Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Digital Bath ❯ Chapter 1
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
By: Vinyl-Koneko 
Anime/Manga: Gundam Wing Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Supernatural / Sci-fi / Fantasy / Cyberpunk / Adventure / Action | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 10.23.2002 | Pages: 2 | Words: 2.0K | Visits: 391 | Status: Completed
Anime/Manga: Gundam Wing Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Supernatural / Sci-fi / Fantasy / Cyberpunk / Adventure / Action | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 10.23.2002 | Pages: 2 | Words: 2.0K | Visits: 391 | Status: Completed
+Title: Digital Bath - Part 2
+Author: Vinyl Koneko (Emily), roguegirl@att.net
+Rating: R
+Pairings: 1x2, 3x4
+Warnings: AU, yaoi, cyberpunk, possible lime in a later part
+Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing because if I did I'd get rich auctioning it off on eBay... LOL, just kidding. I'd keep them for myself to make videos and become the real Sabintha. ^_~
+Notes: //Thought//, *emphasis*. Some ideas may seem similar to "Snow Crash" by Neal Stephenson, "The Matrix", and "Digimon", but I swear that isn't what I'm going for. "Digital Bath" is a song by The Deftones.
*~**~*
The club is dark and foggy, air thick with music as well as the scent of alcohol and nicotine. It's not always like this; this particular club being the kind we call a chameleon, shifting constantly to suit the needs of the users. Tomorrow it'll be a bowling alley - the day after, a daycare. There are several like it in every town, more in each major city. They suit purposes as the times change. Nothing around here is ever permanent.
Chameleons are the perfect places to find people constantly on the move. Every avatar walks into one at least once, and when they do, the sensors pick up everything from name to shoe size to approximated ethnic origin. If you can get into the system, you can look up everything that a particular user did in the chameleon and when the program will re-shift to that particular setting.
It's easier to work in the nightclub; I can blend in with the shadows easier than anything more sterile, and the constant roar of voice and sound keeps my typing down a level from that which is picked up by the microphones.
I search for any string matching "God of Death". The system not only takes the string I type but translates it countless times, translating back any alien information that I might be interested in. This is how the operators - hacker term for our government - catch terrorists and foreign dictators. Terrorists nowadays aren't capable of reaching the potential they had back before we became pixilated. Terrorism is illegal just to stick to tradition; the worst they can do now is smash your pumpkins on Halloween. Bombings and hijackings and assassinations are over.
One match comes up within the last week, the next hundred ranging from several months to decades ago. I don't even bother glancing at the rest. People have no reason to fear death anymore since it only comes in one form. I click on the most recent file, bringing it up on the monitor. It's a video file taken from the last time this chameleon was the same club approximately nine days ago.
The figure appeared to be a few inches taller than myself, leaned up into the shadows so I couldn't see his face. His arms were across his chest as he appeared to be talking to a girl, hair long and platinum blonde, practically reaching the floor. I copied the frame, transferring the file over to a different program that would allow me to get more details that the poor lighting hid from my view. It took a matter of seconds for the details to start pouring out, and I nearly gasped out in surprise.
I could see now from the way his clothes fit that his lithe frame still held the promise of strength, speed, and agility. High cheekbones, full lips twisted into an amused smirk, and wide, indigo eyes with long, dark lashes gave him an almost effeminate beauty while being purely male. Jagged chestnut bangs fell down to his eyes, the rest of his hair pulled back into a braid which had to be nearly four feet long. I could only tell this because in his posture against the wall he was wrapping the end around a finger as he spoke to the woman.
I did a search in the avatar database, coming up with matches for both users on the screen. The woman was one Dorothy Catalonia; I had heard of her before in The Pit, but I couldn't place the context her name had been used in. The other was one Duo Maxwell, his name alone catching my attention immediately. Hackers pride in the number two, and if Duo's name was intentional or not, it was a strange coincidence. He had to be the one we were looking for.
I tracked his habits in the chameleon. He and the Dorothy woman would show up when the program was running this particular club and leave with people who were in capable of being found in the system afterwards. I looked up to scan the crowd, becoming more alert in the hope that I hadn't missed them. In someway I hoped he would already know I was here and would be looking for me.
I decided to move around, going over towards the bar. It should be a better vantage point, occupying the upper level to look down on the booths and dance floor. I was above the glare of the lights and the fog, able to make out more detail than the shadows of people that were walking through the smoke. A long braid cutting through the air caught my eye, drawing my attention down to the floor below. I saw the familiar face, looking up at me. When our eyes met, Duo smiled haughtily - winking as if we both shared the same secret - before disappearing into the shadows.
"Wait!" I barely heard myself call out, but I had no idea why. The noise was so much that he wouldn't have heard me. I couldn't figure out why all of a sudden I wanted to meet Duo Maxwell, the God of Death, so much. I drew in a sharp breath when I felt hands on my hips and a smooth tenor voice moving air past my ear.
"Heero Yuy, I've been waiting so long to meet you."
I couldn't tell if this was a good thing or not. "What do you want?" I scowled, tense under his touch. This was a man who'd found a way to kill avatars. I didn't want him to have the upper hand.
"Do you want to learn the truth about the system?"
I already knew the truth. Man had overused Earth and her resources, so the LSOS was created, keeping people in suits hooked to computers to live their whole lives in a pixilated state of obliviousness. I told him this, getting a humored laugh in response.
"Yes, but don't you want to *see* it?"
My eyes narrowed. "How?"
"Simple." Duo's voice was getting softer and I found myself straining to hear him, moving my ear closer to his mouth. "Let me free you has I have freed others."
"You mean let you kill me and laugh about my gullibility."
I could feel his braid striking my arm as he shook his head. "You and your people have it all wrong. Only to the system are you truly dead, but you may return anytime you wish. The operators in the real world want to start bringing people back to Earth; they think she's healed enough to try again. So they sent me to start bringing people home."
"I don't believe you," I announced, motioning to twist out of Duo's grasp but he placed a hand on my shoulder. I closed my eyes, clenching my fists slightly.
"If you don't believe me," he began, "let me show you." He placed his other hand on my shoulder, lips moving to form words I couldn't make out, and in a flash of light we were standing in a large forest, surrounded by a myriad of different shades of green. "I'm transmitting images from my mind to yours of how Earth looks now." The forest moved, spinning away to be replaced by an ocean, rocky jetties poking out from the shore as porpoises swam along, leaping in the air. The image spun again, becoming the devastated ruins of a once grand city, skyscrapers fallen to the ground like pieces of lumber. The final spin brought forward a large building that seemed to go as far underground as it did above. We entered a room at a running pace, seeing all the people lying in their digitizing suits, sensors collecting and measuring their brainwaves to translate into binary in the LSOS. The server took up the middle of the room, five old men looking at different charts that were spewed out and making adjustments when they required. The view turned, running back towards the people, stopping in front of one particular form.
I was confused. Was I supposed to know who this person was?
"Heero," Duo prodded from where he held my arm, standing beside me. "That's you."
The realization made me stumble, falling back into the club as Duo released the illusion, watching me as I panted for air, crouched on the floor with my elbows resting on my knees, fingers rubbing at my temples. I had known the truth, but as I said before, seeing it and knowing it were two completely different terms.
"Who were those men?" I asked when I found my voice again.
"The doctors," Duo replied simply. "They pretty much run the show. I think they have since the beginning." He snorted. "Demanding old geezers but they are keeping mankind alive."
"Why..." I hesitated, trying to place why my avatar looked so different from myself in the real world. "Why don't I look like me?"
Duo thought for a moment. "You're younger in the real world. Since your brain never rests, it gets old and tired faster. The doctors have it programmed that you age faster in the LSOS; that's why the year is shorter in the system than on Earth, but only the hackers know some of the truth about Earth."
"How old am I really?"
"How old are you here?"
"Twenty-one."
"You're just about sixteen. There's about a twenty-five percent age difference."
The question was did I really want to see what the real world was like? My life had been learning the program and manipulating it so that I would benefit. I never thought or even wished to go back to Earth. The system was safer, but I was curious as to what something real felt like. Virtual reality can only imitate the real thing so well. Then I realized why Duo was taking part in this, bearing upon himself the title of the God of Death when he really wasn't killing people at all; he was letting them experience something real, no matter how much harder or more dangerous it would become. It wasn't the risk of him killing the avatars. It was the risk of the people dying once they are released into an unfamiliar world that our ancestors had nearly killed off for good.
"Maxwell, are we done here?" Dorothy stood over us, blowing a piece of hair away from her eyes and wearing an aggravated expression.
Duo looked at me; my thoughts were flying through my head too quickly to form any sort of feedback that would let him know whether or not I would leave the system. But he had said it would be possible for me to return; it was under what circumstances that I wasn't aware of.
"All right," I stood carefully, leaning against the guardrail over looking the smoke and lights. "I'll go."
Duo's expression brightened, and Dorothy looked like she wouldn't care either way. "Great!" The former grabbed my hand, pulling me out of the club with Dorothy lighting a cigarette in our wake. "Just a couple things to keep in mind when you wake up. Earth's population isn't that big yet, it'll take your body some time to get it's strength up to what you're used to, and don't open your eyes until we say you can on the risk of permanent blindness."
I nodded, following Duo dumbly. I still had no clue as to what I was getting myself into; there was just no way I could have been prepared for it.
*~**~*
End Part 2
+Author: Vinyl Koneko (Emily), roguegirl@att.net
+Rating: R
+Pairings: 1x2, 3x4
+Warnings: AU, yaoi, cyberpunk, possible lime in a later part
+Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing because if I did I'd get rich auctioning it off on eBay... LOL, just kidding. I'd keep them for myself to make videos and become the real Sabintha. ^_~
+Notes: //Thought//, *emphasis*. Some ideas may seem similar to "Snow Crash" by Neal Stephenson, "The Matrix", and "Digimon", but I swear that isn't what I'm going for. "Digital Bath" is a song by The Deftones.
*~**~*
The club is dark and foggy, air thick with music as well as the scent of alcohol and nicotine. It's not always like this; this particular club being the kind we call a chameleon, shifting constantly to suit the needs of the users. Tomorrow it'll be a bowling alley - the day after, a daycare. There are several like it in every town, more in each major city. They suit purposes as the times change. Nothing around here is ever permanent.
Chameleons are the perfect places to find people constantly on the move. Every avatar walks into one at least once, and when they do, the sensors pick up everything from name to shoe size to approximated ethnic origin. If you can get into the system, you can look up everything that a particular user did in the chameleon and when the program will re-shift to that particular setting.
It's easier to work in the nightclub; I can blend in with the shadows easier than anything more sterile, and the constant roar of voice and sound keeps my typing down a level from that which is picked up by the microphones.
I search for any string matching "God of Death". The system not only takes the string I type but translates it countless times, translating back any alien information that I might be interested in. This is how the operators - hacker term for our government - catch terrorists and foreign dictators. Terrorists nowadays aren't capable of reaching the potential they had back before we became pixilated. Terrorism is illegal just to stick to tradition; the worst they can do now is smash your pumpkins on Halloween. Bombings and hijackings and assassinations are over.
One match comes up within the last week, the next hundred ranging from several months to decades ago. I don't even bother glancing at the rest. People have no reason to fear death anymore since it only comes in one form. I click on the most recent file, bringing it up on the monitor. It's a video file taken from the last time this chameleon was the same club approximately nine days ago.
The figure appeared to be a few inches taller than myself, leaned up into the shadows so I couldn't see his face. His arms were across his chest as he appeared to be talking to a girl, hair long and platinum blonde, practically reaching the floor. I copied the frame, transferring the file over to a different program that would allow me to get more details that the poor lighting hid from my view. It took a matter of seconds for the details to start pouring out, and I nearly gasped out in surprise.
I could see now from the way his clothes fit that his lithe frame still held the promise of strength, speed, and agility. High cheekbones, full lips twisted into an amused smirk, and wide, indigo eyes with long, dark lashes gave him an almost effeminate beauty while being purely male. Jagged chestnut bangs fell down to his eyes, the rest of his hair pulled back into a braid which had to be nearly four feet long. I could only tell this because in his posture against the wall he was wrapping the end around a finger as he spoke to the woman.
I did a search in the avatar database, coming up with matches for both users on the screen. The woman was one Dorothy Catalonia; I had heard of her before in The Pit, but I couldn't place the context her name had been used in. The other was one Duo Maxwell, his name alone catching my attention immediately. Hackers pride in the number two, and if Duo's name was intentional or not, it was a strange coincidence. He had to be the one we were looking for.
I tracked his habits in the chameleon. He and the Dorothy woman would show up when the program was running this particular club and leave with people who were in capable of being found in the system afterwards. I looked up to scan the crowd, becoming more alert in the hope that I hadn't missed them. In someway I hoped he would already know I was here and would be looking for me.
I decided to move around, going over towards the bar. It should be a better vantage point, occupying the upper level to look down on the booths and dance floor. I was above the glare of the lights and the fog, able to make out more detail than the shadows of people that were walking through the smoke. A long braid cutting through the air caught my eye, drawing my attention down to the floor below. I saw the familiar face, looking up at me. When our eyes met, Duo smiled haughtily - winking as if we both shared the same secret - before disappearing into the shadows.
"Wait!" I barely heard myself call out, but I had no idea why. The noise was so much that he wouldn't have heard me. I couldn't figure out why all of a sudden I wanted to meet Duo Maxwell, the God of Death, so much. I drew in a sharp breath when I felt hands on my hips and a smooth tenor voice moving air past my ear.
"Heero Yuy, I've been waiting so long to meet you."
I couldn't tell if this was a good thing or not. "What do you want?" I scowled, tense under his touch. This was a man who'd found a way to kill avatars. I didn't want him to have the upper hand.
"Do you want to learn the truth about the system?"
I already knew the truth. Man had overused Earth and her resources, so the LSOS was created, keeping people in suits hooked to computers to live their whole lives in a pixilated state of obliviousness. I told him this, getting a humored laugh in response.
"Yes, but don't you want to *see* it?"
My eyes narrowed. "How?"
"Simple." Duo's voice was getting softer and I found myself straining to hear him, moving my ear closer to his mouth. "Let me free you has I have freed others."
"You mean let you kill me and laugh about my gullibility."
I could feel his braid striking my arm as he shook his head. "You and your people have it all wrong. Only to the system are you truly dead, but you may return anytime you wish. The operators in the real world want to start bringing people back to Earth; they think she's healed enough to try again. So they sent me to start bringing people home."
"I don't believe you," I announced, motioning to twist out of Duo's grasp but he placed a hand on my shoulder. I closed my eyes, clenching my fists slightly.
"If you don't believe me," he began, "let me show you." He placed his other hand on my shoulder, lips moving to form words I couldn't make out, and in a flash of light we were standing in a large forest, surrounded by a myriad of different shades of green. "I'm transmitting images from my mind to yours of how Earth looks now." The forest moved, spinning away to be replaced by an ocean, rocky jetties poking out from the shore as porpoises swam along, leaping in the air. The image spun again, becoming the devastated ruins of a once grand city, skyscrapers fallen to the ground like pieces of lumber. The final spin brought forward a large building that seemed to go as far underground as it did above. We entered a room at a running pace, seeing all the people lying in their digitizing suits, sensors collecting and measuring their brainwaves to translate into binary in the LSOS. The server took up the middle of the room, five old men looking at different charts that were spewed out and making adjustments when they required. The view turned, running back towards the people, stopping in front of one particular form.
I was confused. Was I supposed to know who this person was?
"Heero," Duo prodded from where he held my arm, standing beside me. "That's you."
The realization made me stumble, falling back into the club as Duo released the illusion, watching me as I panted for air, crouched on the floor with my elbows resting on my knees, fingers rubbing at my temples. I had known the truth, but as I said before, seeing it and knowing it were two completely different terms.
"Who were those men?" I asked when I found my voice again.
"The doctors," Duo replied simply. "They pretty much run the show. I think they have since the beginning." He snorted. "Demanding old geezers but they are keeping mankind alive."
"Why..." I hesitated, trying to place why my avatar looked so different from myself in the real world. "Why don't I look like me?"
Duo thought for a moment. "You're younger in the real world. Since your brain never rests, it gets old and tired faster. The doctors have it programmed that you age faster in the LSOS; that's why the year is shorter in the system than on Earth, but only the hackers know some of the truth about Earth."
"How old am I really?"
"How old are you here?"
"Twenty-one."
"You're just about sixteen. There's about a twenty-five percent age difference."
The question was did I really want to see what the real world was like? My life had been learning the program and manipulating it so that I would benefit. I never thought or even wished to go back to Earth. The system was safer, but I was curious as to what something real felt like. Virtual reality can only imitate the real thing so well. Then I realized why Duo was taking part in this, bearing upon himself the title of the God of Death when he really wasn't killing people at all; he was letting them experience something real, no matter how much harder or more dangerous it would become. It wasn't the risk of him killing the avatars. It was the risk of the people dying once they are released into an unfamiliar world that our ancestors had nearly killed off for good.
"Maxwell, are we done here?" Dorothy stood over us, blowing a piece of hair away from her eyes and wearing an aggravated expression.
Duo looked at me; my thoughts were flying through my head too quickly to form any sort of feedback that would let him know whether or not I would leave the system. But he had said it would be possible for me to return; it was under what circumstances that I wasn't aware of.
"All right," I stood carefully, leaning against the guardrail over looking the smoke and lights. "I'll go."
Duo's expression brightened, and Dorothy looked like she wouldn't care either way. "Great!" The former grabbed my hand, pulling me out of the club with Dorothy lighting a cigarette in our wake. "Just a couple things to keep in mind when you wake up. Earth's population isn't that big yet, it'll take your body some time to get it's strength up to what you're used to, and don't open your eyes until we say you can on the risk of permanent blindness."
I nodded, following Duo dumbly. I still had no clue as to what I was getting myself into; there was just no way I could have been prepared for it.
*~**~*
End Part 2