The Teachings of Society!

"Well, win some lose some, riiiight? Boy, we're lucky our first guy defaulted, or we might have lost too!" Burt laughed insensitively, stretching his arms behind his head and resting upon them. "As for that show you're talking about, I really don't know it at all. Anyways, important point is, we've got the mission location. It's in Yoka!" The professor's eyes were shining behind his unattractive glasses.

Exorcist was happy for the progress, but her smile quickly became a worried frown. "W-Wait, Burt, it's in a warehouse! I'm pretty sure the climate will be pretty basic. There's really no need for-!" she stammered, but Burt cut her off again.

"Nonsense! Any time's a good time for your special swimsuit! Nya ha ha ha!" he clammored, happy to have another time to use it. "Hey DNR, why don't you lead the way to the warehouse? I'll give you the coordinates along with one of the capture packs they gave us." Moving his thin fingers nimbly, he transferred the data from his PET to DNR's. "We'll follow along with you."

((Transferring DataCruncher.APP and Warehouse Coordinates.DAT to DNR))
((Jacking in, headed for Yoka))

((Open us up a thread in Yoka if you would, DNR))

"M'yes... well, we had more losses than that... quite the interesting opponents too... " DNR said with a chuckle, listening in to the location of the mission. " Hmm? Already a response? My you two are quite favorable with that agency..."

Polonius seemed to have finally fallen to Earth with his reminiscence of the show. He then gave a shy smile to Burt and Exorcist as he soon received the data for the mission. "Hmmmm... a warehouse... to battle ghosts...." the medstudent said as he contemplated about how difficult this will be.

"Heheh... ahhh a warehouse to fight ghosts mano a ghost-o!" DNR seemed quite enthusiastic as possible. "I always wanted to see if ghosts have any fascinating defenses of their own... and I dooo think little miss Exorcist will do wonders for bringing in the ghosts to our little group..."

"... W-w-what could you possibly mean with that, DNR?!" Polonius asked, fearing for the worst out of his mentor. "Well..." DNR said with a cough, the navi himself getting somewhat nervous. "You see... Burt may actually have a point with the suggestion..."

"... You can't honestly be serious... she'll freeze!"

"Impossible dear Polonius! In fact going into a barren warehouse with swimsuits will be the best way to alleviate the debilitating rising temperatures from nearby Yoka Onsens!"

"Y-yeah but..." Polonius said, trying his best to keep some respect into this team.

"There will be no gluteus maximus into this scenario!" DNR said, making up his mind. "Jack me in, please!"

"... Okay sir... " Polonius sighed, shaking his head as he did do the deed.

((Jacking in, heading to Yoka))

Burt gave another obnoxious laugh, enjoying Polonius' navi. "Heeey, that's a smart navi you've got there! He sees the logic behind the things I do! A rare believer," the professor commented with an affectionate smile. "And come on, I know you're going to enjoy it too, riiight? Or.... Wait.... Oh, right, you were here to look at kids, I remember now. So maybe the whole large-breasted thing turns you off, huh?" he whispered, keeping his voice discreet from his navi. "I understand."

After sitting still for a while, Burt popped back up, raising one eyebrow. "Just what is your name, anyways? I can't remember. Is it Steve Shi'bidunrae or something? I think I remember another guy that looked sort of like you at the tournament... Maybe I'm getting you two mixed up? I dunno," he rambled on. "Hey, do you see a soda machine around here, by any chance?" he asked before Polonius could answer, showing that he wasn't terribly interested in the answer to the name question.

"Err... yeahh... you should see his skills at the hospital... his hands could go so fast you would think he was part of a martial arts group, eheh..." Polonius said, giving a sweatdrop towards the words of "logic" and "believer". "Wh-what!? Mmmrgh... that's not it at all..." the net operator said, placing the PET on his lap after he sat down on the bench, rubbing his arm. "DNR told me that looking at how society worked it would teach me to be a bit... more empathic towards patients... sometimes he teaches the weirdest lessons but somehow I can see it working... I don't know if other classes have had this before, how about you Mister ummm... Blachand? I rather figured you to be some kinda priest or a cultist... To be honest I'm rather agnostic about religion... "

"Agnostic, eh? Don't worry, I'm undergoing the best training for dealing with those who opt out of religion possible," he laughed, looking anxiously in the direction of his niece, half expecting her to be standing there glaring at him disapprovingly. Seeing that she wasn't, he sighed contentedly. "Well, cultist would not be quite the word for what I am. Or at least, I hope it's not. What I'm hoping for is a religion that will spread across the world once people come to believe in my vision... the hard part is getting others to accept that the dream I had really has a basis in reality."

Realizing that he was probably getting away from Polonius, he decided to explain his vision. "You see, Counterinfectualism, which I know you and your navi have already familiarized yourselves with, is based on a message that was given to me by a higher power. One night in my dreams, I saw a perfect world created by a clear plan; the plan of eradicating evil that is collecting as viruses upon the net. It might sound crazy, but with each virus that we eliminate, we are moving just that much closer to a world full of pure intentions and utopian principles," he told the student, pushing the glasses up on his nose and smiling happily as he pictured his ideal world.

"This is not your heavenly vision of utopia we're talking about. This is a place where all that is evil and bad simply does not exist. For instance, you like the idea of grabbing a really sexy gal and just burying your head in her breasts, right? Well, some would say that this is evil because it ignores that girl's feelings. In this perfect world, such an action will not be evil! It's hard to explain, but the world will adapt in such a way that your most sinful pleasures now become pure and natural. So uh, try to think of the most pure and natural equivalent of planting your face into those breasts. That's the beauty of Counterinfectualism!" he finished, probably having confused the student more than he was to start with.

Stretching back out, he looked up at Polonius with another sly grin. "Don't you ever get the urge, man? To just do whatever you want without thinking so hard about morality?"

Polonius was undoubtedly confused, blinking twice at the end of Burt's rather passionate speech about the eradication of evil. "Well... you know that rather reminds me of something DNR said a while ago... let's see how did it go... ah yes! Ummm, he considered the net to be something of a heart... navis and programs working like blood cells running around with their own duties... he kinda called himself the 'White Blood Cell of the Net'... wanting to delete navis for the purpose of unclogging the arteries of the networks... "

The student seemed to have fidgeted a bit while he was giving this interesting idea about what the net is for. "I guess we all have our ideas about what's out there perhaps... and maybe .... we're right in a way? I'm not sure..." Polonius said with a nervous fit of laughter, looking back to Burt " I'm not a Theology scholar... ummm... well in a way... I guess you can call medicine a neutral ground if you want to talk about good and evil... I mean let's say we saw a netmafia member on the ground pleading for help... I know I would have to heal them when I can... and you would have to try your best no matter who that person is don't you think?..."

"... Hmmm... well... I guess you could consider the Netmafia doing that? I'm not too sure... sometimes every day with DNR kinda makes you think more about the lessons than what your doing... I have to wonder... what does your navi think about Counterinfectionalism? Or is that all she thinks about? I'm kinda wondering about the morality of navis and if that could be... p-perhaps corrected...?"

"Delete navis? Well that's pretty out there!" Burt said in genuine surprise, having just recovered from being knocked off of his bench by his navi's actions. "But navis can become possessed by evil spirits themselves. When that happens, the only thing for it is netbattling, sometimes to deletion. It'd be nice if we could save everyone, but it just doesn't work that way; that kinda stuff will have to wait for our new utopia," he said, nodding his head thoughtfully.

Burt rubbed his chin as Polonius discussed the Mafia. "Sticking to my guns, the Mafia is not inherently a threatening force. If they're giving their members better tools by which to defeat evil spirits, that in itself is upholding the spirit of Counterinfectualism. In contrast, the NP are the guys who'd regulate all of our firepower and junk! Not good at all," he said, shaking his head slowly. "I'd never thought about it that way, but it is interesting. I guess the Mafia is really the better option for a Counterinfectualist. A guy could also probably do whatever he wanted in the Mafia, huh? Awesome..." he muttered, grinning to himself.

"Well, about Exxy, she was honestly made to follow me on Counterinfectualism, but she's also big on studying other religions. Honestly, I'm not sure how into it she is, but she'll get there with time," he resolved, feeling a little bit worried about that question himself. "Ridiculously, she's really gotten farther and farther from the idea as we've progressed... Sheesh. I gotta figure out something to do about strengthening her conviction," he mumbled, looking up into the sky.

Turning back to Polonius on one side, he raised one eyebrow. "So what about your navi, huh? Does he do what you like most of the time?" he asked.

"I well... I wouldn't go to deletion... the Hippocratic oath wouldn't allow anything like that..." Polonius said in a low voice, laughing nervously. Apparently this Burt person was an odd horse. "Deletion for a Utopia? That's umm... just a little bit to far?... although there have been bad navis that probably deserve it..." the brown headed med student seemed to be flip flopping on the situation, confused on what to say!

Polonius tilted his head towards the side as his lips tensed, hearing Burt's rambling about the Netmafia. "Well... I guess... I guess it would depend on the Netmafia person... maybe there are nice people there but I wonder if sometimes they just act mean to protect themselves?...Doing whatever they want? I'm not too sure... influence is a powerful weapon if my comic books have any relevancy to this conversation... the higher you seem to be up the more you can get away with..."

Now the two started to discuss about their navis "She's straying farther from your ideals? Ummm... well have you probably changed what Counterinfectionalist was? I mean it could have err... changed which made Exorcist much less... supportive?" For Polonius, finding the right word in any conversation was a challenge, yet this one could do nothing more than add more difficulty, being religion of all topics.

"My navi? Well... he likes to teach me about medicine via netbattling... sometimes quizzing me in the middle of a battle... like this one time where we were going to connect diseases to heart complications while battling in Beachnet... I know people seemed to be rather... disturbed by his action... even perhaps hating him... you probably noticed that bulletin board topic about him being a quack right now... but at the same time he can be a... different navi I guess when he's in work... he's concise and to the point... methodical... and sometimes effectively meander through complications... for all his wackiness... I don't think I would have chosen any other mentor... not even if he was human..." Polonius discussed, even giving a bit of a smile "As for what he likes outside of surgery... Well... sometimes its hard to tell... we share our interest of games and retro children's shows... and yet it's hard to tell if he actually wants to meet female navis... or just trick them... Oh!" Polonius said, suddenly remembering something "We tend to talk about newer scientific breakthroughs too... he's always said keeping up with the times is key to being a good professional..."

Burt nodded over and over again, sipping his Net-Cola and gleaning just the most interesting parts of Polonius' speech from everything that the student said. "Exorcist's just taking some time to settle into the idea of Counterinfectualism. New things are always controversial, right? When she reads that much about old religions it's doubtless that she feels I'm taking this too quickly," he sighed. "As for the deleting navis thing, you gotta do what you gotta do, right? If a navi is infected with evil, until I figure out a better method, I think taking them out might be the only option to deal with them."

The professor shrugged as Polonius continued, making a dismissive raspberry as the student mentioned that certain people were being hateful to his navi online. "Your navi's a swell guy with a distinct personality, like me! Being distinct means you're different, possibly even revolutionary, like me. People tend to hate what they don't understand, like those who are different," he rambled on, rolling one hand. It sort of sounded as though Burt were trying to gloss over the fact that a lot of people hated him as well.

Scratching his nose and feeling impatient, he listened to Polonius describe his navi's motivations. "Well, hey, we're all looking for a good woman, riiight? He'd better keep his hands off Exxy, though; she's off limits. As for all of this comic book and game stuff, I guess I'm the same way, but with religious literature and theological reference," he said, sounding almost like he was gloating. "If science is your thing, that's fine, I guess."

The professor turned his head lazily to the side. It looked to him like his niece was busy giving some clown, who'd come to the park to work a birthday party, a hard time. "There can't be a more hateful person on the face of this earth. Who would beat up a clown with societal debate, huh? That girl is a monster," he shuddered. "Just like my sister..." As if she'd heard him, the girl began to walk in Burt's direction. Straightening up and adjusting his glasses, Burt crossed one leg over the other and smiled at her. "Yeeees?"

"The clown says the balloons aren't free since we aren't part of the party and Joey wants one," she stated in a matter-of-fact way, seeming to sense that Burt were putting on an act.

With a sigh of relief, Burt reached into his wallet and pulled out a dollar, handing it quickly to her and shooing her along. Deflating back into his relaxed position, Burt gave a quick fit of nervous laughter, making him momentarily sound like his new acquaintance. "I think I'd be happier if I had no family at all. What about you?" he asked distractedly, looking back down at his PET.

Jerry and Joey ran back over, interrupting Burt's leisure time. "Time to go, Uncle. People in this park are just too lowbrow to understand what I'm trying to tell them. These are your people I guess, the kind that buy in to religious ideologies," the girl sighed, tugging at Burt's arm. It seemed her hidden reason was that they might be getting confronted by some very angry parents pretty soon. Her ranting to children hadn't gone off very well with the adults.

"Nya ha ha! You reap what you sow!" Burt laughed at first, then quickly realized that he'd probably be held to account for her. "Er, ahem, Polonius, it's been great hanging out and all, but I gotta go. Like, right now," he muttered in quick apologies to his new acquaintance. "DNR and you have seen more of Exxy than most people will in a life time! Consider this a blessing of Counterinfectualism!" he called back, hurrying Joey and Jerry out of the park as quickly as he could. Joey waved an aloof goodbye to Polonius as he disappeared into the distance.

((Leaving park, heading back to Blanchard household))