Categories > Anime/Manga > Yami no Matsuei > Absit Omen
Absit Omen
Part Five
by Rhea Logan
The lab seemed abandoned, but some lights had been left on and Watari knew someone still had to be around. Carefully, he took in the interior, listening intently to any sounds that would tell him where that someone could be or who they were. Yet apart from the low humming of fans that surrounded him from all sides, he heard nothing. Wasting no more time, he made his way to the main terminal.
He had been tempted to check if his own access codes still worked, but it wasn't worth the risk. Empty as the building might have appeared, he knew the guards would be on his case in just under a minute if the alarms went off. The codes Akane had provided granted him the full access he needed.
A shadow of anger passed across his face at the sight of the name the codes had logged him in with. Hinote Katai. Figures. Watari stopped himself from slamming his fist into the keyboard in the last instant. So Akane had been right. Hinote knew all along. Curious when exactly his former second-in-command had taken his place, Watari called up the logs.
As he scrolled down the long list of entries, his eyebrows drew together in a deep frown. Among the log-ins he'd expected to find, there had been daily connections under his own name.
The list of current connections proved itself to be even more interesting to him. It showed one had been opened an hour ago and had yet to be terminated. One elegant eyebrow shot up as Watari checked where and who it was, a wide grin of triumph breaking on his face.
"Gotcha," he said quietly to himself, digging into his pocket for the disks he had brought with him.
He had hoped it would never come to using that. He had written the program that could sabotage five years of his own work within about three minutes merely a few weeks before the final run that got him trapped inside Mother. Some people would have called it luck; he had called it a hunch, and gave it a silent thanks for the perfect timing.
One after another, the disks vanished inside the drives. Watari's fingers flew across the keyboard as he entered the commands into the console: compile, install, execute.
That done, he switched the system to manual and locked the doors, setting them to disengage in 900 seconds. By his estimation, it should be enough. Checking the progress of the compilation on the terminal above one last time, Watari patted the side of the monitor.
"I'll miss you, but that's not what you were made to do," he said. With a few minutes left before his program would start eating its way through, he opened the reports directory and looked at the list. His eyes narrowed dangerously as he skimmed through the first few files he had found.
--External methods of decreasing the system temperature appear to be insufficient--
--system efficiency can be increased further by 3 to 5 percent by applying internal modifications to the host's hypothalamic thermostat. Permanent modification is highly recommended--
--I am reluctant to acknowledge the necessity to maintain the full functionality of the subject--
Watari closed the file, slowly releasing the breath he had not realized he had been holding. "Reluctant to acknowledge the necessity to maintain the functionality of the /subject/?" he uttered through gritted teeth.
The words echoed in his ears with the voice of the man he had once considered a friend. He clenched his hands into fists. Drawing a slow, long breath, Watari focused until his hands ceased to tremble and his body obeyed him again. Blessing the force of habit, he opened a connection to his own computer and sent the entire reports directory to himself. Then he scheduled the system for a remote shutdown as soon as the transfer was done.
He turned and started towards the adjacent room to finish what he had come for, but a sudden thought caught him in half-step. He stopped, his eyes sweeping a careful look around the lab. He made his way to the workstations the assistants used for their work, uneasiness and worry growing by the second in the form of a lump in his throat.
A brief checkup confirmed what he had feared. Akane's station had been purged. Her records gone. Her account deleted, with no trace of anyone by that name having ever worked there.
His stomach twisted itself into a tight knot. Watari leaned against the desk, his breath heavy and quick. The lab seemed to have shrunk down to contain only him and that single computer screen, and that one line that carved itself into his mind.
No record found.
No regrets.
He gave his head a firm shake, forcing the bitter thoughts that threatened to shake him out of control to the back of his mind. Then he cast one more look at the operation progress the mainframe had almost finished processing by now.
Cracking his knuckles, Watari regarded the door across from him with a nasty smile. "Showtime."
Locked in the docking station, Hinote looked as though he was asleep when Watari entered the room. The very sight of the man boiled the blood in his veins. It would be so easy to just strangle him with bare hands - not that it would kill him, but the sheer satisfaction was hard to resist. Not without a hint of regret, Watari swallowed down on the violent urges to deal with Hinote that way.
Access codes in place, he put his hands on the keyboard and looked over his shoulder. "Test subject A ready to undergo the testing procedure," he said with a sharp edge to every word. "Shame you've rid us of the one worthy witness so soon," he added as he confirmed the cutting off of the terminal link.
Hinote blinked a few times to bring himself back into focus, a deep frown of confusion creasing his forehead. His eyes met Watari's as he looked around the room. At once he froze.
"What are you doing here?"
Watari ran a slender finger across the keyboard under his gloved hand. "Tying up the loose ends."
"You're not supposed to be here." Trying for a commanding tone, the man pushed up to his feet and started towards the blonde.
"Of course not." Watari let out a quiet snort. "Which is precisely why I'm here."
Hinote's face reddened with anger. "Code five," he uttered, stealing a glance at the door to his right.
"Ah," Watari sent him a wry smile. "Mother doesn't like you anymore." Keys clicked. He watched Hinote take a few more tentative steps forth. His amber eyes narrowed ever so slightly, now darkened with emotion that showed only in them.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," he warned in a voice that sounded almost sweet. He met the questioning look in the pair of pale gray eyes and savored the fear that made them open wide.
"You see, there are times when I really, really hate being right. Imagine that. This would be one of those times." Watari clicked his tongue, giving his head a slow, light shake. "And I hate seeing years of my own work go into waste. But I'll live."
"What are you talking about?" Hinote's usual impressive posture suddenly seemed somewhat smaller.
To Watari, he almost reeked of panic. "In about..." he checked his watch, "Ninety seconds, the unofficial part of the Mother Project will be nothing but history," he explained in a cool, informative tone.
"What?" Hinote looked at him with pure disbelief. "You can't!"
Watari raised an eyebrow. "Watch me."
"It will destabilize the entire system! The protective shields around Meifu will collapse!"
"Nothing Enma can't handle, I'm sure," Watari replied with a shrug to his shoulders.
"You don't understand. It might kill you."
The corners of his lips twitched in a half-hearted smile. "I wouldn't count on it. The core won't shut down but it will cut off the supporting systems as soon as I'm done. By the way," Watari added after a breath, "I see you're testing for compatibility? I hope you know what sort of risk you're running."
Hinote let out a snort. "Of course."
"Good." Watari cast a brief look at his wristwatch again. "You're about to prove or disprove my programming genius. Congratulations. It's a great honor."
The man took another step. "What?" he hissed.
"Do you know what happens when, for instance, your terminal overheats beyond the critical point?" Watari asked in a cold, emotionless voice.
"Nothing. It's protected against that sort of thing."
"Against a failure, yes," Watari agreed with a nod. "But a direct command will override its security switch, since it is inferior. What happens then?"
Hinote's eyes grew wide. His swayed on his feet, one hand reaching out to grasp something to keep him steady, the other clutching at his head. "It will..." He started but broke off, his eyes sliding shut.
He fell to the ground, boneless, without a sound.
"Roast you alive," Watari finished for him, his voice merely a whisper.
He looked down at the fallen man. Some part of him found his own lack of remorse repulsive. Perhaps it was wrong of him to take justice in his own hands, to be the judge and the executor in one. But he knew that 'justice' had been just another word, another thing that had lost its meaning in his mind.
"Does it soothe you?"
He turned around. Enma DaiOh leaned in doorway, watching him with an almost amused look in his jet-black eyes, arms crossed over his broad chest.
Watari shrugged. "It warms me up."
Enma let out a sound suspiciously resembling a quiet snort. "You can say the same about him," he said as he moved away from his spot. He brushed a strand of black hair away from his face.
Watari pursed his lips, waving a dismissive hand towards Hinote's limp form on the floor. "It didn't kill him."
A small, enigmatic half-smile danced around the corners of Enma's lips. "You like pulling the strings, don't you?" he asked in a light, almost conversational tone.
Watari's eyebrows drew together in a frown. He watched the god turn around and leave the room without any signs of haste. With wary steps, Watari followed suit, although he made sure to keep a fair distance between Enma and himself.
"Yes, you were worth waiting for," Enma said. He looked up as the sound of alarms outside went off one by one. He seemed to ignore them, his piercing black eyes and full attention back on Watari's face.
"Such qualities none of them possess. You can still change your mind."
Watari cast a brief glance at the clock on the wall. "I'm done playing your games."
"Ah, so you are." The blonde's quick look to his left was not lost on the god. He smirked. "Now you're playing your own."
Watari tipped his head, his eyes set firmly upon Enma's face, watching his every move as he tried to read the intention behind the mask of cool, pale stone. Yet he saw nothing he hadn't seen before.
He could only guess what was happening outside. He could hear them; the voices of people scared out of the peace of their dreams. In the dark of the night Meifu stood wide open, and its ruler seemed to be making nothing of it. The piercing howls of the security alarms reached him even there, underground, away from it all.
"If you're here to stop me," he asked hesitantly, "what are you waiting for?"
"Stop you?" Enma laughed. "It would profit me little. You got your revenge. Does it make you feel good?"
Does it? Watari mused. I wish. But some things don't have such an easy fix.
"Was it worth it?"
Enma's voice got lost in the sudden commotion as the time-locked doors flung open. Several JuuOhCho employees darted inside, running towards the terminals, trying to regain control of Mother, to understand what had happened there. Soon the lab filled with voices, shouted commands and the cascades of clicking noises of fingers typing furiously away.
Watari lost Enma from his line of sight. He shut out the noise as his world slowed down, stumbling upon the echo of the god's words. Was it worth it? his inner voice repeated as he strolled slowly past the desks, past the people, towards the open door. I don't know. Time will tell.
-The End-
Is it possible to escape Enma's leash without consequences? A hopeful person would say, perhaps. A realist, though, knows that even years later, when all suspicions have been put to sleep and other matters have grown to be much more important, there is no escape. So, was it worth it? To be continued in Against the Wind.
Part Five
by Rhea Logan
The lab seemed abandoned, but some lights had been left on and Watari knew someone still had to be around. Carefully, he took in the interior, listening intently to any sounds that would tell him where that someone could be or who they were. Yet apart from the low humming of fans that surrounded him from all sides, he heard nothing. Wasting no more time, he made his way to the main terminal.
He had been tempted to check if his own access codes still worked, but it wasn't worth the risk. Empty as the building might have appeared, he knew the guards would be on his case in just under a minute if the alarms went off. The codes Akane had provided granted him the full access he needed.
A shadow of anger passed across his face at the sight of the name the codes had logged him in with. Hinote Katai. Figures. Watari stopped himself from slamming his fist into the keyboard in the last instant. So Akane had been right. Hinote knew all along. Curious when exactly his former second-in-command had taken his place, Watari called up the logs.
As he scrolled down the long list of entries, his eyebrows drew together in a deep frown. Among the log-ins he'd expected to find, there had been daily connections under his own name.
The list of current connections proved itself to be even more interesting to him. It showed one had been opened an hour ago and had yet to be terminated. One elegant eyebrow shot up as Watari checked where and who it was, a wide grin of triumph breaking on his face.
"Gotcha," he said quietly to himself, digging into his pocket for the disks he had brought with him.
He had hoped it would never come to using that. He had written the program that could sabotage five years of his own work within about three minutes merely a few weeks before the final run that got him trapped inside Mother. Some people would have called it luck; he had called it a hunch, and gave it a silent thanks for the perfect timing.
One after another, the disks vanished inside the drives. Watari's fingers flew across the keyboard as he entered the commands into the console: compile, install, execute.
That done, he switched the system to manual and locked the doors, setting them to disengage in 900 seconds. By his estimation, it should be enough. Checking the progress of the compilation on the terminal above one last time, Watari patted the side of the monitor.
"I'll miss you, but that's not what you were made to do," he said. With a few minutes left before his program would start eating its way through, he opened the reports directory and looked at the list. His eyes narrowed dangerously as he skimmed through the first few files he had found.
--External methods of decreasing the system temperature appear to be insufficient--
--system efficiency can be increased further by 3 to 5 percent by applying internal modifications to the host's hypothalamic thermostat. Permanent modification is highly recommended--
--I am reluctant to acknowledge the necessity to maintain the full functionality of the subject--
Watari closed the file, slowly releasing the breath he had not realized he had been holding. "Reluctant to acknowledge the necessity to maintain the functionality of the /subject/?" he uttered through gritted teeth.
The words echoed in his ears with the voice of the man he had once considered a friend. He clenched his hands into fists. Drawing a slow, long breath, Watari focused until his hands ceased to tremble and his body obeyed him again. Blessing the force of habit, he opened a connection to his own computer and sent the entire reports directory to himself. Then he scheduled the system for a remote shutdown as soon as the transfer was done.
He turned and started towards the adjacent room to finish what he had come for, but a sudden thought caught him in half-step. He stopped, his eyes sweeping a careful look around the lab. He made his way to the workstations the assistants used for their work, uneasiness and worry growing by the second in the form of a lump in his throat.
A brief checkup confirmed what he had feared. Akane's station had been purged. Her records gone. Her account deleted, with no trace of anyone by that name having ever worked there.
His stomach twisted itself into a tight knot. Watari leaned against the desk, his breath heavy and quick. The lab seemed to have shrunk down to contain only him and that single computer screen, and that one line that carved itself into his mind.
No record found.
No regrets.
He gave his head a firm shake, forcing the bitter thoughts that threatened to shake him out of control to the back of his mind. Then he cast one more look at the operation progress the mainframe had almost finished processing by now.
Cracking his knuckles, Watari regarded the door across from him with a nasty smile. "Showtime."
Locked in the docking station, Hinote looked as though he was asleep when Watari entered the room. The very sight of the man boiled the blood in his veins. It would be so easy to just strangle him with bare hands - not that it would kill him, but the sheer satisfaction was hard to resist. Not without a hint of regret, Watari swallowed down on the violent urges to deal with Hinote that way.
Access codes in place, he put his hands on the keyboard and looked over his shoulder. "Test subject A ready to undergo the testing procedure," he said with a sharp edge to every word. "Shame you've rid us of the one worthy witness so soon," he added as he confirmed the cutting off of the terminal link.
Hinote blinked a few times to bring himself back into focus, a deep frown of confusion creasing his forehead. His eyes met Watari's as he looked around the room. At once he froze.
"What are you doing here?"
Watari ran a slender finger across the keyboard under his gloved hand. "Tying up the loose ends."
"You're not supposed to be here." Trying for a commanding tone, the man pushed up to his feet and started towards the blonde.
"Of course not." Watari let out a quiet snort. "Which is precisely why I'm here."
Hinote's face reddened with anger. "Code five," he uttered, stealing a glance at the door to his right.
"Ah," Watari sent him a wry smile. "Mother doesn't like you anymore." Keys clicked. He watched Hinote take a few more tentative steps forth. His amber eyes narrowed ever so slightly, now darkened with emotion that showed only in them.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," he warned in a voice that sounded almost sweet. He met the questioning look in the pair of pale gray eyes and savored the fear that made them open wide.
"You see, there are times when I really, really hate being right. Imagine that. This would be one of those times." Watari clicked his tongue, giving his head a slow, light shake. "And I hate seeing years of my own work go into waste. But I'll live."
"What are you talking about?" Hinote's usual impressive posture suddenly seemed somewhat smaller.
To Watari, he almost reeked of panic. "In about..." he checked his watch, "Ninety seconds, the unofficial part of the Mother Project will be nothing but history," he explained in a cool, informative tone.
"What?" Hinote looked at him with pure disbelief. "You can't!"
Watari raised an eyebrow. "Watch me."
"It will destabilize the entire system! The protective shields around Meifu will collapse!"
"Nothing Enma can't handle, I'm sure," Watari replied with a shrug to his shoulders.
"You don't understand. It might kill you."
The corners of his lips twitched in a half-hearted smile. "I wouldn't count on it. The core won't shut down but it will cut off the supporting systems as soon as I'm done. By the way," Watari added after a breath, "I see you're testing for compatibility? I hope you know what sort of risk you're running."
Hinote let out a snort. "Of course."
"Good." Watari cast a brief look at his wristwatch again. "You're about to prove or disprove my programming genius. Congratulations. It's a great honor."
The man took another step. "What?" he hissed.
"Do you know what happens when, for instance, your terminal overheats beyond the critical point?" Watari asked in a cold, emotionless voice.
"Nothing. It's protected against that sort of thing."
"Against a failure, yes," Watari agreed with a nod. "But a direct command will override its security switch, since it is inferior. What happens then?"
Hinote's eyes grew wide. His swayed on his feet, one hand reaching out to grasp something to keep him steady, the other clutching at his head. "It will..." He started but broke off, his eyes sliding shut.
He fell to the ground, boneless, without a sound.
"Roast you alive," Watari finished for him, his voice merely a whisper.
He looked down at the fallen man. Some part of him found his own lack of remorse repulsive. Perhaps it was wrong of him to take justice in his own hands, to be the judge and the executor in one. But he knew that 'justice' had been just another word, another thing that had lost its meaning in his mind.
"Does it soothe you?"
He turned around. Enma DaiOh leaned in doorway, watching him with an almost amused look in his jet-black eyes, arms crossed over his broad chest.
Watari shrugged. "It warms me up."
Enma let out a sound suspiciously resembling a quiet snort. "You can say the same about him," he said as he moved away from his spot. He brushed a strand of black hair away from his face.
Watari pursed his lips, waving a dismissive hand towards Hinote's limp form on the floor. "It didn't kill him."
A small, enigmatic half-smile danced around the corners of Enma's lips. "You like pulling the strings, don't you?" he asked in a light, almost conversational tone.
Watari's eyebrows drew together in a frown. He watched the god turn around and leave the room without any signs of haste. With wary steps, Watari followed suit, although he made sure to keep a fair distance between Enma and himself.
"Yes, you were worth waiting for," Enma said. He looked up as the sound of alarms outside went off one by one. He seemed to ignore them, his piercing black eyes and full attention back on Watari's face.
"Such qualities none of them possess. You can still change your mind."
Watari cast a brief glance at the clock on the wall. "I'm done playing your games."
"Ah, so you are." The blonde's quick look to his left was not lost on the god. He smirked. "Now you're playing your own."
Watari tipped his head, his eyes set firmly upon Enma's face, watching his every move as he tried to read the intention behind the mask of cool, pale stone. Yet he saw nothing he hadn't seen before.
He could only guess what was happening outside. He could hear them; the voices of people scared out of the peace of their dreams. In the dark of the night Meifu stood wide open, and its ruler seemed to be making nothing of it. The piercing howls of the security alarms reached him even there, underground, away from it all.
"If you're here to stop me," he asked hesitantly, "what are you waiting for?"
"Stop you?" Enma laughed. "It would profit me little. You got your revenge. Does it make you feel good?"
Does it? Watari mused. I wish. But some things don't have such an easy fix.
"Was it worth it?"
Enma's voice got lost in the sudden commotion as the time-locked doors flung open. Several JuuOhCho employees darted inside, running towards the terminals, trying to regain control of Mother, to understand what had happened there. Soon the lab filled with voices, shouted commands and the cascades of clicking noises of fingers typing furiously away.
Watari lost Enma from his line of sight. He shut out the noise as his world slowed down, stumbling upon the echo of the god's words. Was it worth it? his inner voice repeated as he strolled slowly past the desks, past the people, towards the open door. I don't know. Time will tell.
-The End-
Is it possible to escape Enma's leash without consequences? A hopeful person would say, perhaps. A realist, though, knows that even years later, when all suspicions have been put to sleep and other matters have grown to be much more important, there is no escape. So, was it worth it? To be continued in Against the Wind.
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