Sector 14 - The DDO - Next Day
After the events of the previous night, nothing much else happened other then me getting my own room in the DDO HQ that would now become my home. But now the promise of learning more about the Fallen, the enigma gear and my parents interested me about the DDO. Even though my old memory seemed to be coming back slowly, I was still “brain dead” on what was going on. Deciding that might as well investigate the HQ, I pressed the panel to my door. Much to my surprise and shock, a new face appeared to me as the door swung open loudly.
“Hi there! You seem to be up and at ‘em already! Here, take this!”
The person, a new female person to me, shoved what looked to be some sort of food in my hands. Still shocked, I spoke to her in a shaky voice. “U-Uh, hi. So who are you again?”
Feeling embarrassed with herself, the girl suddenly tensed up to my question. “Oh my God, I did again! I’m so so-so-so SORRY!!” She cried out loud to me, her face slightly flushed. Waving my hand to reassure her, I said. “Oh it's no problem, I’m still not used to this place anyways or who is here exactly!”
Smiling and feeling confident again, the girl waved for me to follow her. “Well lucky for you I came by to help you learn a thing or two about this place! Just follow me!” Following her, I ate whatever she gave me and listened. “This as you know already is the DDO! Here we do a lot of different things, but all tied with that enigma gear on your wrist. Of course there are many different enigma users and such, but we also test other things out here. We are kinda like a secret justice league and a science lab! Cool huh?”
Nodding my head to her, I could tell she was right. Left and right we passed by several different people all wearing scientist attire. Not skipping a beat, the girl continued. “Of course the main thing we do here is stop the big bad guys from taking over the world without enigma gear, or what ever else is trying to cause mass murder. One of the main things we use is the Net, which allows us to go to any time we must.”
The Net, as much as I knew about it from last night, I was still quite interested in how it worked. “So how does it work exactly?” I asked her with a light smile. Sensing my interest in the Net, she stopped in front of a door and opened it. “Why don’t I show you, just come into here.”
Walking in the door, we were now in a circular room with what almost looked like giant pipes with doors in the room. The pipes almost reminded me of the old style mail pipes you see in old books. Walking to a monitor, she waved a hand at it and uttered a few commands for it. As she did so, two of the doors on the the pipes opened, leading to nowhere new. Pointing for me to get in one, I did as I was instructed. “You want to know how the Net works? Then this ought to help you out greatly. How about we go back to, say, a few years? Yeah, that's good!” Waving to me as the doors closed, I could also here her mutter. “I wonder why Tasha put this all on me….”
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The Net
Just as I had been standing inside the tubular pipe, I was now in the middle of a street in New Tokyo. Looking around I saw people go back and forth, smiling and waving to one another, an almost unheard of thing in the city nowadays.
“What do you think of the Net Blue?”
I jumped at the familiar voice of the girl who had taken to me to wherever in time this was. Turning around, I saw her wearing a different outfit then she had before, and before I could ask about it, she explained. “Oh this is my squad uniform, and I am the captain of Maki Squad.” Looking her up and down, She was dressed in a sort of purplish outfit that seemed to be one complete fitting uniform, with a bit of extra parts around the the upper torso for more protection I guessed. Seeing as this was her enigma gear as well, I decided to turn my will to mine as well. Closing my eyes, I focused my mind and instantly transformed into my uniform. Chuckling to herself, Maki smiled when I opened my eyes. “That's not bad for a uniform, but I got a better mod that's more suiting for you.”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Raising her hand, a floating panel appeared before her and she pressed a few buttons. Speaking as she did so, I noticed my uniform begin to shake and change. “I know all about the history of this outfit from Mr. Yaoti and how it was your mom's, so we will keep the old squad name on it. But just tinker a bit with the outfit itself and make it work well for you and that gas mask around your neck. Just press this and that, and……..”
My uniform suddenly changed to that of a long trenchcoat over a nice business suit with a full on tie. It seemed silly to me at first, but I sort of liked it compared to the previous layout I had on. Other than that, nothing else had changed. Nodding her head in a gleeful appreciation for her sense of style, Maki spoke to me. “Alright Blue, now you look awesome! Plus with a simple switch of the enigma gear, you can make the trenchcoat disappear as well as the mask. And I think a suit rather works for you very well. Hmmm, yes yes!”
Rubbing my head with a smile, I blushed slightly at her kindness. “So, um, where are we exactly?”
Snapping out of her her happy thoughts, Maki instantly went red in the face. “Shit! I got completely lost again, I'm sorry! This is New Tokyo before the disaster of long ago, about seven years before to be exact.” Turning around and walking down the street, I followed after her. The people around us looked and stared, but didn't make too much of us. “So this is the past of New Tokyo before I was born?” I asked her, intrigued by where we were. Nodding her head, she spoke without looking at me. “Yes, this is the past from long ago in our history. The Net allows us to go both back and forth in time, however we cannot change the major events of history Such as the disaster that will happen in seven short years from now, in this very spot. Stopping, she pointed down at her feet. “This right here, right now is where the first Fallen will appear. I’ve come back here multiple times to see its demonic qualities suddenly wipe out life in an instant. It's a wonder how your parents were even able to take it down without dying in the process, even with the enigma gear at their disposal.”
“Have you seen them fight it?” I asked, since it would make sense if she could see the Fallen, then she could see my parents. Nodding her head to my question, she gave me a light smile. “Yeah, I’ve seen them fight it, as well as talked to them here.” My eyes growing wide at hearing her say she’s talked to them, I exclaimed loudly to her. “You can talk to them, even if it's the past?! How!”
Slightly embarrassed by the extra stares I had drawn to us, Maki just waved it off. “You can do a lot of things here in the Net Blue. You can even talk to people important to you or not, there's no limit to what you can do in here. Which is why we operate for the main part in the Net. The majority of criminal activity can be found here in the Net as well, hiding themselves away in time.”
“So others have access to the Net as well besides the DDO I take it?” I asked her, regaining my posture after letting myself get too excited over the prospect of speaking to people dear to me. Leading me to a street cafe, we sat down as she answered all my questions about this “world”
“The Net was designed to be used as an investigation tool to help gather information and evidence against criminals. But soon it was found out that small time “events” could be changed and stopped. It meant we could go and stop the worst murder from ever happening or the biggest criminal hacking organization from doing what they had planned. This can be done because of how closely intertwined both realities are to one another. The Net is just a fancy way of saying a world within our own world. A world with no real point of time like ours. But even so….” She sighed loudly as she explained, “That meant criminals could get into the Net and go to whatever point of time they wanted and hide from within there. This world of boundless time is just as real as our world bound by time itself. And so these criminals can steal or cheat anything they like in here. And thus us at the DDO also has to operate in here at times, going to different points in history to make sure nothing crazy happens.”
Nodding, I seemed to understand what she was saying. The reason why the DDO was mostly unheard of was because that they operated mainly in the Net, but that didn't mean they were always in it. “Is this why there are squads, such as yours and my mom's from the past?”
She nodded her head again, signaling that I was right. “Yes, we train a lot of different candidates and create new squads to keep the peace here and in the real world. You however came to use a bit differently from the rest, you have family history in the DDO. And so,” She stood up from the streetside table and smiled. “Maybe you should talk to someone more close to you. She always came to this same cafe before it was destroyed long ago.” Pointing her finger at someone, I saw a girl walking down the street that made my heart jump. On her chest was a emblem matching mine that said “Toyama Squad”
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