The Emperor's Dragon

First Baby

Izuku was working on the last chapter of his maths book when there was a beep. He frowned, and looked around before he realised it had come from his phone. Kurogiri had locked the send and receive functions but it was still a perfectly good calculator, and he'd been using it as that. It had beeped though, and the sound was for an incoming message.

His eyes flew to the top of the screen but there were no bars to indicate he was on a network. It still said SOS. Even so, Izuku tapped the screen to go to his message app. He blinked when he saw there was a message.

That wasn't meant to be possible.

First!

That was Mei!

Why is your reception off?

No, don't answer that. I don't need to know why you have a dark phone.

I finally got through!

Mei! Izuku sent the single word as a test.

First! The response came rapidly.

How did you get through? Reception is meant to be turned off. He really wanted to know. He'd toyed with the idea of hacking it but everything he read on that didn't make sense. He needed someone to teach him the basics if he was going to get into that sort of thing. Tomura, for all that he was good with electronics, was good with using them, not building them.

I hacked my account, with my mum's tools.

Actually our provider.

Then my account. I had to track where my provider was trying to send messages to you.

Then I made it look like my message comes from your provider

So it's not a message that relies on reception.

Or it does but since it thinks it's you, sending a message to yourself, it gets around the normal protections.

Or something like that. I think.

I don't really get how my mum's programs work.

Just that they work.

Izuku read the messages. She made it sound so easy. He somehow doubted it really was that simple. But it also seemed as if her Mum had some... less than legal software. Well, I won't tell, if you don't! He sent back. Can you send messages I send to another network, or another phone? He asked quickly. If Mei could send messages, then he could send a message to Ochaco and Hitoshi!

No can do, First.

I'm only seeing your messages because I opened the window for mine.

If I open the window for others, they'll notice that there is a window open.

Izuku tried not to feel disappointed at that. He expected it but he still felt a tinge of disappointment. He wanted to talk to his friends. He was thankful that there was one who'd managed to talk to him.

Anyway! I've done it!

It took a moment for Izuku to remember what Mei was supposedly doing. She was looking at respirator technology for him. That's fantastic! He sent back but he already knew he needed to know a bit more than just she'd done it. Had she made it smaller, more powerful? Had she made it more efficient?

Small, powerful, self cleaning!

And in a helmet!

Mei really did like typing fast but she answered the question he hadn't typed.