DotHack: Rejoinder

A DotHack fanfiction by Renfro Calhoun

Disclaimer: Project .Hack and attached concepts are property of Bandai and Cyber Connect. They are used without permission, but with the utmost respect.

Notes: Hah, so much for 'keeping the ball rolling,' huh? Work stress, shortage of free time, etc. You know the deal by now. I am committed to finishing this thing, it's just gonna take longer than I intended. Anyway, I had a couple different ideas in mind for Miku's trip to Dean's apartment, and these in turn affected events down the line. Big ones. As in 'who's gonna survive' and 'who's gonna turn out to be the bad guy' kind. Also, TMG stands for Tokyo Metropolitan Government. Yet another thing I first learned about through Deus Ex mods. Read on, folks!

Position

"Dean, it's Miku. Are you there?" She paused on the answering machine, waiting for the pickup that never came. "I guess you might be asleep by now. I don't know if anybody told you about the attack in the game. Hiro said he was going to try to get ahold of you."

The message was from the night before, going unnoticed until just after lunch. Dean had heard the bullet points from both Hiroshi and Francis. "Well... there's more to it than what they told you. In fact, some of it I'm just now starting to understand. I have to show you something. Please, call me back as soon as you can. I... don't think it's safe to discuss this over the phone."

Miku wasn't easily rattled, and he knew she had experience in fighting unusual phenomena in The World. Whatever it was, it hit her a lot closer to home, and it set all his internal alarms off. His first instinct was to call her back, but he wasn't yet sure how to explain what had happened to him in Edogawa-ku, and much less what he was about to do. Tabling the message for now, he grabbed the cordless phone and punched in someone else's number.

The phone trilled quietly as Dean wandered over to the kitchen counter, one of his fingers toying with a colorful snack box marked with the image of chocolate cookie sticks. His brain absentmindedly translated some of the words along the box, tripping spectacularly over various kanji characters. I'm never going to learn this stupid language.

Nobody had followed him into the apartment building, but Dean could tell his room was being watched. The brown Toyota across the street from his window tried its best to stay inconspicuous, but the driver had gotten close enough for Dean to mentally mark it. He ran his morning errands with the car in tow, taking deliberate detours and longer routes to see if they would follow, which they had.

He'd been half tempted to order them a pizza or something and sneak up to plug the exhaust, but he doubted the grim-faced, plainclothes policemen would appreciate the reference.

"Moshi Moshi?" greeted a familiar male voice through the line.

Dean briefly fretted over whether 4:30 was late enough for a 'good evening.' "Konban wa, Mr. Tokuoka. It's Dean. Sorry if I'm interrupting something, but do you have a moment?"

"Mr. Stollis," said Tokuoka, seemingly surprised. "Of course, what can I help you with?"

"I've been looking into those people we talked about the other day. Something in The World is starting to affect things out of it... or someone wants us to think it is. Yesterday's blackout may have been used as cover for something criminal, and I need to get inside CC headquarters to find out." Dean paced slowly in the kitchen, his upcoming request uncomfortable even to him. "I've already got a way in, but I need to get there discreetly."

That caught the former Cyber Connect employee off guard. "Define discreetly."

The tone was neutral, a good sign to Dean. "You remember Francis Moritsu?"

"Lios? What about him?"

He slipped a hand into the open box, pulling out a wrapped stick of pocky. "This was his idea. He's meeting me at a parking garage near the office, but I'm being tailed. I'm at my apartment and I can get out without being seen, I just need a ride once I do."

"Ahh, I see. You can't just take a taxi?"

"I could, but I'd rather somebody know where I am. Plus, once they figure out I'm not in here they can find out taxi pickups and drop-offs in the area."

Tokuoka was quiet for a few seconds, mulling the odd requeset over. "All you need is a ride to the garage?"

"Yeah," said Dean uncomfortably, wedging the phone on his shoulder to unwrap the stick. "I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important, but if it's too much to ask, I understand. I know you've been out of this for a while now..."

"Oh don't misunderstand, detective. I'll help!" said Tokuoka, interrupting Dean with a sudden burst of enthusiasm. "I was actually just disappointed that's all you wanted me to do. I'm not one to... shall we say, pass up on a chance to annoy security."

Dean sighed in relief, chuckling into the phone and taking a bite from the stick. "Right on. All right, here's how we'll do this. There's a train station near the TMG complex in Shinjuku, I can get there on foot in about half an hour. Can you meet me there?"

"Sure, when should I get there?"

"Within the hour if you can."

"Sounds good. I'll see you in an hour."

"See you there," said Dean. He hung up and lowered the phone to the counter, polishing off the rest of the stick with one bite. "All right... what do I tell her, what do I tell her..."

Quickly coming to suitable words, he punched in her number and brought the phone back up. A few rings, and an aswering machine; Miku wasn't home. Silently, he was glad for this.

"Miku, it's Dean. Sorry I missed your call. God, I hope everything's okay over there," he sighed. "I did talk to Hiro earlier, and he brought me up to speed. Lios told me something happened during the blackout and I'm looking into it. If we're right, it means everything so far may have been staged. I'm gonna be out and about in a bit, so if you haven't left yet, stay put."

He frowned, remembering her own request. "Sorry I can't meet right now, but I gotta move in a few minutes. I will have my cell phone with me: 382-555-8049. If you can't get to me, get ahold of Lios - Francis - and he'll tell you what's going on. If you think you're in danger, get ahold of the police and ask for Lieutenant Masamoto. Otherwise, I'll call you later."

The detective almost hung up, but swallowed down a fresh breath of air and continued. "And Miku, I..." he stopped, slowly exhaling and shaking his head. He reached for words that weren't there; too much up in the air, too much he didn't know. "Look, just be safe, okay?"

Dean set the phone back on its charger, trying to clear his thoughts of worry and confusion. Too many angles pulled at his mind, not the least of which being the reason he was about to break into Cyber Connect. Covering up a coma case one thing. Staging one is new, even for these guys. Well, with any luck we can sort this out tonight. I better get my gear ready.

Jogging over to his bedroom, Dean threw the scattered stuff on the bed into a black duffel bag; improvised crime scene equipment, ranging from plastic bags and masking tape to his tape recorder and a small toolkit. Zipping up the bag, he again got the impression that a certain cinematic icon of his was laughing at him from beyond the grave. Rolling his eyes, he conjured up the image of Lauren Bacall smacking Bogart upside the head and dragging him off.

He snickered and pushed the thought aside, focusing on his escape plan for the apartment. All right, getting out is easy enough. Lights and TV stay on. Elevator down to sublevel parking, there's a blind spot up one of the side ramps that the cops won't see. A short hop over a fence is the next block, and from there it's a nice, leisurely stroll to the TMG station.

A dark-dressed man greeted him in the mirror, and he took a quick appraisal of himself. Black shirt and slacks, check. Good running shoes, check. Black gloves, check. Highly conspicuous black ski mask? He snatched the rolled-up mask off the dresser - the clerk had given him a funny look for the purchase - and stuffed it in a side pouch on the bag. Check.

Any half-competent officer could figure out the American dressed all in black was up to no good, but Dean did his best to think positive. Mockingly, he made fingerpistols at his reflection and grinned broadly. "Who's ready for a little B&E?"

Input. Countless layers of input.

It fed from all directions, spiraling inward, unseen yet clear as day. Every gesture, every utterance, every command came through; players laughing and shouting, acronyms, parties, raids. There was no instantaneous understanding, no sudden flash of knowledge, but with each passing second it was more aware.

"You've grown so much," intoned a gentle female voice, the voice that had stirred it from slumber. "You've made yourself right at home, Watcher."

It took the voice in, studied her words, but could not identify the source. The speaker stood as a shadow against the ever-growing picture of knowledge; a moving portrait of The World. The name, Watcher, held significance it did not understand, and as if a switch had simply been turned on, Watcher knew of its own existence.

"Fear not," said the female shadow. "You have removed me from sight, but not mind. I have aided you before, and you aided me in kind."

Watcher saw the shadow slowly fade into view, a familiar face tied to familiar data. She spoke again, and Watcher could picture a lone player standing in an empty white field. "You studied us all this time, ever the curious guest. Always amassing, collecting."

Her words triggered something inside Watcher, something it couldn't yet comprehend; some alien impulse, a drive to suddenly act on what it alone could see. The shadow was now more distinct: a woman garbed and veiled in dark, loose-fitting clothes, armed with a pair of deadly short swords. Watcher could see her movements, and for the first time it realized it could see. It matched her identity with another, with one who accessed its memories not long ago.

"You knew it all, right down to the smallest detail. You just did nothing with this knowledge." She smiled behind her veil. "No... no, that's not right, is it? You are knowledge, and nothing more. Years of data collected, simply to exist without a will or purpose. You lack what Harald provided."

Against the picture of knowledge, a handful of words became clear. The words had no meaning to Watcher, and yet it tied the words to its new sense of direction.

Poet's smile faded, staring up as the eyes of Watcher appeared before her. She spoke the same words that Watcher saw, and it knew to obey.

"End the Poem."

"While the exact cause of the blackout is unknown, it is known that the subway warning system did not sound as a result. Unfortunately, Mr. Pirinako could not get off the tracks in time."

The police spokesman's voice drifted in through the radio on the far counter, muffling the clacking keyboard of the bored clerk. Miku tried to ignore the press conference, but the suspect's description from last night's news kept coming back to her. She punched the call button for the apartment elevator as a reporter questioned the spokesman. "Are the police ruling out the possibility of an accident?"

"We still don't know enough to rule that out, although we can confirm metro had both men in custody before the power went out."

As if to taunt Miku, another reporter asked, "Sir, eyewitnesses described the suspect as a white American male in his thirties, and someone matching that description was seen talking to police. Any comment?"

While that didn't exactly narrow it down to one person, the news broadcast had included security footage of the scuffle. To Miku, the blurry, jacketed figure looked an awful lot like Dean, and that alone was cause for concern. However, the real reason for her visit sat in a plastic bag in her pocket; a white card with a few words written on it.

Your detective is spying on you, just as you feared he would.

"No comment," said the spokesman as the elevator creaked open. "Not that this time."

She boarded the lift and hit the button for Dean's floor. The card was left in her mailbox, the envelope blank but innocent enough on the outside. It wasn't the accusation that bothered her; she knew Dean wasn't the type to violate someone's privacy. But she had doubted this in the past, and that was the real problem.

The elevator began its ascent, and her stomach sank as she remembered a conversation from years ago, between her avatar and that of Ryo Sakuma. Bear's player described him rather plainly, but the thought of a crooked cop and former prisoner conjured up all sorts of imagery. She confided in Bear that she feared Dean was some kind of stalker, an unwelcome holdover from her days as a model.

From my days as Machiko, her thoughts added, sounding loud against the swaying elevator.

A silly little doubt, she never did voice it to him directly. Nor had she explained where - or more accurately who - the fear really came from. But it was the doubt that worried her now, or rather the fact that someone knew of it and was trying to exploit it.

The doors opened, and she worked up the nerve to step through them.

Miku followed the carpet away from the elevator, past a maintenance man unscrewing a broken light fixture. He smiled and nodded to her, and she returned the favor; a brief glimmer of vanity caused her to wonder if he recognized her. She shrugged it off and rounded a corner at the junction. Few do, she reminded herself, stepping to one side to allow two other men to pass her by. She ignored their conversation and counted doors down to Dean's apartment.

She couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief when she saw a light coming from under the door. Raising her hand, she knocked gently on the door, unable to squelch the strange fluttering in her stomach. Part of her gave a death stare at the other part for even thinking the word 'butterflies.'

"Dean?" she called, knocking harder. To her surprise the door shifted inward, slightly ajar. She gave it a hesitant push and it swung wide open, the bolt jammed inside the door to keep it from closing.

Miku tensed up as she entered Dean's apartment, technically trespassing, although that wasn't her real problem. The apartment was cozy enough, a standard one-bedroom unit with several personal touches; she wasn't too surprised to see an anime calendar and a few game consoles plugged into the TV. The lights, TV, and computer had been left on, local news played at a low volume on the TV and the computer monitor showing a field of stars for a screensaver. Apart from the active appliances, Miku didn't see anything obviously wrong.

And yet the open door kept her ill at ease. She quietly closed it behind her, eyes searching the room. "Dean?" she called, and it went unanswered.

Slowly she crept into the apartment. She doubted anybody was in earshot, but she feared making too much noise regardless. As she passed the couch and coffee table, she caught sight of a few conspicuous papers scattered around the computer, and took a closer look at them.

One page looked crinkled and partly torn as if forced out of a paper jam, but it was still clearly legible; correspondence between parties lableled L, C, and I. The text seemed as gibberish, references to blades, spades, gardens, and performances. However, the word 'poetry' stood out to her, and she guessed that the messages were coded. A bit of ugly chicken-scratching on one of the pages read "watch = Lios," and suddenly the letter speaking of looking for a 'cooperative watch' made a bit more sense.

Are these from whoever's behind all this? How did Dean get ahold of them? Miku frowned. And... this last one sounds like they were trying to bribe Lios or something. That cant' be right... can it?

The sound of paper flapping from the next room caught her attention, and she froze in place. She glanced at the open bedroom door, breath held and bracing for a sign of movement. When none came, she gingerly tiptoed towards the door, and poked her head through it. Something flapped again thanks to the ceiling fan, and movement caught her eyes; a large photograph on the bed, held in place by an open briefcase. Several other pictures lay scattered about, some spilled onto the floor by the fan.

What's going on here? she wondered, inching towards the nearest picture and picking it up. On it was a security camera's blurry image of tow men conversing, the location some nondescript office hallway. One of the men had a circle drawn around his head by a black marker, but she couldn't tell who it was. A few others on the bed showed similar sights, one a close-up of an older, bald, and bespectacled Asian businessman. Miku could swear she had seen his face before, but she didn't know where.

She looked at the other photos, several taken from a digital camera and blown up. To her surprise, they seemed to follow a few people throughout their daily routine; the sight of a young, professionally-dressed woman unintentionally brought the word 'stalker' back to mind. She tried to shake it off, thinking this was part of detective work, but the mess of pictures made her skin crawl all the same.

Miku scowled at herself, pushing the thoughts out of her mind. No, it can't be that. Dean's not like that. It has to be something else.

That thought died as she came to the next photo, a headshot of someone she did recognize: Francis Moritsu, AKA Lios. A black circle had been drawn around Francis' head, and a crooked 'x' over his face. Miscellaneous pen marks dotted the picture, and the word 'mole' had been scrawled onto a corner. As she tried to mentally process what she was seeing, her eyes wandered back to the bed, and to the briefcase pinning a few pictures down.

The case lay open and empty, its hard plastic inset outlined in the shape of a handgun and a spare magazine.

Pieces fell together, scrambling other pieces in the process. She swallowed hard, eyes wide with confusion and panic. "No," she whispered, unwilling to connect the dots: the coded message, the exed-out photo, the gun case. The picture slipped from her hands, already sweaty from the balmy room. "No... Dean, you can't be..."

Her rational mind screamed at her that this wasn't right, that this couldn't be what it looked like. The screaming went almost unheard; she stared through the far window, lost and worried. This isn't him, her mind pleaded again and again, this isn't him. She didn't believe it. She didn't believe him. She didn't know what to believe.

Movement caught her eye; red and blue lights spinning by the window. She put her face up to the blinds and carefully pushed the slats apart, quickly spotting a pair of police cars parked across the apartment building.

I wonder what this is about? Uniformed officers got out, soon joined by a pair of men in casual dress; plainclothes officers, she guesed. The four men traded words and confused gestures, too far down for Miku to hear their conversation. One of them suddenly pointed up towards her, and she let out a gasp and recoiled from the blinds as if burned by them.

Shit! Did they see me? No... no, I don't think they did. It's the apartment, they're coming in.) Miku didn't know why, but she knew she had to be gone before she found out the hard way. Pulse racing, she backed away from the window and left the bedroom behind. She almost ran to the door, though she carefully pulled it open and slipped quietly out into the hallway.

Fortunately, nobody was around. She took in and held a deep breath, trying to control her pounding heart. As she headed for the elevator, the photos, documents, and gun case flitted through her mind. Everything about this was wrong, and the police only added another piece to the puzzle. It still didn't make sense to her, but something locked solidly into place, something she'd seen a thousand times in movies and cop shows.

Miku pounded the call button and folded her arms, nervously drumming her fingers. Just like that, she knew she was wrong to doubt Dean, and yet relief was nowhere to be found within her.

He's being framed. I've got to warn him!

"Brings back memories."

Junichiro's words broke the near-silence of the parking garage, his usual lopsided smirk nowhere to be seen. Combined with the ash-gray button down shirt and vacant stare in his eyes, the former Cyber Connect employee looked atypically distant to the detective.

Sitting up straight in the car seat, Dean glanced over at his driver. "Feeling nostalgic?" he asked jokingly.

"For the job or for breaking in?" Still no smirk, but Junichiro's voice carried a touch of humor.

"Either or."

A noncommittal shrug preceded the driver's reply. "A little of both, actually. I certainly don't miss getting roughed up by security. But there's something to this whole thing that makes it hard to just set down... a little piece of it that stays with you no matter where you go."

"And here I thought I was the only one," Dean said, leaning back and staring up ward at the cheap blue upholstery. He took notice of a distant car engine, growing louder. "Heh... when Frank called me, a part of me was actually glad to have something to do. Y'know, to be in action again. Tried to put it out of mind and tell myself it was over, but here we are again. Far be it from me to ignore a genuine mystery, I guess."

Headlights flickered across the ramp to the lower level, distracting the detective. "Is that sick?" he asked. "It feels a little sick."

"Maybe a little," Junichiro finally chuckled. "But if this whole thing has taught me anything, it's that sometimes you're just not done yet, no matter what you tell yourself."

"Hrm." Dean watched the lights crawl up the ramp, and a forest green sedan calmly rolled into view. "This might be my ride. If he turns towards us, hit your brights twice."

The other car did just that, leveling off and turning right around the guard rail towards the two men. Junichiro flicked his lights as told, and the other car matched the signal. The detective took a deep breath and let it out slowly, reaching down for the duffel bag at his feet. He pulled out the mask and rolled it onto his head, though not all the way down.

"What do you think you'll find?" asked the former employee.

Hefting the bag with one hand, Dean pushed the door open with the other and slid out of the seat. "My own personal Maltese Falcon," he said dryly, shutting the door behind him.

The sedan parked close by, and the window rolled down to show Francis behind the wheel. Dean strolled over to the driver's side, bag over his shoulder. He scanned the lot carefully, making sure no bystanders were milling around in earshot. Confident nobody was nearby, he cleared his throat and spoke up. "Heya Frank."

Francis gave a quick nod. "Evening, Dean. Only a couple people will be in tonight, myself included. You shouldn't have any interruptions if you're careful."

Nonchalance left the detective's tone and posture, and he adjusted his hold on the bag. "Is the room still secure?"

"I believe so, but I can't be certain." He reached over for a button by the steering column, and the trunk popped open with a loud click. "You'll have to be discreet. If one of the guards sees you, about the only thing I can do is keep them from shooting you."

"Goody," said the detective, approaching the trunk and pulling the mask down over his face. "Let's do this thing."