.hack//LIMINALITY Fan Fiction / .hack//SIGN Fan Fiction ❯ .hack//CHECK ❯ Million ( Chapter 30 )

Chapter 30 // Million

 

. . .

 

*Ring, Ring* “Williams here...

What?

Damn!

They're coming?

What the hell do you mean?

I'm getting sick of your excuses. You're useless! Absolutely useless.

Huh?

Security breach?

Well, do something about it!

No Excuses!”

 

“We're in trouble.”

 

. . .

 

Tiffany, Jack, Danny, Ian, and Shelly were being led down a hall by a tall, thin man with a goatee. The white hallway seemingly glowed. There was nothing on the walls, and the floor beneath was spotless. At the far end of the hall was what appeared to be a dead end.

 

“Hello. I'm Nash Bonner, and my voice is my pass.”, said the man with a goatee. The wall slid to the side, and they all stepped through.

 

“Damn! What is this place?!”, asked Ian. They had stepped into a large, white spherical room. the catwalk on which they stood on separated the top half of the room from the bottom half. At least a hundred people were either rushing somewhere, operating computers, or conversing. Near the top of the room was what appeared to be projectors of some kind.

 

“This is a data conversion center.”, said Jack.

“Eh?”, said Bonner, “That's right.”

“Weren't these things supposed to be illegal?”, asked Danny, “Something about `right to privacy' laws or something like that?”

“Loopholes.”, replied Bonner, “This is an office now.” he turned to look at the center of the bottom half of the room. “Hey, Nate!”, shouted Bonner.

“What?” shouted a man.

“`Those rigs ready yet?”

“It'll be another hour.”

“Crap.”

Ian stepped forward. “Um, excuse me, where are the vending machines?”

Bonner pointed to a regular door on the opposite side, “Across the sphere, make a right. Toilets are on the left.”

Ian extended his hand towards Bonner.

“Huh?”

“Change for the vending machine.”

“Eh? It takes cards, you know.”

“Then give me a card.”

“No.”

“Look, pal, I could easily have spent today doing something else. But, I came to help with this problem of yours. If I'm here risking my ass, the least Cyber Connect could do is buy me a nutrition bar or two.”, replied Ian.

“Argh...”, Bonner reached into his jacket, and retrieved his cell phone. “Accounting, please. Yeah... I'm gonna need a vending machine card. The billing party is Cyber Connect. Yeah. That's right...”

 

“Huh?! He gets a free vending machine card! Free?!”, said Danny, “I want one too!”

“*Sigh*...”, sighed Bonner, “Better make that two.” He put his phone back into his pocket. “Head to accounting. Across the sphere, take the elevator to floor 22, you can't miss it.”

 

Ian and Danny raced to the opposite side of the sphere.

 

. . .

 

“Um... I've been meaning to ask this. Who's she?”, asked Bonner as he pointed to Shelly.

Shelly extended her hand for Bonner to shake, “I'm Shelly Freid.”

Bonner shook her hand. “The international supermodel? What are you doing here?”, he asked.

“I don't know.”, she answered.

 

Tiffany leaned against the railing, and looked below. “So, this is it.”, she said, “This time, it's him or us...”

 

“Yeah...”, said Jack, “The main challenge we face is just making sure it's not us.”

 

Danny and Ian arrived. Their jackets seemed bulkier than usual. “Your vending machines are empty.”, said Ian as he took a bite of his nutrition bar.

 

“Yeah.”, said Danny, “How can you guys work in these conditions?”

 

Tiffany and Jack stared at Danny.

 

“What? `If it's there, and it's free, then it must be for me'.”, quoted Danny as he took a sip of a soda.

“Ditto.”, remarked Ian.

“*Sigh*... Follow me.”, said Bonner. Bonner led them all to a room with a conference table in the center of it.

 

“Sit, please.”, said Bonner. All of them complied. “Okay.”, continued Bonner, “We have 45 minutes until the rigs are ready.” He pressed a button on the table's surface, and a holographic screen appeared above the table.

 

“These are the player characters that will be participating in this operation, as well as their stats.” The holographic screen flashed images of Deacon Blue, Naomi, Stan, Fang, and Nash with bars of differing lengths representing their stats. “Now, this is the target of the operation.” The screen flashed an image of Swan. “After viewing the data Jack has shared with us, we believe that he will use some, if not all of the characters that he's Data Drained. That's where you will receive our assistance. After analyzing these reanimated, Data Drained player characters, we've determined that they are quite similar to characters that have been banned. They are fairly easy for you to destroy, seeing as to how they have an average of ten hit points. But, that could be risky because they all attack at full strength. So, since, in data structure, they are similar to banned player characters, they can be purged much in the same manner.”

 

“Doesn't that present some problems?”, inquired Jack. “If I can recall correctly, according to an article in Popular Science, the purging program takes all of a day to load, initialize, calibrate, and operate...”

 

“We've been working on a way to modify that particular program. It was so slow because of the age of the technology used. Since the modifications, it takes a good minute. Well, according to the simulations, anyhow.”, replied Bonner. The screen displayed an image of a satellite-like structure. At one end, it had what appeared to be rocket engines. At the other, was what looked like part of a revolver. “After the Grand Prix incident, these structures were added to World III. When they were created, they were inoperable mainly because of the time it was taking to perform a data abstraction.”

 

“How do those things work?”, asked Tiffany.

 

“It's quite simple, really, once the target area is in range, these beauties fire a Data Restoration beam. According to the simulations, it should wipe out any reanimated characters in a 50 yard radius of the point of impact. It shouldn't be able to harm any legit player characters.”, explained Bonner. “Due to the gravity and physics systems of World III being similar to our own, they can only be fired every once in a while because they go out of range quickly...”

 

“Why do I feel like we're forgetting something important?”, said Danny.

“I get what you're saying.”, said Jack, “Nash, does operating the reanimated characters cost Swan anything?”

“As a matter of fact, It does.”, responded Bonner, “He becomes unable to use skills.”

“Wait a sec...”, interrupted Jack, “That means that he can't go *whoosh* on us.”

“Right... But, that's not what I thought we were forgetting...”, said Danny.

“Eh?”

“About the physics of those things... Since you guys are programming these things, can't you make them follow a different physics model? You know, one where it doesn't have to revolve around the `planet' to take another shot?”, said Danny, “I mean, if you guys could control the paths of those things directly, that would be great because we wouldn't have to wait for help.” Danny reached into his jacket, and pulled out another soda.

 

Bonner looked at Danny blankly. “That's a good idea.” Bonner pressed another button on the table's surface. “Hey, Norm, we're gonna need a modification to that physics engine for the DR Cannon Satellites. Instead of them revolving around the `planet' we need direct control over them. Tight turning radii, and quick movement is a must.”

 

“Okay,” responded a voice on the other side, “But, we can't do anything about the firing speed.”

“That's all right. You have 25 minutes, so code! Code like the wind!”

 

“Hmmm.... Swan can't go *whoosh* with those things on the field, right?”, asked Tiffany.

“Yeah. That's right.”, replied Jack.

“Okay. Ian can deal 10K damage easily.”, said Tiffany, “If someone can run interference for him...”

 

. . .

 

“Okay... We've thought all of this out... But, where in World III are we gonna find Swan?”, asked Danny.

 

Bonner pressed another button on the table's surface. “That's where this comes in.”

 

The screen began to display text: MEET ME WHERE IT BEGAN. CHOSEN HOPELESS NOTHINGNESS.

 

“Huh? The prison field?”, said Jack.

 

“Yeah... In World I a lot of scary **** started there. Based on the reports, it was the final `resting place' of Skeith, the first phase.”, said Bonner.

 

“Why must they always go for symbolism... It's such a cliche...”, said Danny, “Whatever happened to the nut cases who just did things for no reason?”

 

“Since no players can enter World III, the monsters on that field should be nonexistent”, continued Bonner. “However, due to the nature of our target, expect some surprises.”

“Well, that's a given.”, said Jack.

 

Bonner pressed a button on the table's surface again. “Everything ready?”

“Locked, stocked, and loaded.”

 

Bonner released the button, looked up at the group of people sitting in front of him, and said, “Good luck.”

“You too.”, replied everyone else.

“Now, let's head down to the bottom half of the sphere.”, said Bonner.

 

. . .

 

The snow fell like a gentle wash in the darkness that enveloped the night. Five beams of light flashed, and extinguished themselves immediately.

 

“So... You finally came for our play date... Hm?”, sounded a familiar gruff voice, “Data Drain: RESURRECTION!”

 

Hundreds of thousands of lights began to illuminate the field from underneath as Swan dropped from the darkness above, and landed in front of them. He giggled.

 

Suddenly, approximately one million player characters popped from the ground.

 

“It starts.”