Island Prose

Chapter 14


Chapter 15

"The major difficulty," said Mr. Ian Woon, "was that I was so closely tied to the school that any investigation I did would be suspect. I could either be accused of using ISCE to try to interfere in one of the world governments, or the school itself could be suspected of being an accomplice in whatever plot was uncovered."

"So you had to bring in someone who wasn't connected to you," supplied Toshi. 

( Due recognition )

 
FINIS

Sequel to this story, NaNo2007, starts here

Chapter 12


Chapter 13

Toshi gasped unbelievingly, and the others stared in horror. In all their care to watch Miaki, to make sure he didn’t do anything drastic, none of them had thought to watch Kenji for the same reasons.

He stood pointing the weapon at his father, his hands shaking. Kazuo Tanaka stared at what seemed to be the ghost of his son, holding a very real-world weapon, and hardly even looked surprised. His eyes flicked briefly to the five apparitions coming through the door behind him, then settled back on Kenji.



Chapter 14 

Chapter 10

Chapter 11


“What we finally found,” said Jin as their avatars relaxed in the entryway gazebo, “is that the featureless simulation is a sort of gateway. We could all sense that there was something there, rather than nothing. But that something wasn’t yet anything real. It was basically just a potential, waiting to be filled.”

“Meaning what, exactly?” Chika asked.

Jin consulted the notes on her holoscreen. “It means that it’s a simulation that can access all of them. You can be in the grey simulation, and pull up any of the other special sims without logging out of it and into the others.”

( Final preparations for the big push )

Chapter 12 

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

They stood inside the same featureless, empty dormitory room that the first-years always found themselves in.

"Ugh," said Chika. "I'd forgotten how ugly this room was. I promise, the entry points get much better as you get more advanced."

"Nice to know," Julie said. "I've always thought it was pretty unbearable. I thought they meant it to encourage us to get out of the entry room and into the simulation as quickly as possible." She smiled at Jin and Kenji, who stood beside her.

Miaki, standing by himself near a corner, looked around the room contemplatively, as though noting its true drabness for the first time. He had behaved pretty much normally the last two days, during classes and when he had passed any of them in the hallways. He might have been slightly less communicative than usual – if that were really possible – but it was understandable, given the events of the last few days. If he seemed reluctant to meet anyone's eyes, and tended to hang back a bit, it wasn't hard to know why.

( Exploring the VR simulations )
Chapter 10

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

For all the next day, Jin couldn't shake a feeling of vague, unfocussed unease. Miaki seemed mostly normal again when they worked together on their VR exercises in the morning. Mostly. He was no longer talkative about himself, as he'd been last night, but then, that openness wasn't his normal mode anyway, was it? But although he seemed more able to concentrate on their class work today than yesterday, it was as though he had programmed half his mind to work on it, almost robotically. Whereas, the other half of his mind, the place in which he was really living and thinking today, was somewhere else entirely.

So in his class work in the VR room, he was attentive and sharp, and impersonally courteous to Jin, and nothing more than that. To her query about his state of mind he crisply answered, "I'm fine," and went on to something else.

But now and then, the less robotic part of him would seem to surface from...wherever it was...and his eyes would darken and narrow as it peered from behind them. And when this intense, calculating gaze would land accidentally on her, that was when her uneasiness increased. She had no idea what she was worried about, but there was no doubt in her mind that she should be worried. The grieving, vulnerable person whose cold hands she had held last night seemed utterly gone.

( Things take a very disturbing turn )
Chapter 8 

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Jin had thought Miaki took her seriously already, as they worked together in their regular class exercises. But after the six of them formed their little investigative group, she seemed to move beyond "being taken seriously" into a completely new level. It wasn't that he actually talked to her about his father, or his suspicions about the school; his confidence in her didn’t extend to confiding in her about personal things. But there was a new assumption of equality, somehow, as they worked together. He expected her not merely to be capable of doing her part in their work together, but to actually do it, without fanfare or display. And, to Jin's private pleasure, she always did. It was never difficult. She was turning out to be better, at almost everything, than she had ever expected, even knowing her own strengths pretty well. It was gratifying, partly just for her own sake, but also when she realized that she really was not going to let him down.

Miaki himself also seemed to rise to a new level: it was as though his focus had sharpened and his confidence level had risen. Somehow, he just seemed to have a better idea what he wanted to do and how he wanted to use his studies to achieve his goals.

( More investigating )
Chapter 6

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

It had been several weeks since the last nightmare, but now that he was here, he should have expected more of them. Tonight's was the same as always: the memory of graduation day, and coming home at the end of the day, angry and planning to confront his absent-minded father for missing the ceremony altogether. Only to find the man lying on the floor, dead, still wearing his VR equipment.

Miaki sprang up with a gasp as he wrenched himself out of the nightmare. He was momentarily disoriented, looking around wildly at his unfamiliar surroundings, but finally he recognized where he was. His room was dark, except for the faint blue glow from the terminal at his desk, which he never turned off. He contemplated lying back down and trying to go back to sleep, but he knew from experience that it wouldn't work. Both his mind and heart were racing, and it would take hours for them to slow down again. By then it would be time for breakfast. So he might as well get up and do something constructive. Maybe the nightmare was a signal to him that it was time to begin what he had come here for. 

( So what is Miaki up to? ) Chapter 4

Disclaimer: Remember that this was a NaNoWriMo story, so there will be inconsistencies and it can get a tad wordy at times. But I had such fun writing it, in 2005, that my 2007 NaNo is a sequel to it! I decided to write an anime-style story, so the whole time I wrote it, I was picturing it as an anime series. I'd love, some day, to get it illustrated as a manga.

Oh! And remember. If someone does decide to run off with this story and illustrate it for profit, or profit from it in any other way -- you do know I'll hunt you to the ends of the earth and make you pay wretchedly. Yes? Right then. On with the story.

 

Chapter 2