The Children of Thieves

Memories of Summer

This is the chapter where I finally reached 100k words!  Thanks to all of you who've stuck with this rehash, and I'm very sorry for how similar I've made it to the game. But anyway, this is going to be a bit of a long one, since I'm basically covering the rest of the summer in this chapter. But still, it should be fun.

It really did seem like Inori's training had worked. The rest of the Thieves stood outside the house as Inori stepped out the door nervously. When Cho had joined them all the day before, seeing Inori so happy at making so many new friends and getting the chance to do the stuff she saw people on tv made her very happy. She decided not to tell the others about the new Palace just yet. But now, walking out the door with her cousin's nervous but excited hand clasped tightly, the Palace had all but slipped her mind. The group led the cousins over to Leblanc. Sojiro had closed the café for them, not only so they could celebrate Inori's progress, but also so they could finally track down Nemesis once and for all.

Futaba and Ren were already there when they arrived. Futaba had two laptops already set up with with trackers set up on them. Ren, with the very little knowledge of technology he had, was able to bring up Nemesis's code. Then, Futaba and Inori began working on tracing it. Just like last time, the people monitoring the networks were trying to resist them, however, now they had to deal with two master hackers instead of one. Watching them work was something else. When behind a keyboard, Inori was a completely different person. She was in the zone, and radiated confidence. It was definitely a sight to behold. Sure enough, the people trying to defend the network were no match for the hacking duo. Within five minutes of beginning, the trace was complete and they had a location.

The group crowded around the laptops to see what they found. It was a computer science lab and technician corporation in America. Their main office building was the hub of all of their workings. And by the looks of it, it was where Nemesis were hiding. There was only one problem though. The office building was in Los Angeles. Still, just to be sure, Mubo brought up the Meta Nav and stuck the building into the location. Sure enough, there was a match. "Excellent," said Cho. "Now, show us a list of all of the people working there." Inori did so, which caused Cho's jaw to drop. The list had well over 1000 names on it. They would be at it for weeks trying each individual name in the Meta Nav, never mind the fact that they needed to find the distortion. But, there was also the problem of needing to be at the location the first time they went in in order to save it. In other words, this was going to be impossible.

Meishu: As Meishu stared at the building and the general area it was in, it suddenly occurred to him that he recognised it. He leaned forward to the screen and said, "Wait a minute! Find this location on Maps!" Futaba did so. Meishu then zoomed out from it and scanned the screen, before his lips broke into a grin. "Back in business!" he said to himself. Then he stood up and looked at the others. "We're still in the game!" he told them. They looked quizzically at him. "This year's school trip for the 2nd years is going to Los Angeles!" he told them. "And that building is nearby to where our hotel is going to be! Best of all, it's within the timeframe of their deadline!" The others marvelled at the sheer luck they had. "So all we have to do is wait for the trip," Mubo concluded, "then once we get there, we go in and take the Palace out!" Meishu nodded.

"I must say this is rather convenient," Yuta commented. "But my school shall be going there as well. It is the perfect opportunity to finally take Nemesis down." "But we won't be able to bring Morgana with us," Cho pointed out. "How the hell are we going to traverse the damn place without a Navigator. We'd end up having to retreat multiple times due to wearing ourselves out." Meishu didn't think about that. But then, Futaba cleared her throat. "Sumi and I could always take a holiday there at the same time," she said. "We could bring Morgana with us, and I could work as your temporary Navigator. Since if the Palace ruler is Nemesis, it's going to be a very techy place." Cho agreed to this plan immediately. "I want to come too!" Inori exclaimed. The group stared at her.