Time: Late 2508

Disclaimer: Let's see. ReBoot is owned by Mainframe, Project Metaverse by CyberCat or Webbie or whoever. I’m just a blonde writer attempting not to insult anyone. ^.^; All characters herein are mine, steal them and I'll sick Demon Selphie on ya. Alrighty? To the fic!

Hello.

My name is Mishina Yoshimitsu. You can call me Yoshi.

I am Japanese, forty-two, around one-hundred seventy centimeters tall and sixty-eight kilos. My skin is almond, my hair is black, in a short ponytail. I work at the Onoshi Corporation. I dress professionally, crisp slacks, pressed shirts, and shiny black shoes.

That is what you would see if you had caught me on the street. A normal human. A mask, neh?

But the mask is not what you wanted to hear about. The great, big black secret of my life is what this is about. And that will be what I cheerfully relay to you.

But this is no start to a story, especially with what little time I have. I'll try to tell it in a more fluid way. First, however, history. Hai?

Well, to begin, in the 2400's the islands of Japan were crowded to the utter maximum. It had started in the twenty-first century, when people went to the cities for better work than farming. Soon the cities began to grow, as people moved as close as possible to these metropolises. All flat land was being taken to use for these houses, apartments, and all other necessary buildings. The biggest problem in this was the disappearance of suitable crop land. And with the shortage of food in other places in the world we could not import rice like we had... The only things that staved off widespread famine were hydroponics farms set up in the mountains and unwanted land.

Culturally, this explosion of population became a harbor of a modified social Darwinism. There became three classes: the rich, the well-off, and the workers. It could be compared to the Japan of the Nobunaga Shogunate. The rich were the daimyos, the owners and higher-ups in the corporations. The well-off were the samurai, those working their way up in the ranks, managers, etc. And the workers were peasants. They did the things that kept the whole place working, but never had any hope to succeed themselves, only very occasionally a chance for their children. In the mountains they really were like peasants, planting and farming the rice, in the cities they lived in small apartments and worked long hours for a living.

Now, what these companies looked for in their employees was what the daimyos looked for in their samurai - utter and complete obedience to them. These businesses could be cutthroat, with trade secrets, technology, all trying to create a monopoly in their line of work. They wanted people who molded themselves to the curve and gave everything to their company, like samurai gave their lives to their daimyos.

And, of course, they had to have gone through college. And the better the college the better the placement. To be considered for such a college, a student required perfect work and exams, which meant either slavish study or slightly less slavish study and remarkable intelligence. Those that were not so good would probably get into a decent or so-so college, but would never rise far. And workers could never hope to get their children into such an institution.

It was a ridiculous society but somehow it worked, and that was the reason it was allowed to go on. Sometimes I wonder how much more we could have accomplished if creativity was allowed into that mix more often.

There is an old saying that could sum up this environment: "The law may upset reason, but reason may never overthrow the law." The phrase itself is about Bushido, the samurai laws, to excuse the most ridiculous atrocities, slaughter, murder by command of seppuku, and much else, because honor required it.

It was the law of my life, and many others trapped in my situation.

I was born on the island of Honshu in Japan, the main island, in the city of Yokohama, in 2464, to a couple in the lower part of the well-off category. I was only a year old when the Metaverse Peace Accords were signed. I spoke early and seemed fairly precocious. My parents were overjoyed at this. My father had always wanted to go higher in his company, but he did not have the intelligence to go very far. I was saddled with their hopes at an early age.

I entered school.

School was strictly regimented. Reading, writing, calligraphy, arithmetic, history, science, computer studies. Tardiness was punished. They did their best to break us to the wheel.

They taught self-control. Do not show extremes of emotion, be patient, keep it all inside you. I think it was a part of the old Zen Buddhism. These two rules, compliance and control, were hard to keep up with, especially for children. Many cried a lot, complaining of the unfairness of their teachers or the rules. Remember I am talking about elementary school children here, not middle school or such. That comes later. Even as children, we had to train ruthlessly for the lives ahead of us.

I was a bright child with strong control of myself, but without a very strong will. Any rebellion I might have had deep inside was stamped out before it ever could grow. Anyway, I did not rebel because it did not seem so unfair to me. I was not being pushed so hard because I was smart and could do the work without the agony so many others less fortunate had. I figured if I could do it, so could everyone. I didn't realize I was the exception, not the rule. I was only a child, remember.

Elementary school was livable. Middle school was difficult. High school was hard. If it was this for me, I shudder to think what it was like for those not blessed with a fast mind. It must have been torture. The whole thing, now that I look back, was a process to thin the excellent from the exceptional.

In high school I took all AP courses. I studied until two in the morning most nights. I missed one homework in my high school years. I berated myself for days about it. They say I was a poster child for stress. And of course, I kept all this inside.

I concentrated on computers. I had an excellent mind for programming, my teachers said. So I followed their lead.

I had one hobby outside of school. I made clothes.

My mother was a seamstress, my father the breadwinner. I had learned the basics of the art and figured the rest out myself. I played with the fabric, mostly. Something to do to relax myself enough to sleep. I could make a very beautiful kimono, though I didn't fare as well in silk than cotton.

The library I studied at into the night was in the downtown area of Yokohama. I would sometimes look out the window at the people. And I first saw a different world there, completely estranged from the daimyo-samurai-peasent triangle.

The outcasts.

Eta, as the were called in history.

In the night, they came out in force to have fun.

Vibrant colors. Orchids, black silk, shocking pink, electric lime, blood blue. A circus under the lamplight, hanging around waiting for the next club to open. Some dressed western-style, with spiked hair, chains. Some dressed Japanese rock-style, men wearing skirts. Some crossdressed, for in Japan crossdressing is a sign of evil and the subversive. Women wore schoolgirl uniforms, skirts much too high for decency. Some wore outfits of serene beauty, worthy of a Mardi Gras.

I watched them in fascination. It was like a parade to me, and the little child in me cried out to go down and look. But that was forbidden, so I had to look from high up.

After a while they knew me, the little student in always the same desk, always the same window, watching them. If I waved, which I did rarely and only when people weren't around, they waved back. Women giggled at me and flirted from the five stories away I was. Guys danced for me. At the end of each night, when the librarians were downstairs sorting books and getting ready to close up, I opened the window and talked to them a little.

I learned much. How they got to be who they were. Most were either students who didn't make the cut or worker's children who ran away. Some were from abusive families. They got low-paying menial jobs and food, small wages, and a free tiny apartment in the barracks of their company, switching jobs at a hat for whomever paid more.

One day, I saw a new girl my age. She was trying to be a fire kami, or spirit, it looked like, but her outfit was ripped and a mess. I watched her for a while. At night's end I told her to come back, then ran off without taking a reply.

The next night, I was late to my post. She was still there. When no one looked I threw down a bag from the window, with makeup, dye, the outfit I made her that day, hurried but perfect - she caught it and looked in it, then ran off without a word.

An hour later, she came back.

Her face was unblemished white. Her eyebrows were painted flames. Her hair was spiked and stained into a fire. The long kimono I made was an inferno, and the tabi, the sandals, were golden. She was beautiful.

I opened the window.

"Hi." I called out.

"Konnichiwa," she replied.

There was an awkward silence on my part.

"Do you like the stuff I made you?" I finally asked, shyly.

"Very much. Arigato goziemashita."

She bowed perfectly.

"I could...make you something else in a few nights..."

"That would be very nice," she said.

"Please?" she asked me. She smiled.

"Ice or earth?" I called out breathlessly.

This was my romance.

We began speaking to each other a lot. I learned her story.

She took the street name of Elemental, because all of the costumes I made were based on an element. She was the daughter of a rich businessman, but ran away because his associates abused her. She got away before anything horrible happened, so luckily.

It was easier this way, she told me.

"They give you the necessities and you're fine. The clubs don't charge much, not the ones we go to. They open after you leave. This is a gathering place."

"Isn't it hard?" I was so curious.

"Well...sometimes the other workers, they yell at us because we're not trustworthy, and because they think we're parasites. But the companies need all the help they can get, Yoshi. They don't pay us what they should, even if you subtract food and lodging. That money they skim is for the highborn. But if they didn't have us, they'd die. That's why even if someone is fired, they find work quickly elsewhere."

"So why don't you rebel?"

She smiled darkly. "Because they can keep the system going for longer than we can go without food. That's why this world stays how it is."

Often she outsmarted me, showed me how my thinking was wrong. We spent an hour each night speaking. My grades went down a point, but I managed to skim. I would say I had gotten sick if colleges questioned me.

Although I began not to want to.

She asked me about it right before my graduation.

"Why do you stay there?" she asked.

"For my parents."

"That's no reason, Yoshi." Elemental crossed her arms and looked at me sternly. "Doing things solely for others should only be done if you love them, or if their life depends on it. Will they die if you don't do this?"

I shook my head.

"Do they love you, Yoshi?"

I froze.

I couldn't answer. I left.

I graduated. Second in class. My parents were furious I was not first.

I got into the second University of my choice, in town. University of Hokkaido at Yokohama. I moved to a dorm room similar in size, it seemed, to those the outcasts were trapped in. I brought a laptop, clothes, and my sewing equipment.

I was in hell.

Many days I didn't sleep. I worked to the brink of insanity. Many of my colleagues lost it and flunked out, or transferred. The only thing that kept me sane was her.

I kept talking to her. But never again did she mention my parents.

I made her a new outfit every week. Once I created a whisping aura of translucent silk, Wind. Thin brown armor, Wood, and she looked like a warrior nymph. It was a life-giving obsession. I managed to love her, speak with her, create her anew each week, and keep up with my grades.

She was so beautiful, inside and out...

I had known her now for four years. It would be a year to my graduation. Every second day we talked, from Elemental's insistence that I keep up with my studies. I did better now. Companies already were looking at me.

Yet I was in a state of mental turmoil. The words that Elemental had said kept running though my head, making me less stable. That what I was doing wasn't truly for me, that I was lying to myself. I still had such a little will, but I built one tremendous act up.

It happened two months before my graduation from college.

I went down myself, into the street corner she stayed at under my book-ridden perch. I had a bag packed with my sewing machine and fabric and clothes and a few books. A new outfit for her, with a ring pinned to the front.

I would join her in her life. I would get on my knees and ask her to marry me, and I would join the eta in their existence. I would do this.

The group knew me, of course. No one knew what had happened, but she had disappeared.

I held her outfit. It was pure white, a bride's dress. White is also the Japanese mourning color.

A few days later I returned, going into the street. The told me her father had found her and taken her back.

They comforted me as I fell to the ground and wept.

I graduated. Magna cum Laude. Mother cried loudly.

I became dead to the world.

I received a job from a computer company

Huge corporation. White painted walls with bland wallpaper. Tiny cubicle offices. Short breaks. Shark-like competition for promotions, raises. Bureaucratic rules. Where I would make my millions.

To the reviewers, I was a dream come true. My programs were tiny, compact, perfect. Excellent skills. Utterly loyal. No sympathy whatsoever for hackers. On the high track for sure. Career to kill for. No reason to live.

I still would make dresses for Elemental. Rainbow. Mountain. Thunder. They all hung with Sadness in my closet.

I cried myself to sleep each night.

My mind was a shambles.

I wanted her so badly. Each night I reenacted scenarios in my mind, how she had left, what would happen if she came back. And I thought. My life was such a waste, my life was the best I could hope for. No one cared, Elemental cared. I crave death, I crave life. I must follow the Law, I must break forward to Reason. Screaming in my head.

"Do they love you, Yoshi?"

I wanted to be happy, I finally admitted. I wanted to be outcast, a punk, a crazy color splashed manic person. But I couldn't anymore. Without Elemental, I could not betray my parents, disappoint those people who really didn't care. I was well trained. I was broken properly.

I stayed like this for two years, only showing any emotion when I got home to my new apartment. I advanced well into the company.

Then I got the drawing.

It was probably from one of Elemental's friends.

It looked like a sprite. Dull yellow skin and shiny silver spiked hair. In a mix of Western and Japanese punk. No name and no signature. He even looked a bit like me.

I stared at it all night.

He was perfect. He was happy. Musical notes surrounded him and he was dancing. The widest grin was on his face. I wanted him to come out of the drawing, throw his chip into my stereo, and trash my apartment in his glee.

He was magic.

I think it was about there my mind snapped. Just a little. Just enough.

I knew what to do.

He had to exist in this world. And I had the responsibility to create him.

I began to study viral code.

For most pureborn virii, those programs created as such, the hacker specified the virus' characteristics, their power as well as they could, all these things, and the bitmap, their physical features, was left to chance. The hacker wrote the virus and the bitmap was random. However, in my case, I wrote the bitmap, and the virus was random. Literally, it turned out, as I worked.

Everyday when I got home I wrote and tested. Tweaked this, cut that, added to that. Ran an imager. Fiddled. I worked fiendishly. I was possessed by the kami of the picture.

At work, I took advantage of my rank to obtain the prestigious, simpler work. This way I still seemed to work harder but instead skimmed. I was lucky to pull it off.

My virus slowly took shape. I created outfits for him. His street clothes were mainly Western-styled, gray leather jacket and jeans, with chains and baubles going every-which way. The club clothes were more Japanese-styled, very symbolic, very wild. It just fit.

His code itself was erratically written. I tried to give him what I could. Energy proficiency, telekinesis. For some reason, pyrokinesis as well - for Elemental's first dress. And I tried to give him eternal youth - it won't work out like that, but he'll have a good ten or so years being twenty before he begins to age, and even then slowly. I gave him my youth as well as his own.

And finally he was finished. This now the year 2489. I was twenty-five.

I set up a way for him to get into the Metaverse, connected to a parcel my company was sending.

I put so much energy into him, and now I had to let him go.

Opening the compiler, I sat down and looked at the code. So much hard work for something my parents would have thought dangerous and wasteful. But this was my rebellion from them. My own treasure, not theirs.

My type of perfection.

"You are my complete opposite," I murmured to the computer, to the code.

I grinned.

"Well, not exactly. Your life will be my complete opposite."

"You have a life of chaos, panic, joy, emotion in front of you. I am trapped in one of order, law, cold logic.

"I wish I could be you."

I started to laugh. I really was losing it.

"Irony, too, neh? You see, creation of mine, I was born into this, always wanting what you will have. Please don't want what I have. That would just be foolish.

"You are just...I must stay here. I'd like to go with you, but I must stay here, with their business bushido, trapped in the web of conformity. But you, ah you..." I laughed again. "You will celebrate the liturgies of freedom."

I was crazy. Oh well. Tomorrow I would go back to work and do everything they ask. Because I had already undermined everything they were trying to do.

From this little speech, though, I took his name. Then I compiled it, saved it, and send him on his way.

I said, as I sent it:

"Farewell, Liturgy Mishina."

You must be asking yourself now, my virus, why I send this.

The purge has come again, you know. It is 2508, and I am forty-five. Twenty years have passed since you were created. Again the government sends its people to kill hackers and virii.

They know I wrote you, Liturgy. Not who you are, just that it happened.

They are coming to twist my already twisted mind, to link us, and then destroy us both.

Like the fates tried to before. Stealing Elemental from me. But they did not succeed in destroying me.

I cannot escape from them. So I simply stayed here, in my apartment high above Yokohama.

I am sorry we never met, Liturgy. I would have liked to see what had happened. Did you find the girl of your dreams? Are you living your life out as far as possible? Please do. For yourself, as Elemental reminded me, but also, please, for me.

You know, the last time I cried was when I lost Elemental. I am now.

But only for a moment.

The stiletto, an antique from ages past, is on my legs, sheathed still. I have no will to die as a samurai man should. So instead of my belly, it will cut through my throat. Like Elemental did, I learned a week ago from a coworker, when her father took her back.

There is no other way for me to protect you.

I see them coming up the stairwells from my cameras. I hear them running up.

Farewell, Liturgy.

Sayonara.