to catch Swan. Using his free arm, Swan vaulted off of the hammer into a spinning flip.*BANG*. Mastah Pimp had hit Swan with a beam. 1320. "Blitz Bomber!", shouted Mastah Pimp as he prepared to attack again.

Swan, looking quite surprised, began to rush Mastah Pimp. He hadn't noticed, however, that the Giant Dwarf had sneaked behind him. *WHACK* The Dwarf had hit Swan in the back with an overhead swing from his hammer. For a second, it seemed that time had stopped. Light emanated from the point of impact, and exploded, sending Swan on an expedited free fall to the ground below. 5000.

Swan was barely able to stop himself from hitting the ground. He turned to look at the pimp floating in the sky above. Coming at him was an innumerable amount of light balls followed by the monstrous Dwarf. "DATA DRAIN: NEUTRALIZE!" He shouted. Instantly, a force field surrounded him, and spread outwards. The summon and all of the light balls disappeared. Mastah Pimp looked dismayed. The onlookers populating the streets screamed in horror. Various complaints could be heard.

"I can't log out!"

"What were those green things!?"

"Why can't I fly, too!?"

"Pretty Good...", said Swan, "You forced me into using what I could only use once."

Mastah Pimp said, "Moira, now."

"Yes, master."

. . .

"All right!", exclaimed Tiffany, "Finally off of the expressway!" they drove up an exit ramp.

"Okay. Say, Jack, you said that the subjects of project 'Duck' played World III?", inquired Danny.

"Yeah. I only have their character names, though.", said Jack, "According to my info, the two of them deal Aromatic Grass on the Kite Server."

"The Kite server?!", exclaimed both Danny and Tiffany, "Crap."

"That place is full of elitists.", complained Tiffany.

"Yeah. It's like they spend all of their time trying to max-out their numbers. They go around calling others noobs, and those guys are the worst griefers ever known!", complained Danny.

"I don't wanna go, either.", said Jack, "But, they might have some clues."

"He's got a point.", said Tiffany. "Almost there. Let's find a place to park."

. . .

Swan appeared in front of Mastah Pimp, and hit him with the handle of his blade. 45. He then spun around, and slashed Mastah Pimp in the back. PROTECT BREAK. The purple pimp began to tumble to the ground.

Swan's arm began to shine. He lifted his arm into the air. "Behold, my ultimate power!", he laughed, "DATA DRAIN: GENOCIDE!" A thin beam shot from the sky above to Swan's raised arm. A massive shockwave erupted from that point, and time seemed to stand still. In the blink of an eye, every player character, NPC, and object burst with an intense light. An explosion filled the root town, and floating right in the center of it was Swan. A mad cackling could be heard.

. . .

Jack, Tiffany, and Danny made their way to the booths at the far end of the cyber café. Tiffany glanced into one of the booths and saw a woman slumped over her keyboard. Her VR goggles had fallen off. She turned to look at Jack, looking somewhat bewildered.

"I know. Keep going.", whispered Jack.

They all sat down, and logged in.