August 11, 2000
Wow...if we knew where this came from, we would go live there permanently...
AKL and BCW
As usual--*grin*--feedback welcome but not necessary. ^_~
Warnings: AU, OOC, yaoi, angst, fluff, cybergeeks.
This is...different from our usual writing style. ;_; Sorry.
For Melissa Maxwell. ^_~
Pairings: 2x1-centric
It was a challenge, pure and simple. Like all things in life, a conquest is only worth pursuing if there's a reward. And Peacecraft, that stupid, prying bitch, had found mine. His face flickered for a moment on the screen, then went white, fading into the background.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry.
*I've got him, Shinigami.*
*He's mine, now.*
I take a deep, shuddering breath, wincing at the smell of souring milk and old soda that greeted my nose. It was time to clean my room, I think with disgust, kicking an old sock under my desk. My mother would have a shit fit if she could see me now.
I look into the mirror, and brush back a stray piece of brown hair. Brown. Good God, of all the colors in the world I could have inherited from my parents, it had to be stick in the mud brown. I kind of liked my eyes; small children liked them too. They liked to poke at them with their grubby little fingers.
There was only one choice, now. I boot up my computer and begin to tug on my gear.
I don't think there's really anything I can tell you that would make you understand who I am, what I do. What Panacea is.
We'll start with something simple.
My computer. It's the most sophisticated system in all of L- 2. I've got more RAM on my compy than the government's probably got on their entire network. I'm damn proud of it; it took years to hack into enough bank accounts for the money to pay for it. And I sure as hell wasn't going to pay for it on my back.
My gear. Oh Lord, my gear. It's my prize and my treasure. Essentially, it's a black body suit with sensors all over the place. Delicate; it's not supposed to leave the room. It's the best money can buy; so sensitive I could fuck someone in it and get off in reality.
Together, they make up the finest virtual reality equipment in the world. Even Peacecraft's system is slower, not as detail- oriented. I've got more fine motor skills in it. Every now and then we meet up in Panacea. Sometimes we fight in our spaceships, sometimes we simply nod our greeting. We've been rivals since the day we both discovered a message left on the teacher's computer in her classroom in fifth grade. 'Come to Panacea...' it said. I prided myself on being an excellent hacker, but even I couldn't break into it without Relena's help.
I say Relena, because that's who she is on the outside. In the real world. And in the real world, my name is Duo Maxwell. I'm a short, skinny kid with long brown hair and I'm hopelessly in love with one of my classmates. But that's coming later.
I can't tell you what Panacea is. You have to experience it for yourself. If I had to try and tell you, all you would get would be a bunch of garbled words. It's like trying to explain a color to a blind person, trying to teach a deaf person to sing.
*You've got forty-eight hours to find him. And then he's Panacea's forever.*
I thought I was the best. Shinigami, the ringleader on the local circuit of hackers. One of the best hackers in the world. The Swiss banks on Earth set up a program called "AbortShinigami" after too much borrowed funding.
She's better.
I stare at the monitor as Windows starts up, still brooding. She's done the impossible. You just can't drag someone into Panacea. It's like a virus, sitting somewhere on that cliched information superhighway, gaining strength, gaining numbers and information. You could call it a black hole; it sucks things into it and never lets go.
That's how I finally found it, after so many years of attempting to hack into this strange virtual paradise, in the first place. I guess I'm an aspiring writer; I kind of fiddle around with poems. I came home after school and my hard drives were empty. Not deleted, just...gone. I always save my work, now, on a disk, but who knows if it can get to it? I don't pretend to understand the reaches and bounds of Panacea.
And it's not like it's advertised or hosted anywhere. It's beyond the firewalls, inbetween the HTML coding and the server programs, sitting there. A little piece on everyone's computer. Who knows how it began? It is infinite. Information is infinite.
Either way, Heero Yuy's been taken into a cyber hell by its favorite dancing demon. I guess it's up to Death to take him back.
End Part One
Ariana and Bianca
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