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*User Kaji online.*

Daisuke, a.k.a. Kaji, gave a confident smirk as the speakers of his computer confirmed his access to the college LAN. Seated on his comfortable rag-tag swivel/reclining chair in his one person dorm room, he stretched slightly after double clicking the IM program and opening the permanent chatroom Koushiro and Miyako had set up.

Glancing at the list, he was slightly pleased to note that everyone was on.

*User Kaji has entered chat Chosen.*

>>Tsunami: You're late, Kaji.

>>KibouNoTenshi: Evening, Dai!

>>KageNoHakai: Hey Dai, how was classes?

>>Tasunaki: 'Bout time you got here, oh fearless leader!

Groaning at the reminder of the day, Daisuke grabbed the VR visor hanging on the side of his monitor and equipped it snuggly behind his ears, subconsciously adjusting the microphone and flipping the red LCD screen over his eyes before typing up his reply.

>>Kaji: Evening, minna-san. Classes sucked and I had to stop to talk to the teacher about the term paper. Anyway, I got news from HQ.

>>Tsunami: What did Taichi want us to do now?

>>Kaji: Yamato's been sniffing around as usual and caught wind of a new hacker that's been seen in the gaming area lately.

>>Tasunaki: So some hotshot PW is running around. Let the regular Enforcers handle it.

>>Kaji: From what Koushiro says your wrong. The guys apparently a FW. Fully wired.

>>KibouNoTenshi: Dude.

>>Tsunami: I see.

>>Tasunaki: Well, crud.

>>KageNoHakai: So that's why onii-san wants us to handle it.

>>Kaji: I'm sending the files Koushiro and Jyou compiled. Look it over carefully, this person's not our normal piece of work.

Bringing up another window, Daisuke brought up the e-mail system and dumped the coded files into a group send. While waiting for his team to grab and digest the facts, he reached over and grabbed the interaction cable. Sliding up his left sleeve, he checked to make sure the port was clean. Glancing at the screen, Daisuke paused on the insertion. A personal chat screen had opened up. A shiver ran up and down his spine as he read the last word.

>>KibouNoTenshi: Is this job going to be a capture or a Burnout?

There were three ways to access the new web. There was the non-wired, or NW, who used the old setup from before the Crash: a computer, monitor, keyboard, and mouse. Their access to certain parts of the web was limited, sometimes even impossible, however their personal safety was guaranteed.

Then there was the PW, or partially wired like himself, who got a port surgically implanted and the addition of the VR visor and interaction cable. They had unlimited access to the ability to manipulate or hack some of the less protected programs and systems, along with the added bonus of being able to see the inside of the web as another world.

Finally there was the FW or fully wired. Not much was known about them, except that they didn't go through the government to be wired. Only active in the last year, they were rumored to be trained to be elite hackers for a special team headed by a terrorist group. Up until now, only four people had ever been detected and classified as fully wired.

Before when a PW found hacking was tracked down and captured, they were put into the Lock Down program by the Department of Illegal Tampering. Once there, their conscious mind was kept in solitude until they revealed the location of their body. Knowing that if given enough time they'd eventually die from starvation instead of just being banned from the web for a certain duration, usually in most cases made the offenders give in pretty fast.

However, with the FW's this wasn't the case. No matter how hard the DIT tried to get a Lock Down program around them they always managed to slip away. So the Department of Illegal Tampering had come up with a different program.

Slipping the interaction cable into his port, Daisuke made sure it was fully seated before typing up an answer for his teammate.

>>Kaji: TK, you know how I feel about Burnout. We're only going to use it as a last resort, unlike those other teams. 'Sides, Taichi sounded like he wanted to try and get this one alive for interrogation. I think he picked us because he knew we wouldn't use that damn program first and try to get answers out of a corpse later.

The Burnout program did exactly what it was titled to do: burnout the connection of the person targeted. Although painful, it wasn't life threatening to partially wired people due to their limited connection to the web. To a fully wired person it was deadly, as the DIT had been able to confirm from three anonymous corpses they had found in different parts of the world and identified as three of the FW's that had been hit by the program. The fourth had been found with their throat slit two months ago, pretty close to home if Daisuke remembered correctly.

What the autopsies had revealed... Daisuke didn't want to remember it. White surgical scars all over the body following the major bone structures and eventually connecting to the spinal cord and primary nervous system, up to the base of the back of the neck were a carved out section was. This was presumably were the nexus of the hardware and software had been installed in the people, ripped out after the burnout, supposedly fried. Reaching over, Daisuke clicked on the public chat.

>>Kaji: Ready to go?

>>Tasunaki: Woah, hold your reins goggle head. What's this part about this 'Kaizer' playing games with his victims?

>>Kaji: Just what it says. He uses a version of a Lock Out program to get his victims away from the main crowd and then after playing a game if he wins he uses Burnout. No one's won against him yet, so HQ isn't sure what happens if he doesn't win.

>>Tsunami: Kaizer seems to have a different motive then the previous FW's. He's not hacking into anything, just seems more of a random homicidal sociopath.

>>KageNoHakai: I agree with Iori. Something doesn't feel right about this.

>>Kaji: All right, then we go in for observation only today. Anything screws up or looks off, we get out.

>>KibouNoTenshi: You think it might be a set up?

>>Kaji: Don’t know, I wouldn't put anything past a FW.

>>Tasunaki: Amazing, goggle head's actually using some sense!

>>Tsunami: Let's just get in already. I still have to write my book report.

Daisuke reached up to the right side of his visor and depressed the button there. Immediately the screen in front of his eyes flickered to life, drawing the images of the digital world overlapping the view of his computer moniter. "Roll call," he said into the mic as he fumbled with the under side of his chair and pulled up on a lever, sending the recliner back into a comfortable layout position were his head was tilted now so that beyond the visors scrawled lines was the blankness of his ceiling.

Focusing on the scrawl, he could already make out the 3-d images of his team's sprites coming online.

"Iori," the serious tone came over the headphones embedded in the visor after the sprite of a short brown haired young man came on to the screen. Like the rest of the team's sprites, it looked exactly like his real life person, down to his very stoic expression and emerald eyes. Tsunami was in.

"Hikari," chestnut hair and light ruby eyes replied, a gentle smile on her face as KageNoHakai fully interfaced.

"Takeru," blond hair, slightly less styled then his older brother Yamato's, fell lightly over soft blue eyes, only to be blown out of the way. KibouNoTenshi was digitized.

"Miyako," long light lavender hair kept out of the way by an aeronautical cap, glasses over her brown eyes. A roguish grin found its way to her face as she stretched her arms above her head and then gave a victory sign towards the group. Yep, Tasunaki was definitely all there.

"Daisuke," he bubbled into his mic as his own spiky red headed, goggle sporting sprite jumped up and down a bit in excitement.

Viewing the sprites from a third person POV, Daisuke couldn't help the slow smile from crawling over his face. "Let's go find us a Kaizer, ne?"

--To be Continued