.Hack//ZERO ME:1030

ME:1030

Sora had disappeared without a trace.

It had been five days now.

And I was starting to wonder if he had just gotten bored of playing The World.

Or if there was a chance that he was just busy in real life.

Or maybe I was always just missing him. Regardless of the reason, I couldn’t find him anywhere.

I kept pulling up my conversation logs with Sora and listening to them over and over again just because I wanted to hear his voice.

But it didn’t work.

Halfway through, I would start to feel sick. My headaches would get so bad that I’d feel like throwing up, and I’d have to stop.

In honesty, just logging in made my hands break out in a cold sweat now.

It was difficult even checking my e-mail anymore, and I felt like a damn idiot for it.

Sora’s absence or Sora’s wrath. To be honest, I wasn’t sure I knew which one I was better off with anymore.

I heard the sound of birds chirping. Another message from Alph.

I was already starting to regret having reached out to her.

Except, that wasn’t true. I had given it plenty of thought this time around.

I had considered everything to make sure I would be able to stay ahead of Alph this time.

Except, that wasn’t true either. It wasn’t really that I needed to outsmart her, I just couldn’t let her take advantage of me this time.

That was all it was, so I didn’t need to ‘outsmart’ her.

Her answer came almost immediately.

It took her less than five minutes to reply to my e-mail.

When I first got to know Alph, she had been limited to only one hour a day for gaming like I was.

But it seemed like that might no longer be the case for her.

Her response time would have been impossible unless she was actively online.

It could have just been a coincidence that we were both logged in at the same time, but that didn’t seem very likely in this instance.

Because right now in real life, it was midnight.

It seemed strange, but I headed for the weapon shop Alph had designated in Mac Anu anyways.

As I crossed the bridge, I looked around for that Wavemaster I had PKed a while back, but I didn’t see him around.

“Man, it’s been a while, hasn’t it?” Alph was as energetic as ever. “So, what’s up? Have you been well, Carl?”

“How about you?”

Alph watched me from behind her glasses. They made her eyes look even bigger than they already were, so I turned my face away like I was trying to escape her gaze.

“Alph is doing just fine.”

“Was it really alright to meet up this late?”

Alph just laughed and playfully stuck out her tongue.

“Well, it can just be our little secret. We just have to make sure our moms don’t find out.”

I remembered Alph’s mother’s face.

She had posters plastered all over town with her smiling on them. I think they had some text on them saying ‘what we can leave behind for our children’ or something like that.

“My mom hasn’t been home a lot lately.”

“Oh, right.”

I didn’t really want to think about my mom right now.

“So, um, I’m really sorry.” Alph suddenly clasped her hands in front of her face with an apology. The way she held them up made it look like she was praying to me. “Sieg couldn’t make it today, he said something about studying for an exam.”

“That’s not what this is about.”

I tried to explain, but Alph continued before I could get the rest out.

“He said he’s been getting a lot more fan mail recently. It’s amazing, he said he gets about ten messages a week now. So, I think it’s good for him to take some time off from the internet every now and then. It’s not that he doesn’t want to meet Carl or anything, I’m sure of it. So please don’t be upset. Sieg is a good person, really.”

“………Right.”

“I was so happy to get Carl’s e-mail, too. It’s such a shame; I really wanted to introduce you two.

Alph was seriously convinced that I cared about meeting this PC named Sieg and that was what I contacted her for.

“It’s fine.”

“Really?”

Alph looked into my eyes.

“I just needed to talk to Alph.”

“Me?” Alph pointed at the tip of her nose and widened her eyes even further. “How come? Why me? Mysterious.”

“Well, you seem to know a lot about people and stuff.”

There weren’t a lot of players that I’d exchanged member addresses with.

When I had first started playing The World, some people tried to talk to me and exchange e-mails, but as soon as I started feeling too self-conscious to reply to them, we always fell out of touch.

However, that was just the way things were.

I didn’t regret it.

If the relationship was real, it should have been able to last no matter what.

So, the fact that mine didn’t last meant that those relationships weren’t real.

At the very least, my desire to stay connected with them never outweighed my shyness, and the same must have been true for the other parties as well.

Even now, I didn’t have any desire to reminisce about the past with Alph, and I definitely didn’t want her introducing me to anyone else I don’t know.

I just wanted some information about people.

“I don’t know that many people,” Despite her claim, Alph’s eyes were beaming with pride. “I mean my contact list isn’t even in the triple-digits.”

“Heh.”

I thought about feigning amazement and praising her for being popular at that statement.

I thought about it, but I decided against it. I couldn’t imagine anyone being happy from receiving such obvious flattery.

“So, it’s about this strange PC I met.” I hurried to explain before Alph could say any more. “Something happened to them recently.”

“Strange…you mean their personality?”

“No, not that. It’s more their appearance.”

I told her about the girl I saw. Her clearly unique design and bizarre atmosphere.

But I didn’t tell her anything about Sora. I didn’t want his name getting out and making problems for him.

“She said her name was Aura. She kind of looked like a ghost.”

“A ghost, huh? I see.”

Alph made some vague gestures as she considered what I said. “And this is someone Carl actually met, right?”

“Uh, right.”

My expectations for this conversation were starting to plummet. If Alph didn’t know anything, there wouldn’t be anything I could do.

“And how long have you been trying to find them?”

“Not long, I saw her just before the servers went down.”

“EH~!?” Alph shouted suddenly. “So, you were online for that? You’re so lucky!”

“Lucky how, exactly?”

“I had been eating dinner when it happened, so I missed out. This is good, very good.”

Alph started pacing around while wriggling with excitement.

Though wanting to be around for something like a server outage seemed like an odd concept to me.

“It caused a lot of problems, you know. It’s been a long time since the servers have gone down like that.”

“That’s not what I mean! It’s an event, an event.” I just fell silent. “But is that all? You didn’t get this girl’s member address or anything?”

“Well, that’s the problem, the system went haywire right before that Aura girl could really say anything.”

“So, the timing was almost too perfect, is what you’re saying.” I actually hadn’t even thought of it that way until she pointed it out. “I’ve got it!”

Then Alph suddenly shouted.

I scanned our surroundings. A few PCs looked over at us, but thankfully they all moved on and forgot about it after a few seconds.

“Doesn’t this mean we really are dealing with a ghost?”

“Huh?”

“Ghosts have made their way into the net. That’s what this is!”

I watched Alph jump up and down while feeling like I had been completely left behind.

She settled down when she noticed my dismayed expression, though, forcing herself to look serious.

“You haven’t heard?”

I shook my head silently.

Alph slumped her shoulders, finally seeming to understand something.

“They say this ghost will either bring the player who finds it good luck or bad luck. It may have been responsible for the server outage. Or well… that doesn’t sound like much of a ghost story, does it? There has to be more to it than that. The ghost should have some kind of personal motivation. So, what’s going on, then?”

“Wait.” I had to stop Alph from continuing. “You keep saying ‘ghost’, but there’s no such thing as ghosts. That’s not what she is.”

“What do you mean?”

But Alph just looked confused.

“Because…… someone has to be controlling her. She can’t just be functioning on her own……”

“Hmm, I wonder about that. Is this really something that can be explained so logically?”

I was at a loss for words.

“Besides, isn’t it more fun to pretend it’s something like a ghost?” Alph laughed with a smile that was completely devoid of shame. “I’m not really a fan of logical explanations.”

“Couldn’t she just be a player with a hacked PC?”

“I guess, but still…”

I lost all sense of reality when Alph put it so simply. I felt like I was about to float away, getting carried off by her whimsy.

“So, Aura is her name. It’s not a bad name, but somehow, I feel like it doesn’t quite fit? The atmosphere just isn’t right.”

“Well, I thought that’s what she said. I can’t really be sure.”

“That’s okay.”

“In that case, should we just leave it at that for now?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah!” Alph nodded and turned a bright smile to me. “I bet people would be really surprised if I told them my friend saw a ghost.”

“But I-”

“Of course, I understand.” Alph winked at me. “I’ll ask around. There’s got to be someone who knows what’s going on, right? It’d be a problem if nobody knew anything, so I’ll look into it for you.”

Not too deeply, I hoped. But I wasn’t sure how to tell her that without giving myself away.

Alph was going to do more than just send out a few e-mails to people she knew.

It was probably a good thing that Alph had misunderstood me and thought I was talking about some bizarre ghost story. Better that than think I was serious about what happened.

“But you really surprised me.”

Alph looked me over once more.

“Huh?”

“I was finally contacted by Carl.”

I stared at Alph for a moment.

Was that meant to be sarcasm? Her way of pointing out that I was only talking to her now because it was convenient for me?

When she realized that I was at a loss for words, Alph laughed at me, covering her mouth as she tried to hold it back.

“I’m sorry. It’s just that after all this time, I was really starting to worry that I wouldn’t ever get to talk to Carl again.”

She really had just wanted to see me again. I hadn’t even realized it, but Alph was going well out of her way in order to meet with me tonight.

Alph hadn’t even hesitated to meet with me.

I tried to push my bitter feelings towards Alph out of my mind. I owed her that much now.

“You’ve finally decided on how you want to play The World, haven’t you Carl?”

I wasn’t sure I understood what she meant.

“It looks like you have. Me on the other hand…” Alph pointed at her nose again using the exact same motion she had earlier – she probably had a preset for it. “I feel like I’m still just wandering around waiting for something to happen.”

“Well, I don’t think that’s such a bad thing, for you. Better than what I’m doing, at least.”

All I had been doing was hacking items and PKing to kill time. Although I guess it’s gotten me a lot more satisfaction out of the game than I would have had otherwise.

“No, it’s not good.” Alph shook her head in rejection of what I thought and clasped her hands over her chest. “I’m just passive.”

I resisted the urge to ask why that mattered. Alph’s voice was so unexpectedly hard and certain that I felt like I could cut the tension with a knife.

“That’s why I think it’s great that Carl has decided how she wants to play, even if that means going against the rules and not always following online etiquette.”

That was putting it lightly.

Alph didn’t do the kind of things that I do. In fact, she wholeheartedly believes that what I do is unambiguously wrong.

She’s sent me at least of few e-mails that have made that point perfectly clear.

Telling me how I should consider other people’s feelings, and how even on the internet, you need to show a certain level of kindness.

Obviously, that would be the right thing to do.

But I couldn’t do things the way Alph wanted me to do.

Alph’s ideal playstyle was one that could get along with anyone. Someone popular who others could be proud to call their friend. I can’t be like that. I don’t want to be like that.

And if she can’t accept the way that I do things, then she could just cut ties with me, but Alph didn’t want to do that.

She wanted to keep connected with as many people as possible, even if she had to go out of her way to do so.

In the end, Alph must have decided to keep me in her address book as someone to look out for.

But it was boring to go around acting normally and being a good-mannered person all the time. I was far more interested in meeting delinquents and hackers.

Alph was the kind of person that sorted others into categories, labeling them and cramming them together like jars of jam. Only her labels read things like ‘scary’ or ‘villain’.

That didn’t bother me, though.

I didn’t really care what Alph thought of me, and most people would probably agree with her labels anyways, so it was pointless to be upset.

“I don’t think we should mention Carl’s name to anyone though.”

“Yeah.”

“In that case, I’ll just say I heard it from someone I know.”

“You have to be careful when talking to strangers.”

Alph promised to look into the matter of the ‘ghost’ and returned to Mac Anu.

After that…

The next time I received an e-mail from Alph, I felt like I was stuck at the end of a game of Old Maid.

In the final round with only three cards left in play. Two options to choose from – one safe, one not – and I hadn’t even considered which was which yet.

What would I even do after all of this if I did find Aura again?

The hatred I felt towards her in that moment had been red hot, but if I was honest with myself, that desire I had to kill her then was all but gone now.

Now I felt ashamed of the way I had allowed my emotions to get out of control.

It didn’t really matter because it was just The World, but because it was just The World, I couldn’t forgive myself for becoming so emotional.

And I guess that fire had still been burning when I went to meet Alph.

I just couldn’t stop thinking about it.

But what would I do if I found her again? What if I could get ahold of her member address or even her address in real life?

Would I ask her about Sora?

Or attack her again without question?

Yeah, right.

What if she didn’t even know anything? What if she really was a ghost and couldn’t tell me anything at all?

I wondered how long I would keep trying to look into this.

The PCs passing by were avoiding me. Some eyed me with suspicion, and some just looked annoyed by me.

I shook my head and tried to regain my composure.

I couldn’t think about it. If I thought about it too much, I would get another headache.

I opened the e-mail.

I let out a sigh after reading it. It was a sigh of relief, but also of disappointment.

Alph happily reported that she was able to meet with a couple of players she referred to as ‘Descendants of Fianna’.

This was all thanks to what Carl told me about Aura.

So, thank chu!

I let out a small chuckle.

As far as Alph was concerned, Aura was just a way to get to know Carl better. Something to talk and gossip about.

And I was kind of jealous of her for that mindset.

I wished I could think more like Alph does.

It felt like I would deliberately overthink things and still never find the answers that I was looking for. I tried to satisfy myself with the fact that at least I was thinking about it, but now I felt like that kind of thinking in itself is what makes you an idiot.

I was at a loss and sighed again. This time, it was purely a sigh of disappointment in myself.

There was nowhere for me to go. There was nothing for me to do.

I just stood still, spinning my wheels without accomplishing anything.

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