= Right. I figured that since this isn't technically a subplot, more of a backstory than anything, it belongs here. Warning: it measures nearly nine pages, not double-spaced, in Word. I decided, as opposed to a summary, to make it a story. If this gets approved, I'll put this in Fanfic/Art for comments, suggestions, etc. I'm decently proud of the writing, but this approval is just making sure I'm not taking too much liberty with the NetPolice and all that. Thanks to Kenshin Trigger for the ideas, by the way. =
Twenty-two years ago...
The Net wasn't so much new as a place for entrepreneurs and amateur NetBattlers to go. The NetPolice gained lawful control of the Net many years ago, and are widely accepted and loved by the public. Everyone is scrambling to make his or her fortune through virtual reality, from battlechip salesmen to shady Navicust parts dealers to Navi battling contest runners. The NetPolice and other administrative branches are doing their best to keep the Net safe, and many different approaches in science are considered.
Magnus Notara, a vaguely Greek NetPolice scientist, was invited into a smaller, lesser-known scientific branch of the NP, specializing in NetNavi-based testing. Very, very basic, generic Navis were being tested for different power levels and different combinations of battlechips, an early attempt at getting ahead of crime through power. Notara immediately took an interest to this, devoting nearly all of his free time to the lab. Just a few days after he'd joined the group, he'd questioned the ethics of the experiments, wondering simply if the Navis were being subjected to any sort of pain or discomfort. His doubts were immediately dismissed by a higher-up in the NetPolice, not actually part of the group but an administrator who was supposedly looking into the exactly the same sort of thing that Notara had been questioning. Pacified for now, Notara kept working hard, not making any huge breakthroughs, but definitely progress.
After a week or so of the extra work in addition to his normal hours, Motoko, Magnus' wife, began to question the very motives of her husband. "Magnus. Why are you working so hard?" "Magnus! Get some sleep already!" "Magnus, dinner's been sitting on the table for forty-five minutes. Ceres misses you," and the like. He simply dismissed her worries, telling her it was for the good of everyone on the Net, and that his research would reduce crime by at least 25%. She simply sighed and shook her head every time he tried to explain to her, upsetting him greatly.
When he went into work the next day, he opened up as he usually did, inserting the key to his lab and turning it hastily, and then bustling in with arms full of papers and a briefcase, among other electronic parts. He was simply focused on his work, like usual, thinking only of the three, four, or even five experiments he had to work on that day. After switching his computer on, he sat back in his chair, sighing, and noticing for the first time one of his colleagues in the room, typing and clicking hastily.
"Ah! Carter! What are you doing here so early?" Magnus laughed, having jumped nearly a foot out of his chair at the sight of someone else. "Usually I'm the one who opens up."
"Oh! Uh, hi, Mag! I'm... just sending in some test results up top," the other man stammered, not having noticed Magnus either.
"Yeah? Did you ever figure out if the Widesword could... hey! That's not..." Magnus started accusingly, but Carter had already closed out of whatever he'd been doing.
"Caught me..." Carter grumbled, frowning. "I like MMORPGs, OK?"
"Haha, it's OK, I won't tell," Magnus teased, and then relaxed slightly. "I don't see why you'd wake up early just to do that, though."
"Oh. I lag like crazy at my home connection," Carter explained, still seeming a bit nervous.
"Yeah, I get cravings like that, too. So, what do we have to get done today...?"
"Uh... I think we are still doing the Widesword and elemental combination..."
"Alright, let's get to it!" Magnus exclaimed, and hopped back on his computer, opening several programs as quickly as he could, literally bouncing with enthusiasm. Carter sighed, whistled quietly to himself, and then went back to his computer as well, immersing himself in what he was actually supposed to be doing.
The next day...
Magnus walked into work early again, ready for another day of experimenting. He opened up, looking around curiously to see if anyone else had come in early—but no, it was just as it usually was. Oddly enough, he noticed one of the other computers was sleeping, the colorful screensaver dancing around its screen contentedly. He put down his papers and briefcase and walked curiously to the computer, shaking its mouse to stop the screensaver. As the computer responded, Magnus' jaw literally dropped. The monitor displayed a single, normal-looking navi, colored a deep violet; but something was drastically different about it. It looked like another navi had taken a virtual razor blade to it; deep gashes in its structure were evident, along with many small cuts that even gouged all the way through it, leaving gaping holes and craters in its body. The severed data floated limply around the navi, shaking slightly. Magnus gasped, realizing that the navi hadn't been backed up and it was as near deletion as it could take. Hurriedly, he whipped out a small flash drive and plugged it into the computer, extracting the navi's data as quickly as he could. He barely had enough time to see a blurb on the side of the testing program—"This navi has an enigmatic structural coding. It can constantly, if slowly, replace its lost data and transform at will. Perhaps this can be utilized..." and so on. The report listed three pages, and Magnus decided to add this to his flash drive as well. Still moving quickly, he made it appear as if the navi had been released from testing manually, covering up his trail as best he could.
Still slightly in shock, Magnus moved back to his work station, awestruck by his latest discovery. Had Carter been in on this, too...? Maybe there was something shady going on here... but for now, he'd have to pretend nothing had happened. Sighing, he continued his work as he usually did, paying special attention to the well-being of his test subjects like he usually did. He treated most of his colleagues normally, but paid special attention to their work habits—he couldn't detect a single fault today, not even with Carter. Odd...
When he had finished with one of his experiments, he made a split-second decision. "I'm going home early today. It'll make Motoko and Ceres happy, I'm sure..."
"Alright, go for it, buddy." "Yeah, have fun," several of his colleagues chimed in, hardly looking up from their work. Magnus nodded slowly, and then shut down his computer and made a point of putting his flash drive in a deeper pocket in his pants, not wanting to let it get away from him just yet.
Arriving home a little bit later, he was greeted by an overjoyed toddler Ceres, who clung to his leg tenaciously upon his arrival. Motoko was equally happy, and prepared a special dinner just for fun. The small family went to bed a bit early that night, happy and satisfied—except Magnus. The work day was still on his mind, so he got up from bed silently, not daring to stir Motoko. Creeping to his computer, he turned it on and put the navi's data into the hard drive. It popped up on the display looking slightly more comfortable, but just as injured, and very quizzical. Magnus put in headphones so that the speakers wouldn't make any noise as the computer turned on, but jumped in shock as a small, faint voice came through the reception.
"Who... are you?" The navi had managed to lift its head up, keeping an eerie, constant eye contact with Magnus.
"I'm Magnus Notara. What happened to you?" he demanded softly into the headset's mic, frowning and furrowing his eyebrows at the dire condition of the navi. He quickly set up a program that would regenerate the navi's stamina, but for now, it would have to stay put.
"Don't know," the navi managed to gasp out, closing its eyes because of the pain.
"Take a bit of time to recover. I need to find out, though..." Magnus offered quietly, and received nothing but a slight inclination of the head from the mysterious purple navi. Sighing, he put the computer on standby and returned to bed. Motoko hadn't moved one inch.
Morning...
Magnus woke up early, still anxious about the mysterious navi. He turned his computer on to find the navi — still hacked to pieces. However, it looked positively lively and completely healthy.
"Much better, thank you," it said. "I don't have a name to introduce myself."
"That's fine..." Magnus replied, somewhat relieved. "Do you know who did this to you?"
"No," was all the navi offered. "I couldn't see from the monitor."
"Ugh," Magnus groaned, and offered his good-bye to the navi, shutting his computer off and heading to work, grabbing a cup of coffee on the way.
Once he arrived at work, he again noticed that there was no one in the lab, and everything was exactly how it should be. He sat down at his computer, turned it on, and was shocked within seconds. There were obvious traces of a user without an administrative account on his computer literally ripping through his experiments and test results, and most were nothing but five or ten minutes after he'd left the office early the previous day. He gasped as he looked through his files—mangled, perverted versions of the programs he had created to help NetBattlers were resting where his programs were, and they'd obviously been copied and sent somewhere. He sat back, still in shock, hands resting over his eyes as if he could rub out the bad sight with his palms. "N-no! That's all of my work!" he cried, clicking through his files again and again. The altered versions seemed to have coding of their own, programmed to destroy, not to aid. He ran an inventory check on his files, and it turned out that his original files had been saved in another location. He looked through these, and sighed with relief—his work was saved. But why were the altered copies and programs that were nowhere near the objective of his project on his computer? He put them on his flash drive as well, and then deleted them entirely from his computer. Things weren't shaping up the way he wanted it to.
He eyed all of his colleagues suspiciously as they filed into the office. He only got annoyed or irritated looks in return. Frowning, he continued with his experiments—and when he was done for the day, he did his best to lock all of his files. He had the queerest feeling that someone was watching him the whole day, but whenever he looked around suspiciously, everyone was working independently. After a whole day of raised hairs on his neck and shivers being sent down his spine, he was happy to go home to a loving wife and child. He immediately logged on to his computer, greeted the navi, and then opened up his webmail account. He sent hasty, somewhat superficial e-mails to all of the NetPolice administrators he knew, and then sat back in his chair, shaking slightly. He had an idea—he was going to take a day off tomorrow. Then, he was going to bide his time until he got a response to his emails. He called into the office, notifying them of his plan to take a day off, and then got a good night's sleep.
He woke up feeling refreshed in the morning, although still uneasy. He went out into town to get some simple groceries, but was stopped by one of his work friends as he walked near the center of his town.
"Hey! Dave! What are you doing out of work?" Magnus exclaimed, surprised to see one of his closest and most devoted-to-work friends taking a break, too.
"I could ask the same thing of you," he replied curiously. "Here, take a step aside with me," he said, motioning into a small pathway that didn't exactly lead to the grocery store. "I need to talk to you about something... private."
"Well, alright," Magnus said slowly, very suspicious now. He let Dave walk in first, following closely after. "What's up?"
"I... I know that you know about what they're doing," Dave stuttered, looking around dubiously. "You have to stop making it so obvious, Mag."
"What?" Magnus said curiously. "Know about wha—"
"Shut up! Don't play dumb, you know what I'm talking about!" Dave snapped, looking even more uneasy than before. "You have to get out of this group, now. They don't know that I know."
"Who's 'they', Dave?!" Magnus exclaimed. His greatest fear had been realized. "Who's been screwing with us?"
"All of them."
"What?"
"Every single last damned one of them. Even the man who started it." Dave whispered.
"No! It can't be!" Magnus practically yelled, not caring about secrecy at this time.
"They're authorized by the higher-ups. There's no one to trust anymore."
"I—I just e-mailed every higher-up I know about it," Magnus groaned, putting his hands over his eyes again, a natural reaction to bad news. Pretend it isn't there.
"You—you did... what?!" Dave screamed, outraged. "No!"
"It's too late—I sent it last night..."
"You have to get out of here, then," Dave replied, crossing his arms. "There's no other alternative. They won't let this get out. They will take action."
"They can't! They're all that people trust!" Magnus exclaimed, practically in tears. "This isn't right!"
"You have to get out of here. They won't go for your family. Just go."
"I... people have to know about this!"
"Then hurry," Dave hissed, and walked away from Magnus, rushing back to work. After all, he was on lunch break. Magnus went in the opposite direction, heading home as fast as he could...
Once he arrived at home, he began writing a note to Motoko explaining what had happened. He was planning to leave for a week, heading to a different country altogether. Hurriedly, he left directions to back the navi he'd found up, and to say to anyone that asked that he'd gone somewhere else entirely. He knew that Motoko would still be asleep, so he left the note by her nightstand, and began packing immediately. Outside, clouds began forming overhead, and the first raindrops could be felt on the skin of anyone out there.
Jumping in the car, Magnus headed to his lab in a frenzy of squealing tires, still trying to absorb the first half of the information that'd been forcibly shoved into his brain. Parking the car as fast as he could, he sprinted into his building, intending to take the elevator to the highest floor he could access; the administrative offices. Before he could get three steps, however, a voice sounded behind him. "Magnus Notara. I need a word."
"Not now, Carter! I'm in a hurry to get upstairs, and—!" Magnus started, jumping at least a foot into the air.
"Now," Carter snapped, grabbing Magnus by the arm and dragging him towards the lab.
"Carter. I need to go, right now."
"Too bad. I need to speak to you privately..."
Carter led Magnus into the lab and locked the door behind the two of them with an ominous click. Magnus simply stared coldly at his colleague, trying to put all of his pent-up frustration and confusion into one glare; if looks could kill. "Why?" was all he could muster without screaming; a desperate struggle for time.
"What ever could you mean?" Carter laughed derisively, crossing his arms and sitting back innocently.
"Why would you throw away everything we worked on? Everything we strived for?" Magnus demanded, pointing an accusing finger at his workmate. "That was my life. You did your best to destroy everything I worked on in a matter of days, if not hours."
"Ah, see, that's where we're different, you and I," Carter smiled sadly. "You fail to see the grand scheme of things, as usual. I was afraid of this. However, you did surprise me at one turn; you figured me out. How, may I ask?"
"Curiosity, luck, and help," Magnus admitted, turning red slightly. "What do you mean, grand scheme?" he demanded, taking a step towards Carter in his anger.
"Isn't it obvious? The NetPolice itself is collapsing," Carter explained rather condescendingly, hauling himself out of his chair and to a nearby steel-topped lab table, grasping a small "stress ball" that was filled with a sort of mushy, sandy substance, and happened to be a rough likeness of the Earth. He squeezed it experimentally, almost making a show of it, before continuing. "Soon enough, everything will be up for grabs. There's good money to be made in tools of destruction—many black market dealers and other shady buyers are very interested in technology that will allow them to get ahead of the game. So, I gave them a helping hand, for a very tidy sum. Isn't it worth sacrificing a few useless morals to get what you want? To expand the very boundaries of modern science?"
"You're a monster," Magnus spat, advancing another few steps to Carter. "In turn for money, you sell these, these... abominations to untrustworthy sources? Sources that could destroy everything we hold dear?"
"A monster? No, no, no. I'm only trying to shape the world! 'Everything we hold dear,' as so simplified by you, cannot, by any means, work as it should in the hands of ... well, what the world is controlled by now! Corporate bigwigs, beaurocrats, two-faced, greasy politicians—none should have any place in our world. With but a bit of influence, and a sharp knife, you can change the world," ranted Carter, eyes glowing slightly in the light of his enthusiasm, and warmed by the flames of his passion. "What are a few bad programs and experimental navis in turn for a beautiful world? If this is considered sinning—well—the repentful sinners are the most beloved by God, are they not? I can just say sorry," Carter cackled derisively, his wicked grin breaking out again.
"You ... you... bastard!" Magnus literally screamed, lunging forward and grabbing Carter by the collar of his waist coat, shaking him roughly. "You turned my programs into abominations! You destroyed everything I had worked for since I joined this damned—I can't even call it a research group anymore. This ring of criminals," he continued, beginning to lose control. Bits of spittle were flying into Carter's face, who had continued smirking throughout Magnus' rant. The smile of someone who has all the cards in his hand.
"I'm not a criminal. I'm a scientist. I simply altered a few of your programs on my own time, curious to see how they turned out. An independent group took an interest, and I happily sold it to them. It's not my fault if they use it for what you'd call 'wrong'—my hands are clean, here," he replied innocently, raising his hands in a further gesture of his innocence, though he was still in the grasp of Magnus.
"Your hands are just as dirty as any rapist or murderer! I created, while you corrupted!" Magnus continued, now yelling directly into Carter's face. He moved towards the wall, so that now he was pinning Carter to the wall by his neck. "You had... have... no right!"
"W...Who are you to... point the finger, M-Magnus?" Carter choked out, now actually in some pain, though he kept the eerie smile he had before. "You... your hands are... just as bloody as mine... that is, if they're bloody at all..."
"N-No!" Magnus cried, suddenly releasing Carter into a wheezing heap on the lab floor. "I correct mistakes, but you just capitalize them!"
"There... there lies the difference... between you... and I, Magnus," Carter sighed. "You say capitalize, while I say it's the only logical element in the equation."
"You don't have to make me do this, Carter," Magnus offered, though heading for the door regardless. "You can still back out. You can still fix things."
"Back out? Hah! If I backed out, nothing would change," Carter sneered. "I have no reason to do so, anyways. I'm just the messenger boy. What, exactly, were you thinking about doing?"
"I'm going to—..." Magnus began, but the blows came without warning. One hard metal instrument smashed into the side of his head whilst another rapped both of his kneecaps, nearly cracking them in the process. Two men stepped out of the shadows, one wielding a pistol and the other a crowbar. Magnus had collapsed, and thus looked up at Carter weakly, odd black and white circles blurring the edge of his vision, threatening to overtake him. "So... that's... it? You're just going to... kill me, Carter? Even... after speaking of so much... so much good?"
"Kill you? No, no, two bodyguards in my employ found it necessary to attack you for my safety. I never gave any order like that," Carter laughed dismissively. He suddenly turned to his "bodyguards," sobering up immediately. "The whole place ablaze. Make it look like an accident—an electrical failure. Magnus, who was working overtime, valiantly tries to save the data of all of his co-workers and himself, but is consumed in the blaze..." Carter fantasized, unlocking the door and straightening his lab coat collar. His hired men began messing up the room, knocking over several computer monitors and the like before getting the "electrical failure" prepared.
"Y-you..." Magnus groaned, causing Carter to turn around inquisitively.
"What is it, Magnus?" Carter replied sweetly, leaning down to look into Magnus' face.
"You... son of a bitch," Magnus growled, spitting in Carter's face angrily and falling to the floor, utterly spent and concussed.
"That's not a very nice thing to do to someone that's making you a hero," Carter snickered, wiping the saliva off of his face casually and walking out the door. "Oh, I nearly forgot," he murmured, then pulled a red-and-black colored PET out of his pocket and dialed 911. He began running out the door for effect as he screamed into the receiver, "Oh my God! This is terrible! The lab is going up in flames!" He kept a raspy and panicked voice during his whole dialogue, managing to get out, "My name? Magnus, Magnus Notara," and "I can't let all of our work burn!" before turning the PET off, chucking it back into the lab room with Magnus, and heading to his car. The smell of burning rubber and electrics permeated into his nostrils from the parking lot. "It's been fun, Magnus. I'll make sure my tears at your funeral are sincere, don't worry..."
Magnus, drifting in and out of consciousness, barely comprehended the smell of smoke and the burning sensation all around him as the room burned. "I'm... sorry..." he muttered, barely audible if anyone had been there to hear it.
Shortly after, the raging fire was put out, but not before a good deal of the lab had been utterly destroyed by fire. The police said that a virus apparently got into the fire suppression system and broke it, though the details were very vague. The body of Magnus L. Notara was pulled out, all too late to save him from fiery death. The only thing still perfectly intact, recovered from the wreckage, was the thumb drive found clenched in his hand, protected by the last ounce of strength he had in his body. It contained nothing but a few reports on experiments and the occasional screenshot of the experiments themselves. Carter, however, had failed to neutralize the last link in the puzzle—the mysterious purple-tinted shapeshifting navi who had somehow escaped from the lab.
NetPolice officials let a certain "Enigma.EXE," similar to the missing experimental navi from the labs, become Ceres Notara's NetNavi for basic virus busting. Enigma revealed the truth about Magnus to Ceres when Ceres was in his late teens. Motoko didn't know about this, and still assumes she's the only one who knows the truth. She still looks after her second son, Kure, after his navi's tragic deletion due to a NetPolice... accident.
= I do hope no one tl;dr'd this. Also, if I was too radical with the NP, I can change certain things, but I'd really rather not. =