"So what the hell do we do NOW?"
Lina was seething. Now that the immediate threat had been disposed of -- thanks to her unexpected burst of talent -- the blazing swords of Gourry and Zelgadis, and the gun that Amelia still had (for some absurd reason), they were now thoroughly, comprehensively and totally screwed.
The reason for this was obvious: someone who called themselves Xelloss had stolen the steering wheel.
"Okay. I've got an idea... can someone get the toolkit out of the trunk?" Sylpheel looked round, waiting for someone -- anyone -- to do as she said.
"Sure, Sylpheel..." Gourry got out of the car, and went round the back.
"I'm getting out for a while too. I can't just sit here." Zelgadis, ever the dolourite, got out of the car and wandered off somewhere.
"I got it... is this really what you wanted? It seems a bit heavy..." Sylpheel snatched the leather bag from Gourry, and rooted through it, eventually pulling out a couple of large spanners.
"Now... how to do this..."
Zelgadis wandered the streets, glancing at all the cars around him. None he had seen so far were big enough for his purpose... ah. There. A large people-carrier, as they were called a few years ago. It was big enough to take them all.
A couple of fingers under the hood, and he had a look at the guts of the car. Powerful engine, clean sparkplugs, and justabout everything he could want.
Slamming it closed, he walked round to the side, and straightarmed the drivers' side window, opening the door and climbing in.
Then he saw that the keys were still in the ignition, and went through all the swearwords he knew in sixteen different languages.
The car started with a purr like a cat on ecstacy. This was a good machine.
And the moment of admiration was ruined by the sight of a madly weaving 4x4 going past a junction ahead of him.
Zelgadis pulled out and followed them.
The inside of Sylpheel's 4x4 was anything but harmonious.
Everyone was petrified, except for Sylpheel herself, who was concentrating on steering with the two spanners too much to worry.
Gourry, however, was watching out the window, looking at the other cars that went by.
They were forced to stop at a set of lights, and a big car pulled up beside them. The driver, wearing a pair of shades, looked over at them. Only Gourry noticed.
"Say, Lina... doesn't that guy look familiar?"
Some time later, the five of them were slowly travelling along the roads, slowly so as to not attract attention. Zelgadis and Amelia were arguing over which radio station to turn on (Amelia wanted NACL, the All Boy Band Network, while Zelgadis was more interested in the BBC world service). Sylpheel was sitting next to Gourry, playing Tic-Tac -- Toe (Gourry kept getting which symbol he used mixed up; there were omegas, little kanji and smiley faces all over some sheets). Lina...
Lina had the whole of the back seat to herself. Lina was wondering about the revelation that a chunk of her brain was formatted for computer control.
What the hell did that mean?
She knew fine well what that meant, at the minute; she could use chunks of her brain like a computer. But why would it be L:/INVERSE?
Yes, it was possible to name a hard drive. But her name was Berkowitz, for heaven's sake. Why would it take the name of her online persona?
Unless...
Yes, that had to be it. She felt more alive when jacked in. It was almost her 'real life', rather than this one.
But now that she could use some of her attack programs in this reality, where did she draw the line?
And, more importantly, did she actually need a deck to log in with?
To find out, she needed a Modem.
Her legs were getting uncomfortable in this position. She had to get around this bag, or move it out of the way.
Bag?
"...It was, indeed, Lina Inverse, (nee Berkowitz), who managed to uncover, albeit accidentally, the truth about all computers. For is not the meat machine that comprises the inside of the head a more complicated pattern-recognition system -- just like that of the computer systems?
"And so it is that we find that the computers are the portals to which the alternate dimension of the cybersphere may be accessed. However, it is only through the medium of the computer or appropriate hardware (such as the enhanced brain of the aforementioned Inverse) that they can be expressed. It was when the Sabranicto (oft-mispronounced, and, indeed, miswritten, as Shaburanigdo, and TRULY meaning, through a bastardised mixture of Hebrew and ancient Greek, Darkness of the Israelites -- possibly being some banished Old-Testament Demon? ) entity -- one hesitates to call it a virus in these more enlightened times -- first infested the computers of the world as a result of the (somewhat apocryphal) Nakajima Akira, who, (with the later assistance of his wife, Shiragasi Yumiko), supposedly released the first computer demon on the world in the form of Rocky (sp? Loki? The Japanese was somewhat awkward, but if the beast that stalked the internet first was actually from Hel, as the notes from the original diaries suggest, then, truly he called the trickster God from Norse Mythology into being in the form of a bizarre AI -- and, if indeed, the precursor to this was Cerberus, the guardian of Hades from Greek Mythology, then he truly did perform unholy miracles) and that his work was later taken up by Rezo... who may or may not have been his Son. Accounts do vary on this, and it is possible that Rezo was actually the spawn of Set (the Egyptian Devil) and his ex-teacher, who, the legends run, controlled Rocky after Akira realised that what he had done was a terrible mistake.
"But I digress; it was not until Sabranicto appeared that the truth was revealed. Computers -- the so called 'thinking machines' -- had no sense of Good or Evil. Human beings being what they were, the first thing that was created via Rezo and his (probable) father's work was the principle of Evil made code... and with no sense of good to counteract it of the same form, the computers ran wild... they were not so much destroyed by the entity, as destroyed themselves though the influence of the entity. But it was this that saved Lina... she was human, and had the quality of Good within herself..."
-- Nabd In-Arraddz (the Mad Hacker), "Souls in Silicon Stasis", 2154
The car was pulled into the side as the five stared into the bag.
"Look, I didn't know that this bag was there. I didn't see it. What's in it?"
Lina ignored Zelgadis, and started to pull out a few bits and pieces. Stereo headphones. Electrical gubbins. A floppy drive. A battery pack. An Uzi and six magazines. Three copies of 'Nonthreatening Boys Monthly'. One copy of 'Naked Black Metal Stars'. A cellular modem. A small, but powerful computer deck. $25,000 in cash. Two romance novels. Six packs of tennis balls. Twenty-seven boxes of Oreos.
They all stared.
"Okay... this is TOO wierd. Someone is a little strange to be carrying all this around..."
Gourry took the tennis balls. "Ano... what does neuroleptic mean?"
Zelgadis checked the Uzi. "This is wierd. This thing has a ten-millimetre barrel, and... whoah. It's a left-hand Smith-and-Wesson design."
Sylpheel gave Zelgadis a Look. "What does that mean in English?"
"It means, miss, that this gun is probably unique. Smith-and-Wesson rifling types have lands and grooves of equal width, but a right-hand twist... They never designed a left-hander before. And, just to confuse the issue, this type of weapon normally has a Steyr barrel.This could be considered a sinister development."
Sylpheel, again, looked at him. "You know, you're right. That deck is almost the same as mine."
Amelia took the gun, racking the action. "I like this! This is ideal for the advancement of Truth, Love and Justice throughout this land!"
"Amelia, in your hands, it will be an agent of sugar and caffeine..."
There was silence in the car. Lina was examining the modem and floppy drive while Sylpheel was examining the deck. Noone knew what neuroleptic meant, so Gourry was examining the balls. They were a bit heavier than normal tennis balls, but apart from that he had no idea. Amelia was settled down with all three of the 'Nonthreatening Boys Monthly'; Zelgadis was practically sitting on the odd Uzi (Amelia, he thought, was not to have the Uzi unless absolutely necessary; she was more than likely to let off a burst of lead-azide rounds on a sugar-fuelled energy burst).
Noone had wished to accept the other magazine.
Lina had found that what she had found was pretty damn interesting in itself. The floppy drive could be connected in parallel to the modem, and the modem had a small socket on the side.
A socket that might just fit headphones...
Lina looked at her headband, and then at the headphones.
This was ludicrous, Lina thought. There was no way a headphone jack could possibly transmit all the necessary information from the modem. At best, it would be an incredibly slow link.
But still... this was a bit strange. All this equipment. All this stuff with no reason for it to be there.
Gift horses and all that, though...
"Sylpheel? Keep an eye on me, would you?"
Lina tried to jack in. She was not using any kind of deck; she was simply trying to see what she could do -- if she could do this without a deck. Maybe this would be a little dangerous... but then, so was wandering about with the SHAB-R virus in her head.
At least, this way, she wouldn't be tied to a deck.
And in she went.
And when she opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was a crescent moon.
"Hiya."
"LUNA!"
"Surprised?"
"What do you want?" The panic was rising quickly. She could remember the slipper... the boot...
"You."
The moon seemed to have a slight grin.
"Why... why now?"
"Ya got the big one in your head now."
"Shaburanigdo, you mean? I don't know how it got into there."
"Ya shouldnt'a messed with the headset, sis."
"So it did do something to my brain?"
"Nah. Just your mind."
"Am I going to get a straight answer out of you?"
"Depends."
"On what?"
"Your Questions."
"Where did this stuff come from?"
"Us."
"Draconix?"
"Yep."
"Why?"
"Shaburanigdo will destroy everything if he is reformed."
"Reformed? You mean all seven pieces?"
"Gotta go. Now."
And Lina found herself hurled through the web, sites flashing past her eyes...
...and found herself in a French site. It hadn't been used for years; it looked like it had been struck by a virus of some sort. Bits of it were totally scrambled. The Header had the last letter totally scrambled; there were only three letters left in it. GIG. Lina's French was abysmal. But she picked up the words for 'Download', 'Virus', 'Analysis', and several others. Skimming through the lot, she found that it had been some French governmental project to produce an all-purpose antivirus system; something that would detect new viruses and then produce and antivirus.
However, a quick translation of one part showed that it was incomplete. The last time it was updated was the day before the Shaburanigdo virus was first detected.
Lina decided that it might just be useful. Maybe she could use it with some of her stuff... upgrade the Dragon Slave, perhaps?
She reached out and pressed the download button.
"Isn't Lina cool!"
Amelia's insistent burbling would have grated on the nerves of everyone else in the car, were it not for the fact that one was oblivious to the world, one was just oblivious, and the others were somewhat thunderstruck as to what was actually going on.
"I have never known of anyone going online without a deck. This shouldn't happen."
Zelgadis kept looking at her, checking to see if there was anything in the files Rezo had given him to account for this. It was, most likely, an unexpected side effect of the formatting through the headset.
But who knew? Once he got the damn girl back to Rezo, and the girl was safely in custody, then they could open her up and find out what the hell was going on in there.
Part of him objected to this. What profit a Man, should he gain the world, at the cost of his soul?
And that was something he worried about. Not losing his soul; that was tripe. But his conscience was beginning to kick up a fuss about what he was doing. Would he willingly hand lina over to Rezo if she -- and her friends -- were just going to die?
But he wanted a body again. Not this... travesty of plastic and steel, something that he could feel with; something that was more human.
And he might lose his humanity in the process.
They had to get moving, though. Atlass City was just a few miles -- fifty or so -- down the road.
He started the car again, and pulled out of the layby, his eyes on the road and his mind on his inner demons.
Lina eventually came out of the link. The disk in the port was ejected at a mental command; and she pocketed it. For later evaluation. But did she find that site by chance?
Probably. But, then again, probably not. Luna's people had supplied all this kit -- she thought -- it might not have been, but it sounded like her -- so she wasn't quite sure.
Whatever.
Anyhow, she wanted to sleep.
And so she drifted into a fitful doze.
But she there was something digging in her back.
Those damn tennis balls...
She flipped them out the window.
"Hey, Lina, those looked like good balls!"
"What use would they be, Gourry?"
"We could practice with them..."
The tennis balls hit the road. All six of them.
As the car dissapeared down the road, they suddenly exploded into a burst of strobing white light.
And the car behind slewed off the road as the driver collapsed in a burst of flailing limbs and vomit...
Yes, they could have been very useful.
The purple-haired man opened his eyes, gaining definition at his edges, as if he wasn't properly focussed.
"She has the modem. She has the equipment. Now we can keep a trace. And we can regain the last shard."
He grinned, widely, a somewhat unusual sight on him, and motioned for the stereo to start again...
I'm sorry about the brevity of this piece, and that nothing really seems to happen. But my lecturers are getting somewhat narky about things, and coursework has been a pain, so I'm sorry.
Additional note:
I am very, very sorry that this is late, but the only internet access I have was taken away due to a University overhaul and noone knew about this until they did it. It was unavailable all weekend, but I have this posted now.
Take it from here, guys...