Keeping the Peace
-
Meiru nodded along with Aon’s first two messages. It certainly lined up with what she’d seen of their demeanor that they were used to working alone. But she couldn’t help the giggle that spilled out at the inquiry after ‘Miss Roll’. “Look at you!” she immediately teased. “You’re popular!”
A bit abashedly, Roll messaged Aon,
[MSG:
] We didn’t realize it made such a difference! But the invitation’s from the both of us, make no mistake. I’m right here at Meiru-chan’s side. ^_^(Was the Operator not the one to default to in Aon’s world, when both were openly part of the conversation? What a strange feeling that gave Roll…)
Roll was quite surprised by the apparent openness of Aon’s schedule, too. She’d thought they’d have a strict schedule to follow—like Enzan had always had. But, then, it wasn’t like Aon was working two jobs…
“What do you think?” she asked Meiru. “Tomorrow around lunchtime?”
“Sure,” Meiru answered. “I don’t go in to the Ministry until late afternoon tomorrow, anyway, right?”
After Roll confirmed with a “Right!” of her own, Meiru drew up a message to make it official:
[MSG:
] How about tomorrow around noon? If we aim for the early afternoon, it’ll be kind of a regular break time, and it won’t get in the way of anything Roll and I’ve got going even if it runs a little long.
[MSG: ] But our people know about the chatroom already, so it's not too hard for us to shift things around if you need to.
-
Well now they were talking about it. About how they just had to be weird about it. They were still being weird about it. Their fingers twitched over their next reply.
[MSG:
️] Thank you. I apologize if I came off as inapt. I’m just more familiar with you, and assumed if we were the ones meeting that I was to expect an invite from you. That’s all. No harm done.Aon turned their attention back to the main conversation, and did some quick picking at the chatroom’s clock, which thankfully did most of the work, to see what that time looked like for them.
[MSG:
] That sounds perfect, not much meddling on the schedule needed then.
[MSG:] Your people? Oh.Oh, they must mean their Dr. Hikari, the one that was also looking into the Arcana virus vaults. Jesus fucking Christ.
[MSG:
] Aha. I’m sure that won’t be necessary. -
“Ahaha… I guess I really am popular…” said Roll upon reading the message sent to her. She felt like she and Aon had barely talked, even when they were sharing a PET.
“All those posters in Higureya can’t be wrong!” Meiru teased.
“But… we don’t really do all that in…” Roll nearly said ‘Mel’s world’ and opened the can of worms sitting unsaid in the conversation. Luckily, the messages from Aon saved her from having to come up with anything else.
“Obviously it’s not, they just said they could meet us at the suggested time,” said Meiru aloud, while tactfully refraining from typing anything of the sort. “Don’t tell me they’ve got a problem with the Ministry, too…”
“They can’t just know we’d be asking Meijin-san from what you said,” Roll pointed out. “You were kinda vague. We could be one of those Officials-who’re-still-called-Officials, or a Net Sheriff, or some other thing we haven’t met yet.”
“Guess so,” shrugged Meiru, and made the closing message:
[MSG:
] Wonderful! Roll and I will see you tomorrow!With that, Roll supposed, it was just a matter of waiting for the next day. She still couldn't believe she'd managed to impress Aon that much; she only hoped she could keep it up for long enough to find out a little more about how to get along with them.
-
The next day Aon made sure to submit a request for overtime along with their leave for the day. Equivalent exchange to be quoted if and when they were given any flack for it, though they were quite sure it would be a non-issue.
They checked the location again with intent to arrive ahead of schedule; and it was a good thing they did, having found themselves easily distracted.
The establishments in this version of Internet City were much more filled in. There was some speculation about how ‘far ahead’ this group from the chatroom was, but they had far too few points of reference to dig too deep into it.
Once Aon found the right place they scouted out the perfect spot: a table out of the way to afford them a shred of privacy but easily visible to spare Roll the trouble of needing to look for them.
Seating themselves they got all of the fussing out of the way: straight posture, hands folded on the table making sure their elbows weren’t resting on it- their prim demeanor only betrayed by a hoof bouncing restlessly while they waited.
-
It wasn’t long before Roll, too, approached their agreed-upon meeting spot. The state of Internet City was just a fact of life for her. She had watched all these storefronts and activities move in gradually over the years—and been part of the drive to assure businesses that Internet City was the smart place to advertise their real-world services.
Even this location was a virtual storefront for the Downtown Cafe, Aon sitting at a perfect reconstruction of one of the tables overlooking the window. The counter was mainly for ordering real-world drinks for pickup, though an object that looked like one of the seasonal blended frappes was also available for purchase.
It was easy enough to spot Aon in the location they’d chosen. As she drew closer, Roll couldn’t help but notice how tense they were. It was sort of like the way Netto would’ve acted when he was nervous, save for the bouncing boot. (Foot? Hoof?)
“Good afternoon, Aon-san!” greeted Roll, cheerful but mindful of her volume so as to not draw any attention. She sat down in the seat across from them, pulling out an object that simulated a very different, pink-and-blue frappe from the one that was on sale. “These don’t do anything, but they’re fun to look at,” she explained. “I have a bunch of ‘em, from over the years!”
-
“Ah, Roll.”
Aon eased slightly in their seat as Roll joined them, but as soon as Roll produced the imitation frappe, explaining that it didn’t do anything– the bottom half of their face that was visible noticeably fell.
They hadn’t noticed while they were waiting, but the other items were just like hers. No interaction but simply being able to carry and place them.
No coffee.
They had even thought about how it would have been rude to get one for the road ahead of time. Now here they were without a fix.
“Haha…they don’t do anything…” Their voice warbled under a small nervous chuckle.
Not that their cyber coffee really -did- anything, it was the placebo, the idea of the coffee to ground their instability. Their link to normalcy. Something they were really depending on to get them through this.
“I’m so sorry, I hope I’m not coming off as rude. I should have inquired beforehand about the coffee. I was totally expecting something else.”
Their hands slipped under the table and into their lap in an attempt to hide the shaking.
“It’s a shame, takes away the icebreaker of getting to know someone by their order. But these are quite charming though, you’ll have to remind me to pick one up as a souvenir before we go.”
-
Roll was already concerned when Aon reacted with disappointment, but the way their voice and body shook… She didn’t even think she’d ever seen Enzan in a state quite this bad. But more importantly…
“We usually just pretend we’re drinking it… Your cybercoffee is like the real thing?” marveled Roll. “And you can miss it like a real coffee?” She stopped just short of saying ‘that’s amazing’, since it most certainly was not for Aon at that moment.
Meiru, in turn, could no longer say she was quite so concerned about how it would go in the face of needing to solve this predicament. Really, it was quite something. A Navi who could get caffeine withdrawals… Well, cybercaffeine, she supposed. “These things are usually tie-ins for food in the human world, in our version of things,” Meiru explained. “I’m so sorry…”
“Meiru-chan, do you think Netto or Meijin-san could whip something up for Aon-san?” asked Roll.
“It does sound like something they’d find funny,” mused Meiru. “I can fire out a couple messages for one cybercoffee, fully… cyber-caffeinated, and see what they come up with.” She smiled encouragingly at their guest. “Wanna give it a shot? Er, no pun intended.”
-
“No no it’s fine, really!” Aon simulated a deep inhale to try and hold things down. Smooth out the shaking. How could they have fumbled this frame one? If they could sweat it’d be coming in bullets; thankfully that was one less tell to worry about. If a mundane meeting without a cyber coffee could slip this fast how were they going to be able to keep this up?
“Please don’t apologize, It’s really nothing.” They iterated again, hands back up on the table now with more rigid and deliberate movement.
“I guess I can’t attest to it being close to the real thing, but just about? I suppose it’s hard to explain how something is meant to taste or not when-”
The blood“-you don’t have a frame of reference, but it feels nice to have.“As for the addictive properties I doubt that is effectively simulated. I feel like it’s probably more the routine. The thought of having the nice treat after you do something stressful, or before. Just a lot happening lately. You know how it is.” Or maybe they didn’t. Roll certainly didn’t
(Serpentine’s comments on her maturity came to mind), and they weren’t about to make any judgements about Meiru.“That sounds like a lot of fuss just for one little outing.” They cocked their head to the side and pulled a practiced grin. “I’m sure I’ll loosen up as we talk.”
-
Meiru and Roll exchanged concerned glances, even as Aon tried to backpedal; it sure didn’t look fine. Meiru wasn’t entirely convinced that withholding a placebo could produce such a pronounced effect in someone as coolly certain of himself as Aon had seemed in their previous encounters.
But Roll steered them back on track anyway. “Yeah, that’s so true! When some new responsibility comes up, it’s really comforting to be able to return to what you know afterward. All of us here had a tough time adjusting, when the chatroom first reached us. And when Meiru-chan and I first became Net Saviors, too...” Roll smiled fondly. “I guess for me, it’s spending time with my boyfriend that’s the routine.”
Meiru supposed that moving on from the threat to involve anyone from the Ministry was for the best. They had a ways to go before they could press further, after all. “Well, we’ll just have to do our best to distract you, then,” she said with a mirthful smile. “Remind me… are they Net Officials or Net Saviors where you are? You must have been part of them for a while, to get a proper routine going like that.”
-
“Right, you have a boyfriend.” That had come up before…hadn’t it? It hadn’t been relevant at the time – that ‘useless blue thing’. They had context for that now, even if it was different iterations of the guy.
It was heartening that she had the time for that, but sickening at the same time. A thought Aon had to swallow and grimace through like bad heartburn.
“Must be a hard balance.”
More and more they wished for that stupid coffee to talk around.
“It’s still Officials in Kingland. They’re called Net Sheriffs on some parts on the mainland and I think if I had to call myself that I’d probably die.”
“I’ve always been one.” They answered in a blasé way to avoid stating their age.
“It’s pretty much baked in, though I more so meant things are more stressful lately what with our encounters with Alpha and the new viruses in the chatroom. It’s kind of uprooted my usual routine and well I don’t really want to mix that into my work life. Too much to explain.”
“That being said, yours are aware? How much do they know?”
-
“It is,” Roll said in honest agreement. “He’s got a job at the Ministry, too. But both of us feel we’re better off for making it work.”
(Meiru noticed the way Aon’s mouth curled at that, but said nothing and allowed herself no such outward reaction. Her polite smile remained unchanged.)
“Interesting! We know a version of Meiru-chan who’s a Net Sheriff and her Navi, too, but our world doesn’t have all these different names.” Knowing her own version of the Net Saviors, Roll had to assume something bad had happened to prompt such a widespread rebranding of the program in her world. She also had to wonder if there would even be very many people left around to gossip about it.
“Always?” wondered Meiru behind Roll’s head. Roll could tell from the tone of her Operator’s voice that she had more to say on that, but Aon moved on too quickly to give her time to answer.
“Oh, basically everything! It’s part of the Net Saviors’ job to monitor digital phenomena of all kinds! Even this one,” Roll easily replied to Aon's final question.
“After we found out how easy it is for people and Navis to travel between worlds using it, it became obvious to everyone that the chatroom needed more formal observation. So, the other more senior Net Saviors and I take turns keeping tabs on it,” Meiru explained. After a moment, she sheepishly added, “Though I’m guessing we’ve got a little more explaining to do about what our job entails, now that we’ve said all that. If yours wouldn’t want to know about it, I’d have to assume that your Officials don’t have quite as wide a scope…”
-
“I see.” Aon nodded along through most of the explanation until it landed back on the topic of the chatroom and theirs.
“Ah, I don’t think it’s for lack of wanting to know. Rather…” They started, “I just don’t think I can shoulder something like that just yet.” A far cry from all of their funny ideas about punitive justice.
“It’s more that I seem to be the only vector for the chatroom here. I don’t claim to know how this all works, but Miss Blaire can only access it through me as well, she doesn’t have access her own client. Which worries me as to why she keeps getting dragged into things.”
It was so easy for things like that MegaMan to come through…and for Blaire to have been involved in the past two Alpha encounters. They weren’t familiar enough with the people working on preventative measures in the chat to inquire.
“Maybe it’s selfish, but I don’t want the hands of every old man in the government prying me open to take a gander when I’m confident that I can keep tabs myself.
“But I guess I can feel at ease that your side has things under control! I am curious about what that looks like.”
-
Roll cast a quick glance at Meiru’s window at the mention of Blaire, but Meiru didn’t react. She listened to Aon’s recounting of things with a gently thoughtful expression as though it was another Net Savior case. The Αlpha Squad did count as another part of her work, in a sense…
“So there’s nobody you feel you can trust in your version of the Officials, huh…” Really, that explained a lot about Aon’s demeanor, when Meiru thought about it. Here she and Roll were, wondering why Aon didn’t seem to know the first thing about being a team player, when the answer was as straightforward as ‘they really didn’t know’. “That’s really sad. I’m sorry, Aon-san.”
Meiru decided to indulge Aon’s curiosity before continuing further down that particular train of thought. There was no reason to rush things, after all; they’d circle back round to it when they got there. “Well, Enzan and I split the watch over the chatroom right now, though Roll subs in oftentimes for both of us.”
“I don’t think you could get Blues to post to any sort of social media of his own free will,” giggled Roll. “I guess it wouldn’t be so funny to imagine, otherwise!”
“Kaita-kun and Netto are in there, too, but they're just there. They don’t really monitor things, y’know?” added Meiru. “We report anything of interest to our world, like the movements of some of the troublemakers in the chatroom, to Meijin-san. That’s our Chief,” Meiru explained. “And then if something comes up like the Arcana Viruses, he and the rest of the Ministry team can start researching them.”
-
Aon opened their mouth to deny but quickly shut it again. They hadn’t thought about it so deeply…but surely this had to be true, otherwise they could have felt safe enough to have asked for help.
“Ah…well I don’t know if that’s necessarily the case but…”
Accepting that, or a fault of their own ego were equally undesirable options. So they chose to let that topic die in awkward silence.
They blinked through all of the names listed off and just nodded along, recognizing none of them except ‘Netto’; knowing there were least a few of that guy in the chatroom and theirs wasn’t one they had met yet.
“Right, do we know if there’s any update on them?”
They glanced down past their visor at their restless hands while they debated sharing their own information. There really wouldn’t be any harm in telling a half truth…That that SoulNet Yuichiro reached out to them in direct messages inquiring about the Tower. But that could potentially lead to–
No, they couldn’t. Not yet.
“You don’t need to tell me. Just curious.”
-
Meiru watched Aon try to wriggle their way out of confirming her conclusion, indirectly confirming it anyway. They seemed nervous again as they asked after the Arcana Viruses… or maybe they’d meant to ask after the people who were likely to cause trouble…?
“Well… Our sample size is just two for now, so it’s slow going. Even so, Hikari-hakase can tell that they seem to be mutating over time. And we’ve got Netto working on a way to automatically recognize them, so we can know right away what we’re dealing with. Hopefully, pretty soon, we’ll also be able to learn something about where they're coming from.”
Having explained all of that, Meiru regarded Aon thoughtfully. Roll caught her eye, and Meiru gave her a nod; now seemed to be as good a time as any.
“But, y’know, Aon-san… I think you really hit on something important, earlier, saying you weren’t ready to handle all of that yet,” Roll ventured.
“Yeah,” Meiru agreed, calmly friendly. “I’m glad you felt like we were trustworthy enough to share that with.”
-
“Mutating over time…”
Aon took a moment to consider what that could possibly mean for theirs…and a mental note to keep a closer eye on her in the chatroom.
They were caught off guard by how nicely they had put what they could only assume they were really trying to say. The whole intent of the meeting was to solidify trust with the two, now it was backfiring in their face.
“What? N-no I meant dealing with the whole of the chatroom and having to deal with the government backend breathing down my neck if I were to disclose it not-”
Their control was slipping away. Bitter malaise rose in their throat that they had to fight to keep down, clenching their jaw. They propped their elbow up onto the table and put their chin in their hand in an attempt to ease it up.
“Are you saying you think I’m incompetent?”
-
“What? Of course not!” Roll immediately protested, genuinely taken aback. “We wouldn’t be here if we did!“
Meiru, too, was surprised at how quickly Aon had taken offense. But she rallied and explained, “Part of trusting a teammate is giving them the space to be vulnerable while still believing in their capabilities, Aon-san. Roll and I wanted to thank you for extending that trust to us, that’s all. Nothing else intended.”
“It’s just that—correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems like you’re more used to working on your own,” Roll mused. She didn’t speculate on whether that was from preference or necessity; the latter could’ve shaped the former, from what they’d heard so far.
-
“Ah..” A weak noise creaked and died in the back of Aon’s throat while they tried to process their misstep. The hand cupping their chin moved upwards and under their visor to cradle their forehead.
“I’m sorry…I shouldn’t have assumed you would think that. My PR has been horrendous lately, so I…”
They could still turn this around! This kind of answer was what they wanted out of this after all, regardless of how unearned.
“Thank you for um. For that.”
Their hand retracted from their face and joined the other back on the table.
“I don’t think that’s entirely true. I think I get on just fine with my coworkers…” Very rarely did they take actual cases with them that weren’t more than small time operations or data collection. And then there was the marketing. It was peaceful times. They hadn’t really considered if maybe their standing within the system had gotten in the way of being approachable to their own coworkers. They never really cared either.
“Though I guess it’s not really the same as the kind of work we have been dealing with in the chatroom. I can’t say I’ve pulled off the type of coordination I have with you in battle with anyone else. So for the sake of this exercise let’s say that’s correct.”
-
Roll’s concern (were they sure they were okay?) warred with her temper (they could do with making a few less assumptions about their allies in general, couldn’t they?) in her core. But she could hear Meiru’s smooth smile in her response of, “Ah, you’re welcome! It’s what a teammate ought to do, isn’t it?” and followed her Operator’s example in letting the more acerbic thought go.
Roll nodded along with Aon’s other observation. “I see… It still sounds like for more dangerous cases, you really do kinda work on your own...” That level of coordination was, after all, what she and Blues pulled off every day at the minimum.
“You’re in the right place if you’d like some advice, though!” Meiru cheerfully said. “Not to toot our own horns, but Roll-chan and I are kind of great at public outreach! It's why we were first brought on board, after all.”
“People want their concerns to truly be heard, I think,” Roll mused. She’d had quite a few years to think on what worked and what didn’t, after all. “For what we’re doing to feel like it’s being done with both kindness and panache. ‘Like on a Sunday-morning superhero show’, I think Meijin-san said once…”
-
“That’s an excellent way of putting it, yes.” Aon nodded along, eager to keep this conversation back on the rails.
“I think I’m in very capable hands then.” They clasped their hands together and leaned back a bit in their chair.
If there was one thing they were good at, it was laying it on thick. And they had kept them on the line so far despite the outbursts. Their fingers pressed tighter together at the notion of having their concerns heard, as if theirs weren’t drowned out from the start in their mind. They kept that to themselves.
“I…think I see where you’re going.”
Of course it was something a police mascot could do. They just had to try a little harder at the kindness part. This would all come a bit easier once they were able to get their current state of being under control.
“I’ll take anything you can give me, if we’ve got the time.”
